The English Heart

by Helena Halme

  When Tom finally moved away from the door and pressed for the lift, the devil in Kaisa said, ‘Can I have a light?’ She dangled a cigarette between her fingers. He stared at her for a moment then lit a match and held it in his cupped hands. They were shaking.

  Tuuli and Kaisa couldn’t look at each other until they heard the lift stop at the ground floor and the outside door open. They both burst out laughing at the same time.

  ‘He’s still got the hots for you, you know,’ Tuuli said, growing serious. ‘I can’t believe what I just saw!’

  In the bus on the way home Kaisa thought about the rich boy, or rather, man. She and Tuuli had worked out Tom must be at least 26. But the guy intrigued her; Kaisa couldn’t help it. She had so little contact with Peter she was beginning to forget how his lips tasted when he kissed her. They hadn’t seen each other for three months. No one in Finland understood what it meant to have Peter at sea, not knowing whether he was involved in the war or not. If a British submarine was lost to the Argentine navy, would Thatcher let the world know about it? Kaisa doubted it. Eventually his parents would be told if anything happened to him, but would they think about letting Kaisa know? They’d be too grief-stricken to even think of anyone else. Had Peter told his mother about the proposal? How Kaisa now wished she’d said ‘yes’ on that magical night at the ball. At least then she’d have an official role in relation to her love, and a right to know if Peter’s submarine had been sunk.

  Kaisa’s father was the least sympathetic of all. ‘You should find yourself a good Finnish man.’ He seemed to have forgotten the night at the Russian restaurant. Kaisa wondered what had caused this change of heart, but wasn’t surprised. He’d always been like it: one day he’d say one thing, the next the complete opposite. For the past few weeks he’d spent all his evenings and weekends at home, mostly in a bad mood. Kaisa wondered if he’d had a row with his girlfriend, but didn’t dare to ask.

  Kaisa was in limbo. She was confused. She was lonely.

  The night the news of the sinking of the Belgrano was shown on TV, Kaisa’s father had been drinking vodka all evening. The bottle of Koskenkorva stood on the floor next to his chair. The Finnish newscaster didn’t say if there were any British casualties, but who’d know if British submarines were involved? Kaisa had seen enough war movies to know subs hunted ships in packs. She sat on the plush sofa and watched the pictures move in silence. Involuntarily, she put a hand against her mouth. Her father narrowed his eyes and glanced sideways at his daughter.

  ‘You know the Englishman is not there!’

  Kaisa ran out of the living room. She cried into her pillow, trying to keep quiet. And then the phone rang. Kaisa heard her father answer. He said, ‘Just a moment,’ in English.

  Kaisa ran out into the hall and took the receiver from him.

  ‘Hello?’

  To hear Peter’s voice! It sounded as if he was far, far away, but Kaisa knew better than to ask where he was calling from. She sobbed into the telephone; she couldn’t help herself.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing, I was just watching the news, and I didn’t know…’

  ‘I’m fine, except I’m missing you.’

  Kaisa sighed and sat on the floor in the hall. They spoke for over twenty minutes. Kaisa cried, laughed and whispered into the receiver, not caring how much of it her father heard. When Peter said he had to go, Kaisa told him she loved him once more, put the receiver down and walked quickly to her room. Kaisa fell asleep dreaming of her handsome Englishman.

  It wasn’t until June that year of the Falkland’s War, in 1982, that Kaisa finally managed to see Peter. They’d been apart for four long months, during which she’d feared for her submariner’s life her every waking hour. Peter telephoned her very rarely. When the news of the sinking of the HMS Sheffield came, she didn’t sleep until she had a letter confirming Peter was OK. How, during those war months, Kaisa wished she’d had someone she could call, someone who would understand what she was going through. Instead Kaisa tried to study hard, and by the end of the term she’d passed all her exams with good marks.

  Watching Peter collect his bag through the glass wall of the arrivals hall at Helsinki airport, Kaisa thought about the two years she’d spent waiting for his letters and phone calls, counting the days until she’d be able to lean against his body again. It seemed strange how her life had changed so dramatically, and so quickly, at the British Embassy cocktail party in October 1980. Before the handsome British naval officer had come over and talked to Kaisa, her path had seemed settled, planned even. She was going to complete her studies, marry her boyfriend, move into a flat bought by his mother in her leafy area of Helsinki. As long as Kaisa didn’t upset his mother, she had nothing to worry about. And, of course, the mother and Matti had wanted Kaisa to produce grandchildren, three to be exact.

  Instead, she now stood in the deserted arrivals hall, nervously waiting for her Englishman to see her, with no idea what the next year would bring let alone the next month, week or even day.

  It was a hot, sunny afternoon, two days before midsummer. In Finland the third Friday in June marks the start of the holidays. Everybody flees Helsinki for the weekend, to go somewhere by the sea, lake or forest. Most stay away for two or three weeks, leaving the city quiet and dusty. Kaisa had booked a room at a lakeside hotel an hour’s train journey from town. Her parents had taken the family there when Kaisa was little. It was an all-inclusive package, which Kaisa’s father, uncharacteristically, had paid for.

  ‘Show the Englishman how beautiful Finland is,’ he’d said.

  On the Finnair bus home from the airport, with the air conditioning on full blast, making Kaisa shiver in her thin cotton dress, Peter didn’t seem impressed with the plans.

  ‘We’re going where?’ he demanded.

  Kaisa tried to explain, but he just sat next to her on the bus seat, holding her hand, with his face turned away from her, towards the front of the bus. Kaisa looked at his profile, at the dark stubble on his chin.

  ‘Don’t you want to go?’ she asked nervously.

  Peter turned his eyes to Kaisa and kissed her lightly on the lips, ‘Of course I do. No problem, let’s do it.’ But he didn’t sound at all sure.

  The Rantasipi Aulanko wasn’t as Kaisa remembered it. The vast, low-ceilinged lobby was shabby. There was a large mark on the carpet right by the reception desk. The small room, for which a surly woman at reception had handed Kaisa a key, had two single beds arranged head to toe.

  When Peter saw the beds he laughed. Kaisa wanted to cry. Instead she went to open the curtains of a large window at the end of the room and saw what they’d come for. The lake, Vanajavesi, opened up in front of her. The sun, still high up in the afternoon sky, was blinding.

  Kaisa went to hug Peter and tried to kiss him, but he turned away to put his bag down.

  ‘Let’s go, I’ll show you around.’ she said, grabbing Peter’s hand.

  Kaisa was eleven when her father took the whole family to have lunch at the newly-built Rantasipi Hotel. It was a drive away from Tampere, on the edge of the Häme National Park, and it was Mother’s Day. The dining room was a square space with a high ceiling and large windows, which reached down to the floor; the buffet was laid out on a long table, the various dishes on a crisp, white linen tablecloth. As she led Peter through the park to the hotel, Kaisa wondered if the restaurant would also look shabby to her now.

  Peter was still very quiet. When they first kissed at the airport, it felt the same as before. When they’d made love that night, it had felt the same as before. But today he had hardly touched Kaisa. Perhaps he really didn’t want to come to this place with her. When Kaisa felt a few drops of rain fall onto her bare arms, she began to regret the whole idea herself. She ran into an old, circular-shaped summer house, with chipped paintwork, and sat on a half-rotting bench to wait out the light shower. The warm summer rain fell softly against the old pointed roof. Kaisa felt close to tears. Even the weather connive
d to spoil Peter’s week in Finland. Why had she not consulted him before booking this midsummer package? Kaisa looked at Peter’s straight back. He was leaning against the railing looking out to what Kaisa thought was the most beautiful view of the lake. But he didn’t seem to be admiring it. Instead he turned around and looked at Kaisa. His face was serious. An awful thought entered Kaisa’a mind. Perhaps he was not upset about the hotel at all. Perhaps it was her – them? Perhaps he’d come over to finish it and didn’t want to do it in a hotel? That was probably why he hadn’t even wanted to do it with her on one of the ridiculous single beds just now. Kaisa shivered.

  Peter came to sit next to Kaisa and put his arm around her shoulders, ‘What’s the matter?’ His voice sounded soft.

  ‘Nothing.’

  Peter let his arm drop. They sat in silence until the rain stopped. When Kaisa got up, he took hold of her arm and said, ‘C’mon, what’s up?’

  Kaisa sat back down and looked at the shifting clouds. The sun peeked out from behind the tops of tall, dark pine trees on the other side of the lake.

  ‘You know the sun won’t even set tonight? It’ll never get properly dark. It’s supposed to be a magical night.’

  Peter said nothing.

  ‘It’s a magical, romantic night. Unmarried girls are supposed to put wildflowers under their pillows and dream about their future husbands.’

  ‘Right.’

  Kaisa looked at Peter’s face. He was gazing at his feet, fiddling with a piece of bark. He hadn’t heard a word she’d said. ‘It’s you! Something’s wrong with you, not me.’ Kaisa was nearly shouting.

  Peter looked startled. Now he’ll have to say it, Kaisa thought. Now I’ve made him do it.

  ‘It’s this hotel...’ he began.

  Kaisa couldn’t speak.

  ‘It’s expensive, isn’t it?’ He looked up at her with a serious face.

  She stared at him. ‘Money? You’re worried about money?’

  Peter looked down at his hands again and said very quietly, ‘Yes’.

  Kaisa wanted to laugh. ‘Oh, that,’ she said lightly. ‘I’ve already paid for it, or rather...’

  Peter looked at Kaisa, surprised, ‘How...?’

  ‘My father paid for it.’

  Peter’s face changed. His jaw became more square than it already was, and his eyes became even darker than they had been.

  ‘Your father has paid for me to stay here?’ he asked with a steely voice.

  That midsummer’s night was far from magical. Peter told Kaisa he would pay her father back for the hotel, and then refused to discuss it further. Kaisa couldn’t understand him. As far as she was concerned her father owed her big time for all the years Kaisa’s mother had to scrimp and save for the school fees and food bills, when all he contributed was the occasional 50 Marks for a birthday or Christmas present. And even those he often forgot. But Peter wouldn’t let Kaisa explain. They left the hotel without speaking to each other. Kaisa felt as if he’d suddenly turned into someone else.

  Back in Helsinki, at night, Kaisa’s old Englishman returned. As long as she didn’t look into his eyes, where something had changed, he was as before. He whispered lovely things into her ear as before, his touch was as wonderful as ever and his kisses as sweet as always.

  On the Monday after midsummer Kaisa had to go back to work in the bank, where her annual summer internship had already begun, and leave Peter alone. He didn’t seem to mind; he stayed asleep in the morning when Kaisa tiptoed out of the house. In the evening, she cooked him steak and salad while he read his book. They watched Finnish TV, which he thought was funny, and retired to bed, where Peter was his old self.

  The night before Peter was due to fly home, he told Kaisa he was joining a new submarine at the Scottish base in Faslane. ‘It’s a nuclear sub,’ he said. Kaisa had been reading about the women at Greenham Common protesting against nuclear weapons and was against them too. As a Finn, she felt vulnerable between two superpowers wielding nuclear armaments. She shivered at the thought that Peter would be part of that deadly weaponry.

  ‘Don’t you think the nuclear arms race should be stopped?’ Kaisa said.

  Peter regarded her for a moment. ‘It’s not for me to decide,’ he said firmly and continued packing his things.

  When they parted at Helsinki airport, they didn’t discuss the future. Peter bought Kaisa a red rose, but she didn’t cry when he waved her goodbye.

  That same Sunday night, after Kaisa had said her tearless goodbye to Peter, she started to be sick. When two days later she still couldn’t keep a glass of boiled, cooled water inside her, she phoned the student health service in the centre of Helsinki. They told her to come and see them straightaway.

  The doctor wore a white coat. He had round gold-rimmed glasses and grey thinning hair. Kaisa sat on the examination table while he took her temperature, tapped her knees, looked into her eyes and felt her glands and stomach. She hurt all over, but was so tired after two days and nights of diarrhoea and vomiting that she had no energy to even utter a sound. He took two steps back and wrote something on his notes.

  ‘I think you might have salmonella poisoning.’

  Kaisa nodded. All she wanted was to be allowed to sleep.

  The doctor regarded Kaisa for a moment. ‘Did someone bring you here?’

  ‘No.’ Kaisa suddenly realised it was the journey from Espoo, with a bus, a walk to the tram stop and then another long walk to the health centre that had exhausted her.

  ‘You need go to bed; take these and sip a mixture of this.’ He gave Kaisa a packet of tablets and a few sachets of something. ‘If you don’t improve within the next 24 hours, get an ambulance to take you to hospital.’ The doctor had kind eyes. ‘Can you phone someone to come and get you?’ He nodded at his desk phone. ‘You can use that.’

  Kaisa couldn’t think of anyone to phone. Tuuli was travelling around Europe for the summer and her mother and sister were in Stockholm. She hadn’t seen her father since midsummer, and didn’t know if he was back at work. Kaisa dug in her handbag for her address book.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s me. I’m not very well, I’m in Töölö Health Centre. The doctor said I should have someone to pick me up.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s no one else I can call.’

  ‘Can’t you take a taxi?’

  Kaisa was close to tears. Her father sounded irritable.

  ‘I haven’t got any money.’

  Kaisa’s father inhaled loudly. ‘Of course not,’ he said dryly. ‘What’s wrong with you anyway?’

  When Kaisa told him, he said he’d come and meet her at home and pay for the taxi there. ‘I don’t really want to catch it, so I’ll stay away until you’re better.’

  Kaisa was ill for two weeks. She slept for most of it and had nightmares about sinking U-boats, nuclear mushroom clouds and men in uniform laughing at the suffering women and children. She didn’t go anywhere, or see anybody. Her father phoned half way through the second week; when he heard Kaisa was still not able to eat anything he said he’d stay away for another week, just to be safe.

  ‘You do that,’ Kaisa said and decided she would never forgive him for abandoning her like this. Kaisa’s mother didn’t know how ill she was. Both her sister and mother were too far away to help anyway.

  During those summer weeks in 1982 Kaisa didn’t hear from Peter either. There was no letter, or phone call. She didn’t even know if he had reached the nuclear submarine in Scotland, or whether he was away at sea, or on dry land at the base. Kaisa didn’t know if they were still together, or if his disastrous week in Helsinki had finished the two-year romance. It was strange, but Kaisa wasn’t sure she cared one way or the other. Not worrying about him, not longing for his touch or hearing his voice, or reading his letters seemed oddly liberating.

  When Kaisa returned to her internship at the bank in mid-July, she’d lost five kilos in weight. All her clothes hung off her and she loved it. Something good had come o
ut of the suffering. The nice doctor at the health centre had signed her off the sickness register and given her a note to take to the bank manger.

  ‘I was quite worried about you, young lady,’ he said and smiled. All Kaisa could think was why couldn’t her father, or Peter, be worried about her if a doctor who doesn’t even know her was?

  Finally three weeks and three days after Peter had returned home, he called.

  ‘You OK?’ he asked after they’d said the usual hellos. Kaisa noticed he hadn’t said he missed her.

  Kaisa told him about the salmonella poisoning. ‘You didn’t get it?’

  ‘No.’

  Hearing Peter’s voice made Kaisa realise how angry she was with him. Angry for spoiling their week together, angry for being an officer in the Royal Navy, angry for not being there when she needed him, angry for not understanding how angry she felt. But Kaisa said nothing.

  ‘So…’ Peter said.

  ‘Yes?’ Kaisa replied. Her anger was spilling over and made her unable to even speak.

  ‘You OK now, right?’ he tried again.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Right.’

  Kaisa had had enough. ‘Look, I’ve made a decision.’

  It was Peter’s turn to be quiet. Kaisa could hear noises in the background. Was he phoning from a pub?

  ‘Where are you phoning from?’

  ‘The mess. I couldn’t get away, we’ve been at sea all this time and I couldn’t even get a letter to you.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Hold on,’ he said, and Kaisa heard him talk to someone. ‘Five minutes,’ he said.

  Now there was a time limit, of course. Foreign calls were expensive.

  ‘Anyway, as I was saying, I’ve decided it’s probably best if we stop this,’ Kaisa tried to keep her voice level.

  ‘What?’ Peter sounded absentminded, then his voice sharpened. ‘What did you say?’

  Kaisa inhaled deeply and repeated the words, even though as she said them a strange lump formed in her chest, as if a heavy weight had been placed against it. It made her struggle for breath.

  ‘You can’t say that.’