‘. . . a similar transposition of the initial consonant happens with other expressions, such as spoving louse,’ she said.
‘Yep. Plenty of louses and nookie these days,’ Mika said, and drummed his fingers on the table. Anna-Liisa furrowed her brow doubtfully.
‘Are such expressions still in use among young people today?’ Anna-Liisa asked.
Siiri had to raise her voice to focus the conversation. She gently reminded her guests that it would be best to forget about the nookies and concentrate on talking about Irma. And then she told them everything, just as if she’d been uncorked. She told them in no particular order about the medical records, the forgetfulness, the sudden sleepiness, the additional drugs, the apathy, the missing green folder, the strange package, the complaints, Virpi Hiukkanen’s fits of rage, and how she’d been left lying unconscious on the floor. Anna-Liisa corrected, supplemented, and elucidated whenever an opportunity presented itself.
‘It’s a bit unusual these days to wear a slip under a dress, you see,’ she interjected.
Mika listened, not interrupting or asking any questions. Siiri felt tremendously relieved, and positively giddy, from finally putting all the oppressive thoughts she’d been carrying inside her all these months into words. Anna-Liisa was full of energy. She remembered the dreadful incident with Olavi Raudanheimo and described what had happened as far as she understood it. ‘And Reino has been in the closed unit ever since. But I don’t remember where Olavi Raudanheimo is, do you, Siiri?’
Siiri had completely forgotten Olavi’s room with a view at the Hilton! So much had happened that she couldn’t keep up with it all. Tero and Pasi seemed like far-off creatures on this rainy Christmas, although, just a short time ago, all of Sunset Grove had been abuzz about their fate and Siiri had thought that she would never get over the young cook’s death.
‘Didn’t Irma say in a lucid moment that Olavi had been moved from Meilahti to the chronic ward at Laakso Hospital?’ Anna-Liisa said, digging the fact out of her memory.
Yes, that might be right. But no one had even thought to miss Reino. Even the Ambassador hadn’t said anything about him. Siiri was worried that Mika might be getting a very confused picture of everything and he might think they were a couple of scatter-brained old ladies. But Mika didn’t say anything unpleasant, he just wanted to know Olavi’s son’s name and phone number.
‘Oh, we don’t have any of that kind of information,’ Siiri said hopelessly. ‘We don’t have your telephone number either.’
Mika gave her a quick glance, but made no comment on this remark. An uncomfortable moment ensued, which Anna-Liisa defused by pondering whether Irma might have Olavi’s son’s contact information, since she had been so curious about him and was always figuring such things out when she ‘d been in her right mind.
‘She had a habit of writing down any important name and number on a yellow sticky note and sticking it to the wall or the cupboard door, which was ridiculous, but that information might be among the rest.’
‘Let’s go and look,’ Mika suggested. ‘You probably have a key?’
Siiri and Anna-Liisa were frightened. They didn’t think it was appropriate to go into someone else’s home uninvited. Mika assured them that they were doing it to help Irma, so eventually Siiri gave in.
They were shocked when they saw the state of Irma’s apartment. Although Irma had a lot of things, she always kept them well organized, in stacks and piles that had some kind of logic. But now her place was a terrible mess, as if someone had been there before them and rummaged through her possessions. Even the cupboard doors were open, and the dry goods and bags of flour that Irma had collected for emergencies were scattered over the worktop. There were jumbles of medicine bottles on the sofa and tables and the only things that seemed to be in their usual places were Irma’s sticky notes. They were on the walls, mirrors and doors, and they all said, ‘Remember to buy ice cream and wine.’
‘As if she was going to forget,’ Anna-Liisa muttered, venting her perplexity in anger.
‘Someone’s been searching for something here,’ Mika said. He examined Irma’s medicine bottles, and Siiri thought she saw him put some of them in the pocket of his leather jacket.
‘And returning something,’ Anna-Liisa said, picking up a green folder from the floor with remarkable dexterity.
Mika grabbed the folder, flipped quickly through it, and stuffed it into his backpack. He said he had to leave, but would be back on Sunday to clean Irma’s apartment. Which was, of course, very kind of him.
Chapter 23
Siiri was sitting on the number 6, watching the January rain and admiring the buildings along Hämeentie, when a group from a children’s nursery got on the tram. She was too shy to chat with them and just watched as the children explained to the other passengers that they were on their way to the Trunk. It sounded ridiculous. One woman asked if the children were planning to get in the trunk, and said she didn’t think such big girls and boys could possibly all fit in even the largest suitcase.
‘The Trunk is a theatre, silly,’ one little girl with her head covered in plaits explained, and they all laughed at the woman’s stupidity.
The children got off at Lautatarhankatu, but when the doors closed the little girl with the plaits was left behind. She was in a panic, the poor thing, in her fluorescent jacket, and when no one did anything, Siiri went over to her, took her by the hand, and promised to help, although she wasn’t sure how. The girl stopped yelling at that point and looked completely certain that this unknown old woman would rescue her, no matter the circumstances. Siiri introduced herself and asked the little girl’s name.
‘Julia. Julia Jumpity-Jump. I’m four years old.’ She held up three fingers. Siiri asked her what her mother’s name was, just in case. If the field trip wasn’t actually going to the theatre, she would have to contact the girl’s mother. She wondered where she could find a phone box or some other place to call the girl’s mother, and she couldn’t think of any. There probably weren’t any public telephones any more, even in the restaurants.
‘Her name is Mama Jumpity-Jump, of course.’ The little girl said that there were two Siiris at the children’s nursery. She wanted to know Siiri’s mother’s name and how old Siiri was. Once she’d incorporated this new friend into her map of the world, Julia Jumpity-Jump started to babble on about every aspect of a four-year-old’s life.
‘Today is Thursday and Thursday is field-trip day. Monday is toy day and that was yesterday. Tomorrow we went with Mama to Thailand, we were there for two weeks and that’s why I have these wonderful plaits. We have pet stick insects at my house because Mama’s allergic to animals, cats and dogs and guinea pigs and gerbils and bunnies, but not snakes. I don’t want a snake in the house.’
They got off at the next stop and walked to the Trunk, which was, in fact, a theatre, just like Julia Jumpity-Jump had told her. Maybe she really had stick insects at home, too, whatever they were. One of the nursery teachers was standing in front of the theatre looking worried, with a telephone to her ear. When she saw them she ran to meet them and wrenched Julia Jumpity-Jump away from Siiri’s hand.
‘Where have you been? This is no way to have an adventure! We nearly called the police! You are impossible. You give us nothing but worry and trouble. Everyone else is inside, in their seats.’
The teacher lectured just like a retirement-home worker, and didn’t even acknowledge Siiri, who suddenly found herself standing alone on the street with no idea where she should go. Where had she been dropped off? In Vallila? Or was this Sörnäinen? Did something just happen, or had she imagined it?
With her head spinning, she crossed the street to the tram stop and got on the first tram that came along. It was a number 6. She missed Irma’s laugh and could hear her bubbling voice and the clink of her bracelets in her imagination. For a moment she even thought she could smell Irma’s slightly sugary perfume. Tears came to her eyes and it was hard to breathe. How could she have ever thought
that Irma was tiresome? Now she would have been glad to listen seven times over to the story of how Irma’s husband said ‘damn it’ when he was installing the bookshelves. Or did he say ‘hell’? She was beginning to be confused about everything, too.
Siiri gave a start when she passed the Sörnäinen metro station and saw that crazy Jugendstijl Ebeneser building, designed by Wivi Lönn. Had she changed trams? The number 6 didn’t go down Helsinginkatu. She was sure she’d got on the number 6 at the Trunk Theatre, but that had been a long time ago. Or had it? Her throat tightened as she thought how confused she might be and not even notice it. Had she been babbling out loud? She had her handbag with her, at least, and her coin purse was there in the zip pocket, but she didn’t see her cane anywhere. Maybe she hadn’t brought it with her. She felt like shouting for help like a four-year-old, hoping someone would take her by the hand and lead her home, but instead she got up and asked the driver what was going on. But the driver had his compartment door closed and refused to answer her. Siiri knocked and knocked, until he yelled, ‘You can buy a ticket with your phone!’
Siiri stumbled back down the aisle and sank into one of the disabled seats. She didn’t normally use them because there was usually someone on the tram who was in worse shape than she was. She felt weak, her ears were buzzing and her head was pounding. She was unspeakably tired. It was probably just hunger. She hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, although she couldn’t be sure of that. It was dark out, but that didn’t tell her what time it was, since it was always dark at this time of year. She looked at her watch, but she couldn’t see the hands without her glasses and she didn’t feel like fishing them out of her handbag.
A friendly-looking woman came over to her and bent her face close to speak to her. Was it someone she knew?
‘This is the number 8. It goes from Arabianranta to Jätkäsaari. Do you have a ticket?’
Jätkäsaari – Bloke Island – was a truly ugly name for a neighbourhood. It sounded like it got its name from a prison. A townie’s neighbourhood, that’s what Irma would have said. Siiri wouldn’t even have known how to find such a neighbourhood. And here she was on her way to Jätkäsaari, for heaven’s sake, a respectable woman like herself.
The woman gave her a worried look and started speaking more loudly, stretching her face out comically.
‘DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR NAME? DO YOU KNOW WHAT DAY OF THE WEEK IT IS?’
Siiri remembered her friend Julia Jumpity-Jump, who she ‘d thought a little silly, and started to laugh. The little girl hadn’t known her own name, or the difference between yesterday and tomorrow. This kindly woman was testing her just like she herself had tested the plaited-haired four-year-old.
‘Maybe I should wear a fluorescent jacket, too. Today is Thursday, field-trip day, and my name is Great-great-ancient-grandma Jumpity-Jump. If you’ll permit me, I’ll get off here at the new Opera House. Thanks for your kindness.’
She left the worried woman behind and went home to lie down. Not that Sunset Grove was her home. It was just a logical solution for those who weren’t dead yet. ‘Waiting for the crematorium,’ as Reino put it. And he had, in fact, died. Reino, that dirty talker and kiss stealer, the man who thought that Siiri was the prettiest girl at Sunset Grove. The Ambassador had told them at the card table about Reino’s death. He said rather offhandedly that his friend was dead, neben, über, unter, vor, zwischen, and Anna-Liisa had added that there was, after all, no other way out of the Group Home.
Chapter 24
Siiri finally got hold of Tuula, the only one of Irma’s children who wasn’t an accident. Tuula had been around the world a couple of times, first to spend Christmas on an island somewhere in the Pacific, then to conferences in Mexico and South Korea, and that’s why she hadn’t answered when Siiri had tried to call her. Tuula was a doctor, a real scientist, and always in a great hurry, a specialist in prosthetic coatings and the outer ear canals of children, although Irma and Siiri had never understood how the two things were connected.
‘Mother’s situation is sad, of course,’ Tuula said on the phone. ‘But there’s not much we can do about it, she’s so old. Luckily, she receives good care at Sunset Grove. She’s safe in the Group Home. I used some of my connections and got her a quick diagnosis of rapidly advancing dementia. Sometimes you have to wait for months if you don’t know the right people. But they responded quickly at Sunset Grove, thank goodness. We can’t take care of her. You might not know, but I have two horses, which is an incredible amount of work, although it’s fun, too, of course. But as I’m sure you can understand, they take up all my spare time.’
So it was true. Irma was in the closed unit and had been for weeks, while her daughter was flying around researching outer ear canals and her darlings were celebrating Christmas in the Tonga islands. All these weeks, while Siiri had done nothing but fret, not knowing what else to do but break into Irma’s apartment with a total stranger, an angel boy, to steal a green folder that had already been stolen from her once before.
Irma’s daughter didn’t understand at all when Siiri said that the entire dementia story was an invention of the head nurse and things like that happened all the time at Sunset Grove. Siiri tried to explain the whole thing thoroughly, the reasons, and the results.
‘What complaints?’ Tuula asked, clearly beginning to feel nervous when Siiri told her how Irma had been a thorn in the side of the staff. She told Tuula about the county administration, the ETE Centre, and the Loving Care Foundation. And, of course, the green folder and the constantly increasing number of pills.
‘What are you going on about? Finnish doctors don’t just prescribe things willy-nilly. Besides, complaints about treatment aren’t filed through the ETE Centre. Don’t you mean the regional centre? Are you feeling tired, Siiri, dear?’
Tuula hadn’t yet had time to come and visit Irma in the closed unit and didn’t know what it was like there. She told Siiri to trust the experts in the medical profession and she was glad when Siiri asked if she could obtain permission for her to visit Irma.
‘Yes, you have plenty of time for such things. I’ll let the office know that they should give you a visitor’s pass. I won’t be able to make it until maybe the end of next month; I’ve got such an awful lot to do at work after all these conference trips. And then there are the horses. But I don’t feel guilty about it, since Mother won’t even know to miss me there in the dementia ward. She doesn’t even remember her own name.’
The telephone call had brought no one any joy. Luckily there were still angels in the world, like Mika Korhonen, a true gift from heaven. He had cleaned Irma’s apartment assiduously, like he’d promised, thrown out nine years’ worth of old flour and rye crisps, and put everything back in its place. Although he didn’t seem to like it when Siiri called him an angel, because he wasn’t just any angel, he was a specific kind of angel. He belonged to an international club that combined motorcycling and philanthropy. But Siiri couldn’t take any interest in Mika’s hobbies. Motorcycling sounded dangerous to her. The main thing was that for some reason Mika wanted to help them, unlike every last one of Irma’s darlings, whose only offer of help was to hustle Irma off to the dementia ward.
‘It’s for Tero,’ Mika said. ‘He died for no reason.’ He had been in a hurry, couldn’t even stay for a cup of instant coffee. As he was leaving he said he was going to meet Tero’s good friend Pasi, who Mika called a snitch. Pasi ought to be taught a lesson, but Mika was going to have to take care of that himself. Siiri certainly didn’t intend to teach anyone any lessons. She didn’t really even know this Pasi, because he’d spent most of his time at Sunset Grove in his office handling something to do with funding and billing matters.
‘And I’m not teaching anybody any more, that’s for certain!’ Anna-Liisa said as they played a game of double solitaire. ‘You have no idea what it’s like teaching the forty-two grammatical case constructions of Finnish to a classroom of pre-teens. At that stage of life a person doesn’t yet understand
the usefulness of learning grammar. And yet it’s so extremely important. Do you know what the ablative case is?’
‘No, and I don’t want to. It said in the paper that you shouldn’t tax your brain with unnecessary information. You should concentrate on essentials as your mental capacities start to deteriorate.’
They almost had a fight about this, and in the end Siiri had to apologize, realizing that she had offended Anna-Liisa. As a token of her forgiveness Anna-Liisa gave her a comprehensive lecture on the fascinating grammatical case constructions of the Finnish language.
‘. . . and then there’s the comitative case, which, of course, means with, as in kissoineen – ‘with their cats’. Is that clear?’
Siiri had no use for the comitative case at the moment. She wasn’t with Irma, and being without Irma was no way to live, and there didn’t seem to be anyone who could help her solve this problem. Mika Korhonen was concentrating on Pasi, Irma’s daughter didn’t understand the problem, and even Siiri’s granddaughter’s boyfriend Tuukka hadn’t called in ages. It felt like the whole world had shifted onto the Internet somewhere, a place where Siiri couldn’t go. The only point of light in the darkness was shut up in that closed unit. And soon she was going to get in there, and see Irma.
Chapter 25
Reino’s funeral was held on a weekday, the same week that the temperature finally fell below freezing and the continuous rain changed to snow. The snow had been falling around the clock for three days and traffic was a mess. City workers were in a hurry to clear a route for the cars, so they were dumping the snow on the pavements and courtyards. With Zimmer frames and wheelchairs it was impossible to travel even a couple of metres.
The Lavender Ladies Detective Agency: Death in Sunset Grove Page 12
