The Island Affair

by Helena Halme

  He moves quickly into the room and lies on the bed. Unlike Stefan's room, Alicia's is tidy, with a freshly made bed covered in cream cushions. He catches Alicia's perfume of lavender. He covers his face with one of her pillows and takes a deep breath in. He lies like this, breathing in and out, remembering the contours of Alicia's body, remembering her touch on him. He cannot recall when he has missed her so much.

  There's a vintage white dressing table, on which a few bottles are placed attractively. A couple of pieces of jewellery hang from the side of the carved wooden mirror. Liam gets off the bed and sits on the stool with the cream satin cover and touches one of the glass beads. He tries to think when he last saw her wear them. At a charity dinner for the hospital perhaps? Yes, that was it. With shame, he remembers that Ewa was also there, and that they had smiled at each other across the room. Sharing a secret, both visualizing their last love-making. Except it wasn't love. Liam now feels ashamed at the seedy affair. But he was so lonely during those long nights and evenings at the hospital after Stefan's accident. He needed someone to comfort him. He was so empty. He is so empty. He catches his own, tired face in the mirror.

  How about you stop thinking about yourself for a moment?

  All through the long journey from Mariehamn, the extended wait at Stockholm airport, he'd pictured Alicia's face when he left her. She seemed so worried, with dark patches around her eyes. Still, she looked beautiful with her large pale eyes gazing at him. He remembers when he first saw her in Sweden, a young student with long legs and blond hair. Those deep emerald eyes were the first thing to attract him. She was so trusting, almost naive, and he'd reveled in showing her the world. Or his world in England. And look at where he took her? He gave her a son, then took him away, abandoning her to the grief that neither of them has any idea how to handle. He knows he's to blame for Stefan's death whatever his colleague, the grief counsellor, says. Alicia was against it from the start but he thought he knew better. His son needed his independence, and the moped gave him that. Liam puts his head into his hands. What a stupid, stupid man he is.

  Alicia blames him too, he knows this. And rightly so. She was immediately so closed in, as if her grief was larger than his. But Liam knows he should have been more understanding. To lose a child for a father is terrible, but for a mother it is unimaginable.

  Liam takes his phone out of his back pocket and sends Alicia a short message to let her know that he's arrived in London safely. He waits for a moment, then looks at his watch. It’s already past 2am in Åland. Alicia is most probably asleep.

  The image of that man, Patrick, at the ferry terminal flashes through his brain. Was he flirting with Alicia? He's married, she said, but that doesn't mean anything, as Liam, to his shame, knows all too well.

  Liam undresses and decides to stay in their marital bedroom rather than go back to the spare bedroom. It seems less lonely in the double bed where Alicia usually sleeps. When he lies down he realizes how tired he is. Before sleep takes over, he resolves to fix his marriage. Perhaps a few weeks apart is just what they both need?

  Ten

  The next morning, a Monday, Hilda drives Alicia to Mariehamn with her. It's the day after Liam's sudden departure, which Alicia explained as a crisis at work. To conjure up an illness of a fellow surgeon at the hospital was Liam's idea. Both Hilda and Uffe exchanged glances and when Hilda and Alicia were in the kitchen washing up after supper on Saturday night Hilda asked her straight up if they'd had a row. Was that why Liam was leaving, she’d asked.

  'Of course not,' Alicia said, not looking at her mother and continuing to load the dishwasher. For once, Hilda hadn't pursued the matter.

  When Alicia asked if it was alright for her to sleep in the sauna cottage, once again Hilda raised her eyebrows but agreed. 'I need a bit of time alone, to think,' Alicia said, and Hilda nodded.

  'You can stay as long as you need,' she said and hugged Alicia.

  On Sunday night, Alicia received a message from Liam saying, 'Arrived safely, take care. Liam x'

  She looked at the 'x'. After all these years of marriage, the man still confused her. Hadn't they more or less agreed to separate? You don't send kisses to the woman you are cheating on, don't want to have a baby with, and want to leave, do you?

  Alicia decided not to reply, and deleted the message.

  * * *

  The town of Mariehamn is the largest center on the islands, and Alicia remembers how, as a child, she’d thought the central park between Storagatan and Norra Esplanaden the most beautiful place on earth. Now the vast trees had grown, making the central path look majestic, the dappled sunshine reaching between the leaves of the tall elms. When her mother turns into Torggatan and parks the car in a spot reserved for her just outside the shop on Nygatan, Alicia sighs.

  'Are you alright, my dear?' Hilda says and places her hand on her daughter's shoulder. Alicia wants to let herself cry then, for Stefan, for the unborn baby she will never have and for her marriage, which is most probably now over. But a knock on the passenger seat window stops her. A man's face, with friendly blue eyes, framed with blond, sunburnt hair, is looking at them through the window. Patrick! Alicia can feel her heart beat a little faster.

  'Oh, I forgot,' Hilda says and rushes to get out of the car.

  'This is Patrick,' Alicia's mother says when the two women are on the pavement, under the bright sunlight. She takes the man's hand.

  'And this is my daughter,' Hilda adds. 'She's also a journalist, from London,' she says, and Alicia sees how she stands a little straighter. Alicia can't help but smile; her mother's evident pride in her daughter's fledgling career as a freelance journalist is endearing. If she only knew how little her articles earn these days, Hilda would advise her to change professions. She doesn't dare look at Patrick.

  'How interesting,' Patrick says. Alicia lifts her eyes toward him and notices the blue eyes and the laughter lines around them. Seeing him again, she guesses his age to be around the mid-thirties, perhaps less. Younger than she is, at any rate.

  'Yes, we've already met,' Alicia says and takes Patrick's hand. His long fingers touch hers and send currents through her body. Both let go quickly, as if they had burned each other. Alicia turns toward her mother.

  Hilda's eyes open wide, 'Oh, really?' she says.

  Alicia is glad she decided to wear one of her more flattering dresses this morning. It is a bright, sunny morning, with the promise of a warm summer's day to come.

  'This is Mia's husband,' Alicia says to her mother. ‘You remember Mia from school? Mia Eriksson?' she adds pointedly. 'Or has she taken your last name?' she asks facing Patrick again.

  'No,' he says. The smile has disappeared from his lips and he looks even more embarrassed than Alicia feels.

  'Aah,' Hilda says, 'Yes of course, lovely Mia!' she's grasped the significance of the last name, even though Alicia is certain she doesn't remember Mia from school. She was a couple of years below Alicia and they were never friends, but the school in Mariehamn was so small, everyone knew everyone else.

  Mia's father owns the largest newspaper on the islands, a major shipping company and a fair amount of property. As well as much more she's certain she doesn't know about. All she's heard is that Mia's father's nickname on the islands is Mr Åland.

  Although flustered, Alicia cannot help but be flattered by the covert glances Patrick keeps throwing her as Hilda opens up the shop and directs him and Alicia to the back room, where Hilda has a small office. It's just a cubicle, really, divided from the shop by a pink velvet curtain, matching the drapes across two smaller fitting rooms on the other side of the shop. Alicia knows that when it's busy, Hilda allows customers to use her office to try on the clothes, and to that end, she has a full-length mirror on the far wall. Her mother fills a kettle from a tap in the small sink in the corner of the room and asks if they want coffee, as if both of them are her guests.

  'No, that's OK, I've just had breakfast,' Patrick says, and he smiles at Hilda, who says with disapp
ointment in her voice, 'Oh, OK, I'll just make the shop ready to open and we can chat about the article.' She disappears into the main room and Alicia can see lights being switched on and hear Hilda open up the till.

  'This is a coincidence, a second pleasant one,' Patrick says. Once again, he’s dressed like someone from Östermalm in Stockholm, the area where the upper-class Swedes reside. Today he's sporting a pair of fashionably ripped jeans and a crisp white cotton shirt under the soft suede jacket.

  'You a journalist?' Alicia asks.

  Sitting opposite each other in the small room, their knees are nearly touching. Hers are bare, and she can see the tanned skin of his legs, and a few stray blond hairs, through the rips in his jeans. This is ridiculous, Alicia tells herself. I am married, at least for now, and so is he. What's more, this is probably all in my imagination. He's just being nice in a very Scandinavian way. But the man's gaze is so direct, and intense, that Alicia has to lower her eyes; is he flirting with her?

  'Yeah, I work for Journalen. Your mum convinced me to write about her shop. She had a break-in here last week.' His smile disappears, and his eyes look even more fetching with a serious face. I must stop this, Alicia thinks.

  'Oh, I didn't know about it. Was anything stolen?'

  'Yes. Apparently, they emptied the till. That's all I know, so far.'

  'Of course,' Alicia laughs, embarrassed. He's here to find out more about the incident.

  'So you're Hilda's daughter?' Patrick asks. He is so tall that Alicia has to look up at him. She can see his taut muscles underneath the white shirt as he leans his upper body toward her. The shirt is open at the neck, revealing a triangle of bronzed skin.

  Alicia manages to nod before her mother reappears.

  'Right, Alicia, if you wouldn't mind staying on just for half an hour or so, while we chat? You remember how the till works, right?' Alicia's mother stands by the opening to the office, holding back the velvet curtain.

  Alicia notices how very smart—and young—her mother looks in her linen trouser suit over a sleeveless silk shirt. Alicia herself is wearing one of her simple Marimekko summer dresses, and just to please her mother, her smart tan sandals with a small wedge heel, which (according to Hilda) make her legs look long and shapely.

  'No problem.' Alicia gets up and turns to leave, but as she does so, she stumbles in the damned shoes, and accidentally brushes her shoulder against Patrick. They both give an embarrassed laugh. Alicia can't look at Patrick. The touch of his body against her sends a prickling sensation down her spine. A sensation Alicia knows all too well.

  'Thanks, I must stop falling into you,' Alicia says before she knows what she's doing.

  What am I saying!

  'No problem,' Patrick says again, grinning.

  Alicia knows her mother is watching the two of them, but she doesn't dare look at Hilda. Blushing at the sight of Patrick's smiling face so close to her, she walks out into the shop, feeling his eyes burning on her backside. She finds herself hoping her bum doesn't look too saggy. Talk about making a fool of yourself, Alicia thinks as she sits behind the till, and sees her mother close the pink curtain behind her.

  Eleven

  For the hour or so that Alicia sits alone at the till, watching the sun rise high in the sky, not one customer comes inside the shop. She sees a few people visit the bank, on the corner of their street and the pedestrian section, diagonally opposite the shop, but there are very few tourists about. It's a Monday morning after all, and the summer season isn't quite here yet. Most tourists arrive for Midsummer, which is four days away. Those few tourists already on the islands must still be asleep, Alicia thinks. It's only just past ten, and to Alicia the center of Mariehamn looks positively deserted. She's got so used to the busyness of London, where even at 4am on a Friday, when she and Liam took the cab to the airport, there had been people about, rushing to work, or home from a night out—or a rave. Did people still go to raves, Alicia wonders, as she listens to the voices from behind the curtain, and the occasional laughter, her mother’s trill and Patrick's low, manly tone. Alicia can imagine how her mother's coquettish behavior embarrasses and flatters at the same time. She remembers how Stefan blushed the first time one of her friends from the Pilates class she used to attend became all flirty with him. Stefan had a huge growth spurt during his 14th summer, gaining broad shoulders, just like his father. His jawline became suddenly square, and a few strands of fluffy hair began to sprout from his chin. His new maleness had a strange effect on some women, especially those who didn't know him well. Like her Pilates friends. They'd smile at him, cocking their heads and shifting their bodies. It made Alicia laugh; how shameless they were.

  'Meet my son,' she'd say and all at once, the women would become embarrassed, crossing their arms over their chests and rushing out of the door.

  * * *

  Alicia brushes the thoughts of Stefan away; she mustn't brood. This is, after all why she is here, to try to relax.

  To avoid her mind wondering, Alicia moves the mouse on the desk and the computer comes to life. She sees her mother's sales report is open. She doesn’t want to look, but she can't help herself as she scans the numbers on the screen. She is a financial journalist after all. She's shocked by the lack of sales recorded during the previous week. Only a handful of items were sold the week before that. Quickly she scrolls through the report and sees that since the New Year the shop has barely made 500 Euros a month. The rent on the premises must be that much at least, so how was Hilda able to pay the woman who comes in a few days a week? There must be the heating bill, and electricity, insurance, plus the money Hilda presumably pays herself. Alicia looks through her mother's files and finds a spreadsheet showing the shop's incoming and outgoing expenses. She notices that expenses peak about four times a year when Hilda restocks the shop. The sales look pitifully low compared to the purchases, and as she suspects the rent of the shop is nearly 1,000 Euros per month. But the shop seems to show a profit at the end of the period regardless, and she sees that the simple cashflow Hilda has prepared on a separate tab confirms this; she is over 1,000 Euros in the black. How is that possible when the costs so obviously exceed the income?

  Suddenly Alicia hears sounds of movement, and the curtain is pulled to one side. She quickly closes the spreadsheets and lets go of the mouse.

  Hilda walks out first, keeping the curtain back for the reporter to walk through. When they reach the till, Alicia's mother thanks Patrick. The man shakes hands with Hilda and turns to Alicia, placing his hand in hers, 'Nice to meet you again. Are you staying on the islands for the whole summer?'

  He has long thin fingers and she notices a few pale hairs growing on the back of his hand.

  'Not sure,' she says.

  'But you'll come to the Midsummer party?'

  'Party?' Hilda says, looking from Patrick to Alicia and back again.

  Patrick coughs, then adds, 'You haven't got the invite yet? I must remind Mia to send it to you today.'

  'That sounds lovely!' Hilda says, her eyes sparkling.

  'Unless you have already made arrangements for celebrating Midsummer?' Patrick says, sounding hopeful.

  Alicia looks down at her shoes, trying to remove the smile from her face.

  'No, no, nothing that couldn't be unarranged!' Hilda says so keenly that it makes Alicia wince.

  'Perhaps we'll meet again soon, then,' Patrick says, ignoring Hilda and looking at Alicia for a fraction of a second too long. He drops her hand and takes hold of Hilda's. 'I'll see you both this weekend.'

  Twelve

  Alicia meets her mother for lunch at Indigo, one of the new breed of café/restaurant that have sprung up in the town in the past few years. In summer, the place has an outdoor patio area with wooden benches and large canvas umbrellas. The day has turned out windy, so although the sun is out, the umbrellas are down, and flapping noisily against their poles. When Alicia enters the little courtyard, where the tables are set at one end, Hilda is already sitting down with a large
glass of white wine.

  'Do you want one?' she asks as soon as Alicia sits down next to her.

  Alicia has spent the morning wandering around Mariehamn, checking out her old haunts in the little town. Several of her schoolfriends still live on the islands, but over the years she's lost touch with all of them, not least because when she's here, most of them are on holiday, spending their long summer breaks in the surrounding archipelago. Now she wouldn't dream of getting in touch with any of them; she doesn't want to explain about Stefan.

  Or about Liam.

  Not yet.

  She hasn't touched her Facebook feed since Stefan's accident. She is considering closing her account altogether. There are too many memories there; too many pictures of Stefan and many of him with her, her son with his beautiful, young face and lean body. Alicia shakes her head; she must stop torturing herself. Stefan is gone; as the grief counsellor told her, she must just try to remember the good times and be grateful for the years she had with her son. She was trying to do just that when she stopped for a coffee at Svarta Katten, a café in a little wood-clad townhouse with mismatching old furniture and the best Ålands pannakaka in town. It had been Stefan's favorite. Alicia decided against the semolina-filled clafoutis-type cake and sat in a corner reading a book bought from the bookshop at the far end of Torggatan. It is a novel set on the islands, by a recent Finlandia prize-winning author. Alicia decided that she needed to improve her Swedish, and what better way to do it than to read a novel about Åland in the original language?

  Alicia now places the book on the table and leans back against the curved wooden bench of the restaurant. She watches the tourists milling around the local artisan shop opposite–a pottery and glassblower's with various cups, plates and glasses displayed on a table outside. She has several pieces by the same artist at home, colorful glassware that she’d carefully wrapped and transported in her hand-luggage back to London. She decides she ought to buy a couple of new coffee mugs for the sauna cottage as a treat for herself.