The Island Affair

by Helena Halme

  Patrick gives a little laugh. 'I don't work here!'

  As if she should know the joke, the wide smile stays on his lips. She is standing so close to him that she notices he has cut himself shaving that morning. A tiny speck of blood sits on his chin. Alicia catches herself imagining what his blood tastes like. She licks her lips.

  'So, how about it?' Patrick says and Alicia is startled. Has he read her mind?

  'Lunch?' Patrick says. 'The Italian by the marketplace is nice.'

  'Ah,' Alicia says. 'I'm not sure ...' She makes a show of looking at her watch.

  Patrick runs his hand through his hair. 'Look, why don't we have a bite to eat and I can tell you how things work in that madhouse?' He nods with his head toward the building they'd just left.

  'I'm not officially employed by the paper, but it's part of the family business, and I occasionally give them a helping hand when I'm here in the summer.'

  Alicia doesn't really have a choice. She tells herself: she's just been handed the perfect job, and told by the person who's employed her to go with this man.

  'OK,' she says.

  Patrick nods and chin points toward the Sitkoff shopping center. They walk through the covered mall, passing a hamburger place where a few youngsters are laughing and jostling with each other, waiting for their unhealthy lunches to be prepared. Alicia thinks of Stefan. Is this where he too spent his time when he took Uffe's moped into town from Sjoland?

  Patrick leads the way out of the arcade, past an outdoor café where tourists are having coffees or nursing pints of lager. Everyone is laughing, the sun shining into their faces, their bodies relaxed in a holiday mode.

  The sunny Torggatan is much busier, with children running away from their mothers and couples in shorts and summer dresses strolling along the street, looking into shop windows. It's still low season, a few days before Midsummer, but already the ferries are bringing day-trippers from Sweden and Finland to the little island town. Alicia glances across the street, where her mother's boutique is situated. Clothes that Hilda has placed on a rail outside, on the pavement, flutter in the breeze. Alicia quickens her step; she doesn't want to talk to her mother, or for her mother to see her with Patrick. She'd only make a fuss about the job, and the Swedish reporter.

  'Do you like Italian food? Have you been to the one in torg kiosken?'

  'Yeah, that sounds good.' Alicia isn't at all hungry, but she wants to talk to Patrick about the newspaper and her new job. Or that's what she tells herself. She knows that she is immensely attracted to this man. But she also knows he's married. As is she.

  They make their way toward the Market Square, where a handful of strawberry sellers and people offering local handicrafts have stalls. As they walk, Alicia is aware that they have matched their steps. Patrick’s hand hovers behind her, close to the small of her back, guiding her through the street as if she is a tourist. She can feel the heat of his body next to hers, but tries to ignore the effect his closeness is having.

  The restaurant, called Nonna Rina, is bustling. It seems everyone in Mariehamn is here. Suddenly Alicia remembers coming here with Liam and Stefan. Her son was eleven at the time, and he wolfed down a bowl of pasta salad. It was overcast, and cold, the skies above threatening rain. They'd debated whether to wait for a table inside the small café, but Stefan was hungry so they'd opted to eat outdoors. She remembers how they watched the Rockoff festival set-up nearby on the Market Square, and how they debated whether Stefan should be allowed to go there with his island friends. Alicia remembers deciding he was too young to go on his own. Instead, she and Liam had taken turns to accompany their son, much to his embarrassment, over the few days of the festival.

  They were always so careful with him, but it had been of no use. Alicia took a deep breath to release the pressure on her chest. This was how Connie had told her to deal with the grief, which so often came out of nowhere, crushing her lungs, making it difficult for her to breathe.

  'Just take air in through your nose and release it slowly out of your mouth,' she said.

  'You OK?' Patrick asks. They are standing in a line, waiting to be seated.

  Alicia nods. She doesn't want to discuss her son with this man she hardly knows. Chances are he already knows about it—her mother isn't the most discreet of people. Alicia guesses she would have told him about Stefan during her interview with Patrick. Or he might have heard about the accident through the wide circle of people Uffe and Hilda know on the islands. Everyone knows everyone else's business here in the small island communities.

  Sixteen

  'I'm sorry about your son.' Patrick's eyes are steady on Alicia. She stares back at him, not knowing what to say. There is an awkward silence between them.

  They are now sitting at the table, having paid for their food at the till. The Italian owner of the café brings them two bowls of salad. Patrick seems to know the dark-haired man and the two joke about a football game that Alicia has no interest in. Instead she nods to the man and raises the corners of her lips into a smile.

  'Federico, please meet Alicia, a new reporter at Ålandsbladet,' Patrick says.

  Alicia manages to make some small talk about how lovely Mariehamn is.

  'She's a local, though,' Patrick says. His eyes are still on Alicia.

  Federico raises his eyebrows and is about to ask Alicia to explain when a woman behind the counter attracts his attention and he excuses himself.

  'Federico knows everybody in town,' Patrick says. 'In the summer we play in a five-aside together. He supports AC Milan and I Barcelona.'

  'Hmm,' Alicia is munching on a corner of a crispy iceberg lettuce leaf. She isn't really hungry; it's barely 12 o'clock. She's forgotten how early they eat lunch on the islands.

  'I'm sorry about before,' Patrick says after they have both finished their food in silence.

  Alicia gazes at Patrick’s weather-worn face. She wonders if he is or has been a heavy smoker. The lines on his face didn’t take away from the rugged attractiveness of the man, but rather added to it.

  'It's OK,' she says, and adds, 'Do you have kids?'

  Patrick nods, 'Two girls, eight and ten.'

  Alicia nods.

  'When Sara was three, she had meningitis. We nearly lost her.'

  Alicia lifts her eyes and looks at Patrick. His eyes are sad when he begins to tell the story, 'She had a temperature and we thought she just had a cold. It was in the middle of July and we were at the summer place. We had some people over and we'd been drinking. When we went to bed at about 2am, I looked into the girls' bedroom and felt Sara's forehead. She was burning up. I called to Mia and we phoned the doctor. We woke him up, and he told us to look for a rash ... there were red spots all over her body. How I hadn't noticed them when we put the girls into bed, I don't know. We'd both had too much to drink to drive but had no choice. By that stage we both felt pretty sober, though. We decided Mia should stay with Sara's younger sister, Frederica, and that I would drive to the hospital, where the doctor had agreed to meet us. It was the longest night of my life. She was unconscious when I lifted her out of bed and didn't come around until the next day.'

  While he's talking, the noise of the café and the people having lunch disappears. Alicia sees how difficult reliving the awful night is for Patrick, and what nearly losing his daughter means to him.

  'I'm sorry,' she says.

  Patrick is quiet for a moment. 'Don't be. She was OK in the end. Not like ...'

  Alicia takes a slow breath in and out. She is not going to cry.

  'I'm so sorry,' Patrick says and leans in a little to bring his face closer to Alicia.

  She wants to touch him, she wants to put her head on his shoulder. She wishes he'd lean in even closer and kiss her.

  What's got into her?

  Instead, she gets herself up and says, trying to keep her voice level, 'Would you like a coffee?'

  * * *

  'Anyway,' I'm sorry, it must be hard for you,' Patrick says when Alicia comes back with two
cups of hot, black coffee.

  Alicia gazes at Patrick's blue eyes and nods. The café is still bustling and two tourists from Sweden are speaking loudly at the counter, demanding gluten-free pizzas and soya milk lattes. Federico lifts his shoulders with his arms stretched out, giving the two a southern European shrug.

  Patrick and Alicia follow the ruckus until the two thin women wearing sports clothes and bum bags storm out past their table, incensed that the Italian café didn't have what they wanted.

  Their eyes meet and Alicia finds herself returning Patrick's smile. The mood has lifted between them.

  'I feel I should say sorry,' Patrick says, laughing.

  'You can't be held responsible for the behavior of all the people of your country of birth,' Alicia replies between giggles.

  'The whole country? You really don't like Swedes, do you?'

  Alicia puts her hand to her mouth to stop her now uncontrollable giggling.

  What is going on? She's again behaving like a teenager in this man's company.

  Patrick reaches over and puts his hand on hers. 'It's OK, I'm not particularly enamored with you Ålänningar. My in-laws can be quite annoying at times.'

  Alicia's giggling finally stops and she looks down at Patrick's bony fingers over her own.

  Patrick quickly removes his hand, and coughs into it instead.

  'I think I need to get back to the office,' Alicia says, getting up. They walk along Torggatan in silence, and only speak once they're back at Ålandsbladet.

  'Right,' Patrick says and sweeps his hand over the empty open-plan space. 'This is it!'

  'Any idea where my desk might be?' Alicia says

  Patrick shows her to a space that he says has been vacant for a while and gets the pc working for her. He runs through the intranet, letting her use his access settings, and says it might be best if she reads through the various sections of the paper to see the style of the writing. He briefly runs through who does what.

  'You seem to know an awful lot about this place for someone who doesn't work here.' Alicia remarks.

  Patrick smiles into her eyes again, 'Well, I'm married to the family, what can I say?'

  They have their heads close together over the screen when they hear a door slam.

  An older man with totally white hair walks through the door. He has a sizeable belly and wears a gray shirt with worn-out jeans and sandals with stripey socks.

  'Harri, meet our newest reporter,' Patrick says, straightening his back.

  'This is our editor, Harri Noutiainen,' Patrick says, turning to Alicia.

  'Ah, yes, I heard about you.' Harri doesn't take Alicia's outstretched hand, and after an awkward moment, she lets it fall and stands there in silence while the editor peers at her from under his bushy eyebrows. In fact, the three of them stand in silence for what to Alicia seems like several long minutes. Eventually Harri declares, 'I hear you can write about money matters. You worked at the Financial Times?'

  'Well yes ...' Alicia begins, but Harri interrupts her and says, 'Good, that's agreed then. I look forward to reading your pieces.'

  Without waiting for a reply, he turns away and makes his way to the glass-paneled office in the corner of the large space.

  Seventeen

  Alicia yawns as she opens the door to the offices of Ålandsbladet. She couldn't get back to sleep after waking at 4am to full daylight and twittering birds, and now, just before nine, she feels as if she's been awake for half a day already. She decides to just drop off her contract and leave at lunchtime—the job is supposed to be part-time after all.

  She sees Birgit come up the stairs and hands her the piece of paper.

  'I'm afraid Harri is out today,' the personnel woman says.

  'I met him yesterday,' Alicia replies.

  'Oh, right,' Birgit says and smiles. There's no lipstick on her teeth this morning. 'But you should come to the editorial meeting on Wednesday morning after Midsummer. I'll send the IT guy to you this morning. He can get you a username, passwords, access to our cloud and that sort of thing.'

  'I think Patrick sorted most of that out for me yesterday,' Alicia says

  The woman pulls the papers against her chest and starts to walk away. 'You're all set then. Have a good day.' She disappears out of the door.

  Alicia nods and smiles at the two other people in the office, a young man and a woman, busy at their desks. She gets similar nods back but neither comes over to say hello. Birgit should have introduced me, Alicia thinks.

  Patrick is nowhere to be seen, and why would he be? He was only there the day before to speak with the editor, she reminds herself. She's not sure if she is relieved or disappointed by his absence. It's an odd arrangement, she thinks, but then remembers how things are organized on the islands. Everything is more informal. It's who you know that matters.

  Alicia sits down at the desk allotted to her at the entrance to the room. For something to do, she scrolls down her emails. She manages to open her own Webmail inbox and sees there's a message from Liam.

  'Dear Alicia,

  I just wanted to let you know I got home OK.

  Love,

  Liam x'

  Alicia deletes the message without replying. What is the matter with the man? He acts as if everything is the same as before. He sent her a message on WhatsApp to say he'd arrived home on Sunday, and now this. Alicia wonders if he is now staying with Ewa, if he is in her arms at this very moment. She sees that it's just half past nine, which would make it 7.30 in the UK. He wouldn't still be in bed, if he follows his old routine. He'll now be on his morning run, but would that be in Crouch End or somewhere else, where Ewa lives? Alicia sighs. It's none of her business anymore.

  She scans the other emails. There are adverts, messages from companies in London she no longer has any interest in. Alicia closes the page and begins to read the online paper. It's updated twice a day, once in the morning and once around 5pm in the afternoon, Patrick told her the day before. There is nothing interesting there. Alicia wonders how the paper can afford to employ her.

  * * *

  Frida's heart skips a little when she sees the new woman enter the office. What is Stefan's mum doing here at Ålandsbladet? With her head down, concealed by the screen that separates her desk from the one opposite, Frida pricks her ears and listens to the conversation between Birgit and Stefan's mum. Pretending to be engrossed with whatever is on her screen, and with her right hand resting on the mouse, Frida takes in the information, trying not to panic. She lifts her eyes slowly up over the screen and toward the end of the room, but neither woman is looking at her. She takes the opportunity to observe Stefan's mum closely. She has the same lanky build as Stefan, and the same tilt of the head when she listens to Birgit. Suddenly Frida feels a pain in her gut again, like she's been stabbed. Her heart is now racing and she has to put her hands under her thighs to stop them from shaking.

  It's OK, she doesn't know you.

  Frida has seen Stefan's mum from a distance once before, when he'd borrowed his step-grandpa's moped. She was with him when he picked up his mobile, which he’d forgotten at his grandparent's place. Frida was standing by the moped on the side of the road while Stefan ran back to the house. He asked her to come in but Frida didn't want to meet the old folks. She remembers seeing the relief on his face, although he'd tried to hide it, shrugging his wide shoulders and running his long fingers through his blond, shoulder-length hair. He jogged to the house and when he re-emerged from the front door, carrying his mobile, a woman whom he later said was his 'overcurious' mother stepped out behind him. She peered at Frida standing by the road, and Frida turned her back just in time, so that the woman couldn't tell whether she was a boy or a girl. With her short-cropped hair, Dr Martens, leather jacket and loose, ripped jeans, she often passed for a guy. She didn't mind what people thought.

  Quickly, Frida now types 'Alicia O'Connell' and the Financial Times into the picture search on Google. Her fears are confirmed. The smiling image of the woman now s
itting down at one of the free work stations is the one on the screen in front of her. She closes the page down and decides to take the bull by the horns.

  Eighteen

  'Hi,'

  Alicia lifts her head and sees a young woman, with short cropped hair, colored pale gray and blue, standing by her desk, with her arm stretched.

  'I'm Frida,' she says.

  Alicia gets up and takes the hand. It seems a very formal greeting from someone so young. Frida doesn't look any older than Stefan, but her handshake is surprisingly strong.

  'I'm the summer intern,' she says and she lifts one side of her mouth into a grin. 'So basically I do everything around here.' Her face is now in a full smile.

  'Right,' Alicia says.

  'And my mother is an ABBA fan, hence the name.' The girl looks down and kicks the floor with her left boot.

  'It's a nice name,' Alicia says.

  'Whatever. You smoke?'

  'No.'

  'OK, well, I'll show you around anyway, yeah?'

  'Now?' Alicia asks and glances around the open-plan office and the editor's cubicle at the far end. What more was there to show her?

  Frida shifts in her clumpy boots but doesn't say anything. Alicia feels sorry for the girl. She's only trying to be friendly, she thinks and gets up.

  'That'll be lovely, thank you,' she says and gives the girl a smile.

  Frida takes Alicia out of the office and points at the door to the bathrooms on the landing. 'There's a shower in there if you ever need it,' she says and grins at Alicia. Then she turns back into the main office and leads Alicia to a door on the right. It's a coffee room with a kitchenette and a round table covered in a bright green Marimekko cloth. There are chairs all around the table. At the far end of the narrow space a tall window reaching down to the floor overlooks the Eastern Harbor.

  'That's nice,' Alicia says and nods toward the view of the sailing boats rocking in the wind. The sun is high in the sky, its rays reflecting on the rippling surface of the sea.