by Helena Halme
‘Oh,’ Kaisa said, not knowing what else to say. She had very little experience of illness. She’d once been to visit her grandfather in Tampere General Hospital in Finland, just before he passed. He’d been very poorly and Kaisa had only been in her early teens, so no one had told her much about his condition. Kaisa and her sister Sirkka had sat on plastic chairs next to their grandfather’s bed while he coughed a lot.
Later, their mother had told her he’d died of lung cancer. Would Duncan’s skin be as grey and his body as frail as her grandfather’s had been? Surely he was a much younger man, and even with his illness … Kaisa’s thoughts were interrupted by Rose, who’d taken hold of Kaisa’s hand.
‘Duncan would like to see you now, but I just wanted to talk to you first. He has lost a lot of weight, and he is particularly poorly with the pneumonia at the moment. I don’t want you to be alarmed. It’s all part of the disease. But he is young and strong and he wants to get better, so the doctor is hopeful that he’ll fight this infection.’
‘OK,’ Kaisa said and got up. ‘I’ll just need to visit the loo.’
Rose got up too. She pulled her mouth into a brief smile and said, ‘Come in when you’re ready.’
Kaisa went into the small bathroom and washed her hands. She looked at herself in the mirror and adjusted her hair, which had gone frizzy with the breeze from the open window of the car. She looked at her face and tried to steady her breathing.
What was she afraid of?
All the literature she’d read emphasised that you could only get infected through blood or sexual intercourse. And she wasn’t about to jump into bed with Duncan again.
But she knew it wasn’t the fear of infection that was bothering her. It was the enormous guilt she felt about sleeping with Duncan in the first place and now seeing him behind Peter’s back. But there was something else too. She could easily explain to Peter that she hadn’t wanted to distract him during Perisher. ‘Family life must come second,’ he’d told her when he’d given her the news about the course in Helensburgh. And she understood that. Peter, she knew, had forgiven her for the affair, knowing it was partly his fault.
No, it wasn’t the guilt that was bothering Kaisa. It was the feelings she still had for Duncan. She didn’t want to see him suffer.
They had been great friends before – before they’d both spoiled it all. Why, oh why had they got drunk and had sex? It was so stupid. Kaisa knew she had used Duncan as a scapegoat; really, she’d been equally prepared to flirt with him. She had needed him to boost her confidence. She remembered how, when she was driving to the station to pick him up, she’d felt like a woman of the world, pretending to herself that she could have relationships with other men while Peter was away. Pretending that she could control the situation; she’d been looking forward to basking under the heat of Duncan’s desire.
* * *
The air in the room was stuffy. The smell of medicines hit Kaisa as soon as she opened the door. Next she saw Duncan, half sitting up in the wrought-iron bed, propped up by several pillows. He was wearing a white T-shirt and she could see he had lost a lot of weight. His cheekbones were more prominent and his lips cracked. But his smile was the same, and the intense gaze in his light-blue eyes when he stretched his hand up to her had the same effect on her as before.
Kaisa felt short of breath. She was rooted to the spot, just inside the warm, airless room.
Duncan’s voice was quiet, and she could tell he struggled to get the words out when he said, ‘Kaisa, you came!’
Kaisa moved towards him and took his hand. His grip was surprisingly strong and Kaisa stood by the side of his bed for what seemed like several minutes, just holding his hand. Eventually Rose, who’d been standing at the foot of the bed said, ‘Why don’t you sit on the chair, Kaisa, so you two can talk. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.’
Duncan’s eyes moved away from Kaisa and he nodded to his cousin.
‘She’s been very good to me,’ he said with the same quiet, breathless voice.
‘Me too,’ Kaisa said.
Duncan smiled, ‘I did something right.’
Kaisa looked down at her hands. It was true. Without Duncan she wouldn’t have known Rose, and without Rose Kaisa was sure she’d still be in Helsinki and not working for the BBC. She felt ashamed. Had she used Duncan and his attraction to her to advance her own career? She looked up at the man lying on the bed. His breathing came in short rasps. With a further struggle, he said, ‘You forgive me?’ His blue eyes were steady on Kaisa.
She was taken aback, and hesitated for a moment.
Duncan made a wheezing sound, lifting his upper body away from the bed. Kaisa stood up and tried to slip her hand behind Duncan’s back, to help him, but he lifted his hand in a gesture to stop her, so Kaisa just stood there, helplessly watching Duncan slowly regain control of the coughing fit.
She saw him lick his lips.
‘Do you want a bit of water?’ she asked. She’d spotted a glass and a carafe on a table by the window.
‘Mmm,’ Duncan made a noise and with a slight movement of his head nodded towards the water.
Kaisa picked up the glass and tried to give it to Duncan, but he was too weak to take hold of it. He made a motion with his lips towards the ridge and Kaisa put the glass to his mouth. At first, she tipped it over too much and the liquid ran down Duncan’s jaw and made a wet patch on his T-shirt.
‘Sorry,’ Kaisa said and tried again.
This time Duncan managed to take a few sips, before putting his hand up.
‘Thank you,’ he rasped, and leaned back against the pillows, closing his eyes.
‘I’ve forgiven you ages ago,’ Kaisa said.
Duncan nodded, without opening his eyes.
‘Dear Kaisa,’ he whispered.
Kaisa put the glass back on the table and saw there was a box of tissues there too. She took one and went to wipe Duncan’s mouth but saw that he had fallen asleep. His breathing was still coming in short, croaky bursts, but it sounded steady, so after standing by the window for a while, Kaisa tiptoed out of the room, leaving the door ajar, as she had found it, and made her way down the stairs to the kitchen.
Thirteen
Finland July 1990
Kaisa had decided to fly Finnair to Helsinki for her sister’s wedding, even though the cost of the flight was a lot more than if she’d taken BA. But she was rewarded when she stepped onto the aircraft and the air hostess smiled and said, ‘Welcome onboard’ to her in Finnish. She already felt at home, looking at the blue and white interior of the aircraft. I am being very silly, she thought, but couldn’t help feel her throat close up with feeling.
She knew Sirkka’s wedding would be an emotional affair, but to start choking up this early, on the plane to Helsinki! That was just plain ridiculous. Kaisa decided to buck up and asked for a white wine when the same friendly air hostess came along the aisle with her drinks trolley.
Kaisa was met at the airport by her mother, who was wearing a pair of white jeans and a frilly blouse.
‘You look pale,’ she said, but hugged her daughter hard. ‘I’ve missed you.’
Kaisa saw there were tears in her eyes and struggled to keep herself in check.
‘Oh, don’t mum!’
She’d felt tears prick her eyes again earlier, when the plane was about to land and the beautiful green landscape of her home country had opened up in front of her. She realised how much she missed Finland‘s empty spaces and the green forests and lakes, the sunshine glimmering on the blue water below.
Her mother led Kaisa to her Volvo in the car park in front of the airport building. Again Kaisa was struck by the contrast with London; Heathrow was dirty, bustling with people, with multistorey car parks towering above the terminal. Here there was just a simple space occupied by a scattering of cars a few steps from the airport building.
They were to spend the first night at her mother’s place in Töölö, and then travel up to Tampere the next day. On the way into
town, Kaisa’s mother chatted about the wedding arrangements, while Whitney Houston sang ‘I will always love you’ on the radio.
Kaisa watched the dark, tall pine trees lining the road pass by and suddenly realised why she was living away from her home country. It was exactly how she felt about Peter. She would always love him, and with that love came his career in the Royal Navy and their life in England.
* * *
Kaisa missed Peter even more intensely when she was standing in the doorway of Tampere Cathedral. The pews were half occupied, with people talking in low tones, but even so, there was a special silence to the place. She hadn’t been to Tampere, let alone the Cathedral, since her own wedding six years ago, and was taken aback by the memories of that June day in 1984.
Trying to lift her mood, she walked slowly towards the front of the church, admiring the beautiful murals covering the walls and the ceiling. She nodded to a row of her relatives; her two uncles and their wives, and her several cousins, half of whom she hardly recognised anymore because they’d changed out of gangly teenage shapes into grown-ups.
She went to sit next to her grandmother, who sported a black and white zebra print dress and coat, complete with a hat with an impossibly large brim made out of the same fabric. (It had been leopard print for Kaisa’s wedding.) As soon as Kaisa sat down, her grandmother gave her a smile and took hold of her hand, squeezing it gently. That grip around her fingers took Kaisa back to her early childhood, before she’d started school, when Mummu had looked after her.
She remembered the many trips to a park with ducks, and shopping for sweet buns in the covered market in the centre of Tampere. She glanced at her grandmother; she looked older and the grey hairs she’d long been battling against were spilling out from underneath the hat. She looked smaller and more stooped now, and her fingers around Kaisa’s hand felt cold and papery rather than safe and strong, as they had when she was a child.
‘How are you?’ Kaisa whispered.
As she leaned into her grandmother, she got a strong whiff of eucalyptus and something else. Then she remembered, ‘You still taking those garlic pills?’
Mummu gave Kaisa a startled look and began to rummage in her large handbag. ‘I’ve got some for you.’
‘Don’t worry now, I’ll have them later,’ Kaisa said but her grandmother had already pulled a brown medicine bottle out of her bag and was pushing it into Kaisa’s hand.
‘They’ll give you strength and increase your fertility,’ Mummu said, fixing her dark eyes on Kaisa.
‘Thank you,’ Kaisa murmured, turning her face away from her grandmother and staring at the bottle in her hand. It had a green label on it, with Chinese text and an image of garlic bulbs. She could feel her cheeks burn under the old woman’s gaze. How many people had her mother told about her problems in having a baby?
At that moment, the organist began to play and Kaisa looked up and spotted the tall shape of Jussi, Sirkka’s husband to be, at the altar. Kaisa popped the bottle of pills into her small clutch, and forced herself to look at Mummu, who was leaning forward in the pew, now fully concentrated on the wedding rather than on Kaisa’s problems.
Jussi had a mop of blond hair and the physique of a lumberjack. He was a builder by trade, so Kaisa presumed he’d done his fair share of logging. She smiled to herself. She knew Peter would have enjoyed the joke and would probably have made a better one to make Kaisa giggle.
Kaisa had met Jussi just the once, when Sirkka had organised a skiing trip for the four of them in Lapland. It had been a magical week, with evenings spent around the open fire of their log cabin, and days on the slopes in Ylläs ski centre. They’d even seen the Northern lights again, and Peter had made Kaisa promise that they would make the trip up to Lapland every year. But, of course, because of Peter’s career, it hadn’t happened. They’d had to give up one set of expensive flights when all leave was cancelled due to an ‘operational emergency.’ Peter had told Kaisa, in confidence, that ‘the emergency’ was due to there not being enough submarines, or staff to man them, because of the defence budget cutbacks.
During that skiing trip, Kaisa had seen how in love Sirkka was with Jussi. Sirkka had turned into a puddle of giggles each time Jussi so much as looked at her. She’d wondered then if Jussi, ‘the man from Lapland’, as they’d all dubbed him during the many years of their on-off relationship, had felt equally strongly about her sister.
But here they were, getting married in the very church where she and Peter had tied the knot. As Kaisa gazed at his strong back, clothed in a dark suit, he suddenly turned around and looked directly at her. How he’d found her among the small crowd in the vast Cathedral unnerved Kaisa, but Jussi just gave her a nervous smile. She nodded and returned the smile with what she hoped was a reassuring grin.
Fourteen
‘You’ve grown,’ her father said and gave Kaisa one of his bear hugs.
Kaisa laughed in spite of herself. It was an old joke from her childhood, when between the ages of ten and twelve, she’d suddenly shot up and her father had said that he couldn’t sleep at night for the noise of Kaisa’s growth spurts.
Kaisa hadn’t seen her father since she’d visited Helsinki about a year and a half ago. It had been the summer that they’d decided to try for a baby, and during that holiday Kaisa had been off the pill for the first time since the age of 16. At the time, in Helsinki, during a lunch that her father had insisted on buying in an expensive restaurant in town, she’d been so excited, as well as scared, that she’d wanted to tell him too. Of course, she hadn’t. Instead, she sipped the wine her father had insisted on buying, and sitting next to Peter in a leather cubicle, leaned into her husband and squeezed his hand under the table. Now, as she felt the warmth of her father’s firm, solid body, she wanted to rest her head on his broad shoulder and tell him about her dead babies and cry.
Of course, she couldn’t do that; this was a wedding, a joyous occasion. She extracted herself from her father’s embrace; she’d already spent far too long hugging him. His eyes were on hers and he said, ‘OK?’ Kaisa nodded and moved away. She was conscious that her mother was watching them.
It was the first time since their divorce that her parents had been in the same room, as far as Kaisa knew, and even though the room in question wasn’t even a room, but the steps to the Cathedral, this was something precious that she, Kaisa, needed to protect.
‘Keep them separate, if need be,’ her sister had told her the day before, when the sisters had met up for a pre-wedding coffee.
Her parents coming together to celebrate their daughter’s wedding was a moment she needed to guard, to gently preserve, like a fragile nest of eggs, she’d once, as a child, tried to save in a tree outside their block of flats in Tampere. The wind had blown it this way and that, and from the vantage point of her bedroom window on the third floor, she’d been able to gaze at the nest from above.
The mother bird had gone in and out at first, but seemed to abandon her family after a gust from the northerly spring wind knocked her off the birch. Although she regained her flight after hitting the pavement below, she hadn’t come back to the nest. With the help of her sister Sirkka, Kaisa had climbed the tree and put sticks underneath the nest to make it sturdier. But, of course, the mother bird had known it was a lost cause from the beginning.
One day when Kaisa had come home from school and glanced up at the tree, the nest had gone. None of the eggs were there, just remnants of the twigs Sirkka and she had arranged so carefully underneath. Kaisa had looked down and seen a few shells here and there on the pavement.
‘Cats, most probably,’ her mother had said.
That night in bed, Kaisa had cried and it was only her father who had been able to comfort her.
‘I bet that mummy bird is at this very moment building another nest for another set of eggs,’ he’d said and tussled Kaisa’s hair. ‘If something doesn’t work the first time, you just need to try and try again.’
His pale blue eyes had looked
at Kaisa and he’d added, ‘That’s just the way of the world, my little girl.’
Now Kaisa moved aside and watched as her mother and father, after a moment of guardedly gazing at each other, formally shook hands.
‘Hello,’ her mother said, extending her hand forward. She was wearing a light turquoise dress, with a frilly collar and cuffs, with a cream coloured wide-brimmed hat and gloves. She looked very stylish, and about ten years younger than she was.
Kaisa’s father took the proffered hand and said, ‘Pirjo.’ They stood there as though frozen, until Kaisa, aware that her voice had become shrill, said, ‘Look there’s the happy couple.’
Sirkka looked radiant in her white wedding dress, and Jussi, whose shape loomed large next to Kaisa’s sister, stood smiling widely on the steps of the church.
After the speeches and the champagne in the Grand Hotel Tammer, Kaisa sat with her cousins, trying to make conversation with her suddenly shy relatives. She found that their lives were so different from hers that they no longer seemed to have anything in common. Kaisa tried to ask them what they were up to, but most wanted to know about her life in London, about her career at the BBC and about what it was like to be ‘famous’. Kaisa had laughed; her job was to compile and read the news in Finnish for the BBC, and she hardly thought that warranted her being recognised on the streets of her hometown.
One cousin, Raila, who was closest to her in age, had asked – jokingly, Kaisa realised afterwards – if she knew Princess Diana, and Kaisa told them how she had nearly met her. She recounted the story about the royal visit to Peter’s submarine. She saw how the group grew quiet when they realised Peter had actually talked to the Princess.
‘When I asked him what she was wearing, he couldn’t even remember the colour of her dress,’ she said, but her laughter was met by a wall of silence.