The English Heart

by Helena Halme

  ‘I just have,’ she said.

  There was a silence. ‘Oh my God.’ He sounded truly shocked and Kaisa felt dizzy. Surely she was only saying what he thought, too? Or…?

  ‘We never see each other. I’ve got another year at Hanken. There’s no guarantee I’ll get a job in England when I’m finished. Or a work permit. And you’re always away at sea. And…’ Tears were running down Kaisa’s face. She sniffled.

  There were more voices behind Peter. ‘Look, I have to go, but please don’t cry. We have to talk about this, OK? Can I call you tomorrow night? Please.’

  Kaisa could never say no to Peter.

  With shaking hands, she replaced the heavy receiver on the hook and sat down on the floor. Her heart was racing against her ribcage; it felt as if the lump had now engorged and was crushing the whole of Kaisa’s upper body with its weight. Her heart had no space to beat and no air was reaching her lungs. What had she done? What if Peter didn’t call back, what if, having thought about it, he knew Kaisa was right? The relationship was doomed, their future together hopeless. Kaisa put her head in her hands and howled like an animal into the empty house.

  Sixteen

  Peter didn’t phone the following day, or the day after that. On the Saturday morning, three days after Kaisa had told him she wanted to finish it, she was woken up by a knock on her door.

  A strong light filtered through the half-closed venetian blinds in the bedroom window. The weather was continuing to mock Kaisa. The summer was the hottest she’d ever seen in Helsinki. It made everyone smile on the streets and in the bank, where Kaisa was processing people’s mortgage applications. She had no desire to join them in their happiness. She just wanted to go to work, come back home, watch TV and go to bed, where she’d lie awake trying not to think about Peter.

  This weekend the temperatures were supposed to reach new heights and, by the looks of it, the sun was already high up in the sky. Kaisa climbed out of bed and opened the door.

  Even her father looked happy. ‘We’re taking the boat out to the archipelago. Do you want to come?’

  Kaisa thought for a moment, then nodded to him and closed the door.

  ‘Don’t forget your swimming trunks or whatever you women wear,’ he shouted through the door.

  Without wondering too much about his good humour, or the strange desire to include her in the first outing in his latest purchase, Kaisa got ready and was soon on board the legendary Paula, as her father had christened his new speedboat. Marja and Kaisa sat at the rear while her father, proudly wearing a blue seaman’s cap, steered the thing at high speed under the bridges on the western shore of Helsinki. He was behaving like a child with a new toy, veering it this way and that, making the women scream as he accelerated and made the boat bounce on the surface of the sea. Kaisa was relieved when at last he chose a small island and moored the boat under a steep cliff.

  Marja had made a picnic. ‘Did you have a nice time in Aulanko?’ she asked when they were all sitting around a checked tablecloth that she’d placed on the ground. Kaisa didn’t know what to say, and instead looked down at the food: there was a plateful of her father’s gravad lax, a packet of thinly sliced smoked ham, a loaf of rye bread, butter and salted gherkins. As she spoke, Marja handed Kaisa a paper plate and her father picked up slices of ham with his fingers and stuffed them into his mouth.

  ‘Don’t talk about that Englishman,’ he mumbled to Marja.

  She stared at him, the sea breeze making her messy hair blow over her dark brown eyes. ‘I just wondered, because the weather…’

  ‘She doesn’t want to talk about it – can’t you see that?’ Kaisa’s father barked.

  Here we go, Kaisa thought. She lay down and shut her eyes. The rock was warm against Kaisa’s bare back. She was so tired. She hadn’t slept through for one night since the phone call from Peter.

  ‘Give her a Lonkero,’ she heard her father say.

  Marja handed Kaisa a cold bottle of the gin and bitter lemon drink. She smiled at the girlfriend. Kaisa felt sorry for her. She had no idea what she was taking on with Kaisa’s father. And Kaisa felt a pang of guilt – should she warn her about his drinking and his moods? Should she tell her that he’d hit Kaisa’s mother? But Kaisa knew all men were pigs. Marja was well over thirty; old enough to have figured out that herself by now. As Kaisa lay in the warm sunshine, she wondered how it was that all through her life she’d let herself be completely steered by men. First by her father, then by her fiancé, and now by Peter. Wasn’t it high time she took decisions about her own life without considering a man?

  They stayed on the small, rocky island for the rest of the day. The sun was bright in the sky, and to cool down they all swam in the sea. Kaisa’s father was in one of his good moods and talked of old times. He told Marja stories about when Kaisa was little. How he had to buy her a large box of chocolates to stop her crying when Sirkka started school, leaving Kaisa to play alone at home all day long. How, lying on his back, he used to rock Kaisa on his belly when she was a baby, and how then Kaisa’s hair had been wispy and thin. How Kaisa had been ill with diarrhoea and vomiting and nearly died when she was only four. How useless Kaisa’s mother had been, just crying, and how he was the one to take Kaisa to hospital.

  When he’d finished his long narrative, Kaisa shaded her face with her hand to look at him. Her father’s large frame was splayed on the rock, the round, smooth shape of his belly mirroring that of the cliff. Kaisa wondered if he remembered what happened just a few weeks ago when she was sick with a similar virus. But there was no sign that he’d made the connection. So she continued to listen to her father, now talking about someone in his office, smiling and laughing when required. But Kaisa knew this brief interlude of good humour with her father would not last. After the Jekyll, there’d always be his Hyde.

  At the end of the day, when the sun was moving down towards the horizon, and Kaisa’s father steered the boat into harbour, she was glad she’d spent a day out on the water with Marja and him. After he’d moored the boat, Kaisa’s father pressed a few hundred Mark notes into her palm and said, ‘There’s a bit of money for a Lonkero or two. Go and enjoy yourself!’

  He’d decided to stay with Marja for the rest of the weekend. On the bus home, Kaisa thought for once her father was right; she should enjoy herself a bit more. But how did he know about her and Peter? He wasn’t at home during the fateful telephone conversation. How, when he didn’t even remember that Kaisa was seriously ill a few weeks ago, did he notice that she was in need of cheering up now? But Kaisa took his advice. When she got home it was only seven o’clock. She looked at herself in the mirror and noticed how the day spent in the sun had bronzed her face and limbs. There was no one around to go out with, so Kaisa decided to do something she’d never done before.

  Wearing a bright green miniskirt, with a matching scoop neck top and black lace-up sandals, Kaisa walked alone into the university disco. It was half-full even though it was a Saturday night. Most students were either travelling around Europe on InterRail or at their parents’ summer places. That was why all of Kaisa’s friends were out of town. She went up to the bar and ordered a Lonkero. As soon as she turned around, she spotted him. Leaning against the railings of the bar upstairs on the mezzanine floor was the rich boy. He was looking at the dance floor, but hadn’t spotted Kaisa. She ducked out of his sight. Her heart started to race. She realised it was him she’d come out to find. But now she didn’t have the courage to go and talk to him, or even invite him over with a covert glance or gesture. Kaisa lit a cigarette and tried to look cool. She gulped down the drink and ordered another. She needed to get drunk. Fast.

  ‘What’s the hurry?’ the guy at the bar said when he handed Kaisa the second bottle.

  She stubbed out the cigarette and said, ‘No hurry, I’m just thirsty.’

  The barman smiled and in his eyes Kaisa saw that she looked good. She smiled back, and, holding an unlit cigarette and the drink, headed for the stairs to the mezzanine
level.

  Kaisa woke up with a dry mouth and a screaming hangover. She felt constrained, and realised she was pushed against the wall in a narrow single bed. The shape next to her moved and she looked around the room. A studio flat somewhere in Ullanlinna. There was a window draped with a see-through curtain, a sofa covered with discarded clothes, a table stacked with books. She was incredibly thirsty.

  Kaisa felt a hand on her waist, then a bulge against her back. His hot mouth closer to her ear. She froze.

  ‘Sorry, I feel a bit sick.’

  He removed the hand and got up. Kaisa closed her eyes.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said and slapped Kaisa’s bum. She saw his strong hairy legs disappear into the bathroom.

  The sound of his peeing reverberated against the water in the pan. Then the noise stopped and started again. Kaisa shuddered, got quickly out of bed and found her clothes. She cursed her stupidity. Why had she agreed to come home with this guy? Because he was a tennis player, third in the Finnish rankings? Or because the rich guy hadn’t even looked at her when she’d stood next to him at the bar upstairs in the university disco? Because the tennis player, with his strong thighs, was the only one showing any interest in her short skirt and sexy sandals?

  Kaisa was sitting on the edge of the bed, fully clothed when the guy came out of the bathroom. He looked surprised to see her, as if he’d forgotten she was there.

  ‘Can I?’ Kaisa nodded towards the bathroom door.

  ‘Sure.’

  The bathroom smelled bad. Kaisa held her breath and splashed cold water on her face and wiped it dry with paper. She must get away, quickly.

  When she re-entered the room, the tennis player was on the phone. He was talking into the receiver, balancing it between his neck and ear, while holding onto the base with his hand, its long cord snaking over the discarded clothes on the floor. Looking out of the window, wearing just his boxers, he laughed at something the other person said. Kaisa tiptoed towards the bed and found her handbag. She opened the front door. ‘Bye then.’

  Startled, the tennis player swung around; a brief recognition passing over his face, he nodded and turned back to face the window.

  The bus driver looked down at Kaisa’s short skirt and sandals. It was obvious she was still in last night’s clothes. He knew her. Kaisa took this same bus into work and university every day. She felt so ashamed. Is this what she wanted – to feel cheap, used, not loved, just fucked? Is this what it was like to be free from a fiancé, who was obsessive but, as Kaisa knew, at least loved her. Or from Peter who was forever absent? Was this the alternative? Skulking back home in the morning after a cold, senseless one-night stand? Kaisa looked at the people taking Sunday walks in the heat of the day, normal people with normal lives, not sluts like her with a hangover and wearing dirty knickers.

  When the bus stopped in Tapiola, a woman in her thirties or forties, wearing a stylish white jumpsuit and pretty white espadrilles, got out of the bus. Kaisa had seen her before, though never with a man. Still, she looked happy, always smiling even to the miserable bus driver. She didn’t seem to need a man, so why should Kaisa? It was 1982 not 1882 after all.

  When she got home Kaisa realised the tennis player hadn’t even asked for her phone number. She must have been very disappointing. He was probably used to women like the one in the tennis girl poster in Peter’s room. Slim things with tiny pert bottoms and no fat on their thighs.

  Kaisa was in the shower, washing away her shame, when the phone rang.

  ‘I’ve been trying to ring you all night!’ Peter sounded angry. He had a nerve!

  ‘I was out.’

  ‘Must have been a late night?’

  ‘I stayed over with a friend.’

  ‘I see.’

  Silence.

  ‘So…how are you?’ Peter sounded hesitant now.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Please don’t be like this.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Look, I’ve got more leave, and I’ve decided to come and see you. To talk. That is, if you want me to?’

  Kaisa’s heart started beating very hard. ‘When?’

  ‘Week after next. Is that OK?’

  There had never been such a short amount of time between Kaisa and Peter seeing each other. Only four weeks! When Kaisa told her father the news, he just grunted and shot her a quick glance. ‘Guess you want me out of the way again then?’

  But Kaisa didn’t care about her father’s grumpiness, not now. She had only ten days to prepare for Peter’s visit. She decided not to arrange anything special. Helsinki was still basking in glorious summer weather, so she decided to take him to Seurasaari, the open-air museum where those with no summer cottage went for midsummer. Or they could go to Suomenlinna, the sea fortress built by the Swedes to keep the Russians away from Helsinki in the late 18th century. That kind of historical site might appeal to Peter, especially as the English had been fighting the Russians in the same place during the Crimean War. Or they could just walk in the Esplanande Park, as on that first wintry evening two years ago. They’d do just as much or as little as Peter liked, but they would talk. Kaisa would tell him how much she missed him, how lonely she felt, how she worried about him being in the Navy, operating nuclear weapons, and how she feared she’d never get a job in England. And she would have to tell him about the tennis player. Kaisa knew she should have told him over the phone, but then she thought they were finished, didn’t she?

  Kaisa felt so guilty, and for what. Why had she been so stupid? What if he wouldn’t forgive her? What if he never wanted to see her again?

  An hour after Peter had arrived at Helsinki airport Kaisa and Peter were sitting on the edge of her bed. At the airport Peter had hugged Kaisa tightly and kissed her for a long time. But now, before they’d even made love, he was sitting next to her looking down at his hands.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  He lifted his head and his eyes rested on Kaisa briefly, before he turned and looked away, ‘I’ve got to tell you something. I’ve been so stupid.’

  Kaisa waited. What was he talking about?

  ‘I’ve slept with someone else.’

  Kaisa heard the words even though they were whispered in a low tone. They were like daggers piercing her heart. This is what he had come all this way to tell her? She couldn’t speak for a long time. Then anger surged inside her.

  ‘Me too,’ Kaisa said, quickly.

  ‘What?’ Peter turned around and his eyes were black.

  And then Kaisa couldn’t face him. She lowered her eyes and looked down at her hands. But Peter wouldn’t let her be. He took hold of Kaisa’s shoulders and shook her, ‘What did you say?’ His grip was strong.

  ‘You’re hurting me.’ Kaisa sobbed. She couldn’t help herself. She wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand and stood up. ‘This is it. We’re both as bad as each other. What kind of a start is this to a relationship? We might as well stop here.’

  Peter followed Kaisa into the dark kitchen. A lonely street lamp was shining against the August twilight. The refrigerator hummed in the silence between them. Kaisa didn’t know how long they stood there, either side of the small kitchen table.

  ‘Come here,’ Peter said.

  Kaisa turned around and looked at Peter’s face. He’d been crying too. She ran into his arms and started sobbing again.

  ‘Shh, it’s OK, we’ll be OK.’ Peter stroked her hair, then took her face between his hands and looked deeply into Kaisa’s eyes. ‘Let’s go to bed. We’ll talk after?’

  * * *

  Peter and Kaisa spent the week playing happy families. They stayed in every night, cooked together, and smiled into each other’s eyes. In the mornings Kaisa went to work at the bank, and Peter went shopping for food. He told Kaisa how the women at the meat counter in the supermarket in Tapiola laughed at him when he tried to use the Finnish phrases she’d written down for him.

  When Kaisa came home from work he poured her a gin and tonic. They s
at outside on the small patio at the back of Kaisa’s father’s house and had ‘sundowners’. Peter said that’s what the officers called the first drink of the evening on a naval visit to somewhere hot. They’d sip their drinks while watching the sun set against the horizon before disappearing into the sea.

  ‘It goes, psshht,’ he made the noise of a lit match dropped into water.

  Kaisa watched the children who lived in the surrounding houses playing on the swings in the middle of the communal gardens. There was a small area of neglected grass in front, patchy and yellow in the scorching dry summer. The sun was still high up in the sky. This far north it didn’t set until much later in the evening. Still, in her mind, sitting next to Peter, Kaisa was in Gibraltar or the Caribbean, smoking a cigarette and drinking a smart cocktail.

  After that first night Peter and Kaisa didn’t talk much about serious things. Or not enough. At the end of the week when they said goodbye at Helsinki airport, Kaisa nearly pulled Peter back, wanting to start the week all over again. Later in bed, alone, her mind turned to what they hadn’t talked about, and a chill spread over her. She wrapped the thin summer duvet tighter around her body. She tried not to think about the girl he’d slept with. Peter said it was a ‘stupid accident’ that just ‘happened’. When Kaisa asked if it was someone she knew, he vigorously shook his head and didn’t look at her. Kaisa ransacked her brain for anyone, any girl, who’d shown signs of being smitten with her Englishman. But she hadn’t met many of his friends; she’d only been to Britain twice.

  Peter had blamed the drink. But how drunk did you have to be to accidentally sleep with someone? Kaisa had been drunk too; too drunk to realise that she shouldn’t have a one-night stand with a stranger, but she didn’t call it an accident. She’d been fully intending to do what she did before she even set out that night. Did that make it better or worse? Had Peter, like Kaisa, decided that they were finished before he had his accident? If so, what had changed his mind?