The English Heart

by Helena Halme

  ‘It’s what we do in England.’

  Kaisa showed Peter what they did in Finland, filling just one side and balancing the contents while she ate it. Kaisa translated for her mother. She laughed.

  When Peter excused himself and visited the bathroom, Kaisa’s mother whispered to her, ‘He’s so handsome!’

  Kaisa nodded.

  ‘When’s he going back?’ she said.

  Kaisa’s mother knew her too well. The thought that the week had to come to an end had been on Kaisa’s mind since their first evening together. Like a ticking bomb, the last day loomed. How could Kaisa go back to living in the flat on her own, how would she be able to sleep in the same bed on her own? The longing for him would kill her.

  ‘Tomorrow.’ Tears filled Kaisa’s eyes. Her mother put her arm around Kaisa. When they heard the bathroom door open Kaisa got up and escaped to the kitchen to wipe her eyes.

  Back at the airport Kaisa felt a horrible dread. She’d been quiet on the smart Finnair bus when Peter held her hand. ‘It’ll be alright, you’ll see. You’ll come to England in August, promise?’

  August was four months away.

  After Peter checked in his bag, they had half an hour before the flight boarded. They stood looking at the large display of flights. The white characters flicked, and moved up the board. Now there were only three destinations before London.

  Suddenly Peter said, ‘Wait here, I’ll be back.’

  Kaisa stood and watched another flight move forward. An awful emptiness filled her. Every molecule in her body felt Peter’s absence. Why did he leave her now when they had so little time left together?

  Peter came back and handed Kaisa a red rose. ‘This is for you’

  She started to cry.

  Peter took Kaisa’s face in his hands and wiped away the tears with his thumbs. ‘I love you. Don’t ever forget it.’ He took her in his arms once more and whispered. ‘I have to go now.’

  Kaisa nodded.

  Peter kissed her and was gone. She couldn’t watch him walk through to the passport control, so ran blindly down the stairs, clutching the rose.

  The flat felt empty and quiet, too quiet, when Kaisa returned from the airport. She put on the tapes Peter had left behind and loaded the coffee machine. She closed her eyes and listened to the music. Kaisa could hear Peter’s voice when he sang I love you just the way you are.’ She wondered how she was going to get through the night, alone in the bed they’d shared. Peter’s scent was everywhere in the flat. On the basin in the bathroom she found traces of his shaving foam. She scooped the small stain up with her finger and inhaled. He’d said some American relatives sent him several cans of the coconut cream because he couldn’t get it in England. Kaisa thought how typical that was of him: he always wanted what he couldn’t have. She wondered what would happen if the company started selling the product in the UK; would he stop using it. And would he also stop loving her if she, too, became a regular fixture in his life?

  Ten

  The Finnair flight to Heathrow was almost empty. There were two air hostesses and one steward, who kept Kaisa topped up with orange juice and water. She was nervous. She was used to travelling on her own, but London was a big city in which to get lost. As the plane swung over the Thames, a very blonde male air steward came and sat next to Kaisa.

  ‘Been to London before?’

  ‘No,’ she answered, thinking, what if Peter is not there to meet her?

  ‘That’s Big Ben, and there’s Tower Bridge.’ He leant closer to point out the rest of the London landmarks through the window on Kaisa’s side. He smiled, flashing a perfect set of white teeth. As they left the centre of the large city Kaisa saw rows and rows of houses. There seemed to be no end to them.

  Kaisa scanned the many expectant faces on the other side of the double doors of the arrivals hall. At last she saw Peter, tall and slim, wearing a pair of jeans and a navy jumper. She dodged reuniting families and passed an old couple walking slowly in front of her before reaching him. He put his arms around Kaisa and gave her a long kiss. The steward from the plane came past and waved to her.

  ‘Who was that?’

  Kaisa told Peter how kind the Finnair guy had been.

  ‘I bet,’ he said.

  It was the first time Peter had been jealous and it felt good. Kaisa pushed herself closer to him as they walked to the car park. The air outside the revolving doors of the airport terminal was warm. It smelled of sour milk and traffic fumes. There were people everywhere.

  ‘Here, put this on, it’ll keep your hair in place.’ Peter opened the car door and handed Kaisa a Red Sox baseball cap. He’d told her in his letters that he had an open top Triumph Spitfire. ‘It’s yellow, but that means I won’t be missed on the road!’

  The car looked tiny. The seats were black leather and very low. Peter rolled down the top and sat beside Kaisa. ‘It suits you,’ he smiled and kissed her again. ‘It’ll take us a couple of hours to get to Pompey.’

  The warm air rushed past her face. The busy concrete spaghetti junctions were followed by rolling green hills, with occasional cows grazing by the side of the road. Kaisa felt so happy she could burst. With the Spitfire top down, they could only hear each other by shouting, but occasionally Peter would lean over, take Kaisa’s hand and squeeze it. He’d smile and pull it to his lips.

  Suddenly there was water on either side of the road. ‘This is Southsea,’ Peter said and slowed down. They drove past the Common and down along the seafront. At one end was a large Ferris wheel, then a long promenade. People in ones and twos, some with their children or dogs, strolled along the pavement, the couples and families laughing and chatting to each other.

  Kaisa realised they were nearly at the house Peter shared with his Navy friends. She grew nervous again. What if they didn’t like her? She’d chosen what she wore very carefully, but now felt shabby and old-fashioned. What if his friends were very smart?

  From the seafront Peter drove down one street, and turned into another, then another. They all looked alike, with rows and rows of the kind of houses Kaisa had seen from the aeroplane. The street names were displayed on white signs attached to low brick walls. Peter stopped on a tree-lined street and said, ‘We’re here!’

  The door to the house was ajar. Peter took Kaisa’s hand and led her inside. ‘Wait here,’ he said. Kaisa stood in a shabby-looking room with a worn-out sofa, a large TV and a stereo with speakers on either side. A stack of LPs stood on the floor. A wooden staircase next to a narrow hall had a strip of carpet on it. Peter leapt up the stairs taking two or three steps at a time.

  A guy with light-coloured hair in a faded T-shirt walked in from the dark, narrow hallway. He was barefoot. ‘You must be the Finnish girlfriend.’

  Kaisa took his outstretched hand and smiled. ‘Jeff,’ he said and grinned at Kaisa. Jeff was followed by a shorter man with tidy dark hair and clothes, whose girlfriend came in too. She had short sandy-coloured hair and dark eyes. Oliver and Sandra both smiled and shook Kaisa’s hand too.

  Peter tumbled down the stairs. ‘Here you all are.’ They stood in a circle and for a while no one spoke.

  ‘I’ll show you my room,’ Peter finally said. His friends sniggered until the English girl, Sandra, looked sternly at them. Kaisa was very embarrassed but allowed herself to be led up the stairs.

  * * *

  During the two weeks Kaisa spent in the UK in the late summer of 1981, the sun never stopped shining and the music never stopped playing. At first Radio One sounded very American to her; all laughter and superficial chatter. But it played the hits she didn’t even know to crave in Finland. The station was the only one Peter listened to in his car or in the terraced house in Southsea. He sang along, ‘Every little thing she does is magic, magic, magic’, or ‘I’m just a jealous guy’.

  Halfway through the first week of Kaisa’s stay in England Peter drove her to the country to see his parents. She wore the now familiar Red Sox cap to keep her hair in place in his yellow sp
orts car.

  ‘How far is it?’ Kaisa asked when they pulled into a large-looking town called Salisbury.

  Peter must have noticed the nervous note in Kaisa’s voice, because he squeezed her thigh and smiled. ‘I’ll let you know when we’re ten minutes away.’

  The image of Kaisa’s ex-fiancé’s mother flashed in front of her eyes as they sped past green fields. She thought about what Matti’s mother had said to her during that awful telephone conversation. Kaisa looked sideways at Peter. He looked tanned and relaxed, holding the wheel with one hand, his elbow resting on the open window. Surely a nice guy like him would also have a nice mother, Kaisa thought.

  Instead of thinking about meeting the parents, she sat back and tried to enjoy the scenery. Peter drove past wooded hills and valleys, where the trees hung over the road, nearly touching the top of their heads. After Salisbury there were small villages with pretty gingerbread houses. Kaisa felt as if she was a character in a TV drama or an old English film. Her head spun with images from Coronation Street and Mary Poppins, both of which she’d seen in Finland. Kaisa expected a nanny with a large black umbrella to emerge at any moment from one of the chimneys stacked on top of the red-brick houses.

  Peter’s mother was attending to a flower-bed outside a pink house. She gave a little laugh as she kissed her son and shook Kaisa’s hand.

  ‘Hello, so nice to meet you at last.’

  She had short greying hair arranged in an old-fashioned hairdo and large-framed glasses. She didn’t look as scary as Matti’s mother; still Kaisa wanted to be careful. She didn’t want to upset her from the start, so she just smiled and said as little as possible.

  It was Wednesday lunchtime and Peter’s father was still at work. Wearing an apron, his mother cooked home-made chips and served them with thick slices of ham. Peter and Kaisa ate in a large kitchen overlooking a green lawn. Peter and his mother chatted about what the two of them had done during Kaisa’s two days in Portsmouth. She wanted to know when Kaisa had arrived and when she was going home. She raised an eyebrow when she heard Kaisa lived alone in a flat in Helsinki. Kaisa wondered if she knew Kaisa’s parents were divorced.

  ‘I’ve put you in the blue room.’ She lifted her eyes towards her son. ‘And you can sleep in the yellow one.’

  It was like a scene from Jane Austen. Kaisa didn’t dare look at Peter. She thought about his bedroom back in Southsea. On his wall he had a large poster of a girl playing tennis, showing her bare bottom. He also had a Pirelli calendar with scantily-clad women on every page. What would his mother say if she saw them?

  Peter’s father was a charming man with a mop of white hair. When he came home his piercing dark eyes fixed on Kaisa.

  ‘Hello,’ he said simply, but smiled when he shook her hand and nodded as if to show her his approval.

  He put on an LP of Sibelius in the long lounge, which had a green velour three-piece suite. He told Kaisa to sit down on the sofa and said how he admired the Finnish soldiers in the Winter War. ‘Brave men. You stood up to the Russians, eh?’

  That evening Peter took Kaisa out to a pub in a pretty village called Lacock. The place was dark, with low rustic beams. They sat around a large unlit fireplace and chatted to Peter’s schoolfriends. They gave Kaisa furtive glances and were surprised she could speak English.

  Late in the evening, as they tiptoed into the darkened house, Peter kissed Kaisa softly and said, ‘I’ll come into your room in the morning when my parents have gone to work.’

  During the days in Wiltshire Peter took Kaisa to Stourhead. He said it was prettier in May when the rhododendrons were in bloom. She couldn’t see how those gardens with deep ponds and sweeping lawns could look any more beautiful. He also took her to Longleat, where they wandered hand in hand through the ancient manor house. And they spent a day in Bath. Kaisa fell in love with the Roman Baths, the Georgian architecture and the smart shopping streets. Cautiously she wondered if one day she might live there.

  At the end of the visit, when Kaisa thanked Peter’s mother, she said. ‘It’s my pleasure dear. I try look after all the girlfriends my son brings home.’

  Peter laughed nervously.

  On the drive back to Portsmouth Kaisa looked at Peter’s handsome profile. He was negotiating a large roundabout. How many girlfriends had there been, she wondered. Did his mother want to warn her? Was Kaisa taking this relationship too seriously; more seriously than Peter? Perhaps all the sightseeing, the introductions to various friends and the love letters were something he did all the time. He certainly seemed practised at making a girl feel special. For once, when the car sped up and the fast rushing of the wind made it impossible to talk, Kaisa was grateful. She was too busy to stop the tears from smudging her make-up.

  * * *

  Peter looked over to Kaisa, sitting there next to him. Her head was held high and she hadn’t said a word since they left home. Peter wanted a cigarette, but it was impossible to smoke at this speed with the roof down. He still remembered when, at just seventeen, in his first car, a Mini, he’d flicked a cigarette stub out of the window. A gust of wind had brought it right back and it had nearly burned his crotch. He was more careful with smoking in his car after that. They were coming into Salisbury and the traffic made him stop the car. He glanced over to Kaisa and touched her thigh.

  ‘You OK?’

  She turned briefly and nodded, but didn’t say anything. So she was upset. Shit. What had his mum been thinking? Perhaps she was trying to tell him that he was too young to settle down? Of course that was true – besides he had no intention of that, and neither had Kaisa. As far as he knew. Peter was glad when they cleared the town with its endless roundabouts and were once again speeding along the A31. Once they were back in Portsmouth, he’d take her into his arms and tell her how much he loved her; she’d be alright. Just the thought of what he’d do to Kaisa later made his groin move.

  * * *

  Now and then during Kaisa’s last week in the UK, the words of Peter’s mother – ‘all of my son’s girlfriends’ – rang in her ears. But as soon as Peter took her into his arms, or just touched her, she convinced herself there was nothing to worry about. After all, Kaisa had been engaged to be married when they met. Peter too could have had serious girlfriends before her.

  Besides, during the two weeks Kaisa was in England, Peter seemed to want to show Kaisa everything about his country. For her last weekend he took Kaisa to visit his older brother and his wife near London.

  ‘I hear you were put in separate bedrooms in Wiltshire,’ Simon said and smiled. Kaisa blushed but was relieved they’d decided Kaisa and Peter were old enough to sleep together in the guest room of the semi-detached house in Surrey.

  Simon had the same dark features, but was a little shorter than Peter and his hair had gone grey around the temples. Kaisa knew he was ten years older than Peter. His wife, Miriam, a wiry woman with cropped brown hair, kissed Kaisa warmly on both cheeks. ‘You must be hungry,’ she said and led Kaisa into the kitchen, where four plates, topped up to the rim with ham and salad, were ready to be served.

  As a surprise Peter had booked seats at the English National Opera.

  ‘I’ve never been, so you must tell me all about it,’ he said when they were drinking gin and tonics in the bar. They’d discussed Kaisa’s love of opera in their letters. Kaisa’s mother had taken her and her sister, Sirkka, to see Tosca in Stockholm when Kaisa was only eleven years old. On that night she’d fallen in love with Italian opera. The tragic circumstances of Mimi in La Bohème, Violetta in La Traviata, or Tosca spoke to Kaisa in a way no modern film or TV series could. In Helsinki the opera house was so tiny, it was hard to get tickets. And she was always broke.

  Kaisa squeezed Peter’s hand as the lights dimmed and the first notes of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo were played. It was as if Peter had wanted her to fall in love with him again. He could not have given Kaisa a better gift than that of live opera.

  On Sunday, the day before her flight back to Helsinki, P
eter had planned a picnic in Hyde Park. It was a windy but sunny day. Before lunch he drove Kaisa around the sights. The streets of London were quiet. She took pictures of Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace from the passenger seat of the little yellow Spitfire. It felt like a dream to see places and buildings Kaisa had only ever read about, especially after a night when music had flooded all her senses and, at the end of the evening, Peter had looked her in the eyes and said, ‘You’ve no idea how much I love you.’ He kissed Kaisa long and hard. They’d been standing on a platform at Piccadilly Circus Tube station. ‘I love everything about you,’ he whispered into Kaisa’s ear. She melted into his arms and tried not to think about how they had less than forty-eight hours left before they had to part again.

  In Hyde Park they spread a blanket under a large elm. A few young boys were playing football in the distance. The vast lawns were incredibly green and even. Peter’s efficient sister-in-law had prepared a picnic of sandwiches neatly cut into triangles and arranged into a Tupperware dish. There was a Thermos of tea and one of coffee. The cheese in the sandwiches was strong Cheddar, the pickle vinegary and salty, the ham too fatty. The weak, milky coffee was made out of instant granules. Like most Finns, Kaisa liked black, strong, percolated coffee. But she would have drunk snake’s blood if she could have lived in the same country as Peter. It was just that, whenever she was close to him, Kaisa had no appetite. Especially when time was ticking so fast.

  Lying on the blanket next to Peter, Kaisa tried not to think about the future, although this was the last day they had together. They’d not been able to make plans for the next meeting. Peter had no idea about his schedule in the Navy, Kaisa knew that much. But when he gave her a kiss and whispered hoarsely into her ear, ‘I’m going to miss you so much!’ Kaisa couldn’t wait any longer. She took a deep breath and said, ‘So, what are we going to do? About the future, I mean.’