by Helena Halme
Kaisa shook her head, ‘Working in the same office as mum? You must be joking.’
Sirkka returned her smile, ‘It’s vast, their HQ in Espoo. You might never see her!’
‘All the same. I think I’ll find something myself.’
‘There’s a girl.’ Sirkka yawned again and looked down at her hands.
They were quiet for a moment. The noise from a tram trundling past the block of flats broke the silence between them. Kaisa noticed for the first time that there were faint lines around her sister’s eyes and mouth. We are getting older, she thought. We’re no longer the youngest girls in the disco, the most fresh-faced and fashionable in a bar.
‘There is something else.’ Sirkka sighed and lifted her blue eyes to Kaisa.
‘What?’ Suddenly Kaisa thought about money. Of course, her sister needs her to pay rent! ‘Look, as soon as I get a job, I’ll pay you …’
Sirkka smiled down at her hands and shook her head. ‘No, you can stay here as long as you like, it’s not that!’
‘So …’
Sirkka took a deep breath in, and lifted her eyes to Kaisa once more. ‘Matti has been asking after you.’
‘What?’ Kaisa couldn’t help but raise her voice.
Sirkka took Kaisa’s hand into hers once more. ‘Look, he comes into the hotel from time to time. I can’t stop him now, can I?’ she said quickly, and added, ‘and tonight, he asked me about you.’
‘How …?’
Sirkka leaned closer to Kaisa. ‘It’s a small town, and you know he lives quite nearby.’
Kaisa’s sister told her how on one night months ago, Matti, Kaisa’s ex-fiancé, had turned up at the hotel where Sirkka was working. She’d been helping out in the bar because one of the waitresses had been ill, when she had suddenly been faced with Matti.
‘You can imagine, I nearly had a bloody heart attack!’ Sirkka said and smiled, but seeing Kaisa’s straight face, she continued to tell her that they’d exchanged a few words. Sirkka had told him how she and Pirjo had moved back to Helsinki.
‘He’s still as annoying as ever,’ Sirkka said, ‘telling me that he was glad we’d come to our senses and returned to the motherland. He sounded like our father.’
Kaisa couldn’t believe her ears, or rather she struggled to hear Sirkka’s words.
‘Anyway, since then he’s been in a few more times, and he always makes a point of saying hello, whether I’m in reception, the restaurant, the bar or wherever. He comes by on his way home from work.’
Kaisa had a terrible thought. She looked at her sister’s face, ‘Surely you’re not?’
Sirkka laughed, ‘Oh God, no! Kaisa, for goodness sake, I’m not that desperate!’
Kaisa felt bad, and took hold of her sister’s hand. ‘Sorry, I’m being impossible. Tell, me what did he say about me?’
Sirkka sighed. ‘Well … he’d seen you on the street, I don’t know when. As I said, it’s a small town and he must drive past our block of flats every day. He just wanted to know how you were. He seemed genuinely concerned.’
Kaisa gazed at her sister’s face. ‘What did you tell him?’ she asked even though she knew the answer.
Sirkka looked down at her hands again, ‘I’m sorry, I blurted it out before I knew what I was doing. I get so busy at the hotel, you know, and …’
‘It’s OK,’ Kaisa said.
‘Anyway, he says he’s got something of yours he wants to give back.’
* * *
In bed that night Kaisa couldn’t sleep. She tried not to think about what Sirkka had told her about Matti. It was just too much.
But after the chat with her sister, Kaisa knew she had to work harder to take charge of her life. It was funny how their roles had changed, she thought. Whilst studying in Hanken, and being engaged to be married to Matti, Kaisa had seemed the one who had a plan in place for the rest of her life. Sirkka, after a string of unsuitable boyfriends, and even after getting her qualification as Maitre d’Hotel, hadn’t settled in one job, or one place, but had flitted between Lapland, Helsinki and Stockholm, never wanting to set down roots anywhere. Apart from the mysterious man in Lapland, whom Sirkka rarely spoke of, there didn’t seem to be any other boyfriends, unsuitable or not, on the horizon. Again, Kaisa felt a pang of guilt; her preoccupation with her new life in England had made her selfish and ignorant of the lives of her family and friends. Now both her friend Tuuli and her sister Sirkka were getting on with their careers and appeared to be so much more in control of their love lives, too. To think she’d been the one with a clear head about what she wanted out of life!
Just look at her now. She had no idea if there still was a marriage to be saved with Peter. She had no idea what he was thinking. She had fled Scotland and left Peter to fend for himself, when it was her who had caused his present troubles. And now Matti wanted to meet her. Tossing and turning in bed, Kaisa thought how she had used Peter to disentangle herself from Matti, and how she had never really explained to Matti why she couldn’t be with him anymore. Kaisa thought back to her behaviour after she’d met and fallen head-over-heels in love with Peter. Had she even told Matti that it hadn’t merely been Peter, or meeting another man, that had made her relationship with him impossible? Had she ever told him that she’d been doubting their engagement even before she met Peter, worried about their seven-year age gap, and how young she had been, only fifteen, when they’d first made love? She knew she’d never told him how his domineering mother had made her feel trapped and inadequate. She shuddered when she remembered those long weekends in the cottage by the lake, when she had spent hours standing in the hot, stuffy kitchen preparing food and washing up, while Matti sat reading a newspaper or one of his firearms magazines in the shade of the porch outside. Whatever the rights and wrongs of their relationship, surely Matti deserved to know why she had ended it so abruptly? She decided to phone the number her sister had given her and agree to meet him. But as Kaisa thought about what she would say to him, she realised she couldn’t imagine facing her ex-fiancé now. Now that she had another failed relationship behind her. Now that she had abandoned another man. Betrayed another man with someone else. Oh God, it was as if there was a string of men lying in Kaisa’s wake, men whom she had betrayed and stopped loving. Perhaps there was something wrong with her?
* * *
Matti was already sitting at a table at the far end of the café when Kaisa arrived. It was a smallish place on Runeberg Street where, Kaisa remembered, they would sometimes have coffee and cake after a film in the Adlon cinema next door. As she walked past the small movie theatre, Kaisa saw it was closing down and felt a surge of melancholy. She remembered the last film they’d seen there – Autumn Sonata by Ingmar Bergman. It was about a complicated relationship between a mother and daughter, and Kaisa recalled that while she had loved the film, Matti hadn’t liked it at all. Afterwards they’d sat in this same café, not talking, after Kaisa had – in vain, as it turned out – tried to convey the brilliance of Ingrid Bergman’s performance as the famous concert pianist mother, and how good Liv Ullman had been as the long-suffering daughter.
The café hadn’t changed; it was still a dark room, starkly furnished with small black round tables and French-style chairs with curved backs. There was a large window overlooking the street, and Matti must have been watching her walk up to the door, because he was looking straight at Kaisa when she entered. He was standing by a table in the far corner, and when Kaisa reached him, she was surprised to find he was a lot shorter than Peter. She knew he was only slightly taller than her, but the difference seemed significant now. He still had the dark hair, though she noticed it was thinning a little at the top. Kaisa couldn’t believe she had spent so many years with this man. He seemed like a stranger to her now. And he was so much older. Kaisa did a quick calculation and realised he would be 31. The age her mother had been when they all moved to Sweden! It seemed inconceivable to her that she’d kissed and made love to him. Kaisa shuddered at the memory of their life together.
Matti’s grip on her hand was firm, and warm, but Kaisa removed her fingers from his as soon as politely possible.
‘I haven’t ordered anything yet,’ Matti said. ‘Would you like a cake, or a cinnamon bun?’ His unsmiling eyes were steady on Kaisa and she wondered if he was still angry at her. Suddenly she remembered that you could never tell with him unless he was really enraged, when his brown pupils would expand and his cheeks would get a slightly flustered pink hue.
Kaisa looked at the counter a few tables away, and spotted some Aleksanterinleivos, her favourite jam-filled cake with pink icing, in the glass cabinet.
Matti offered to go and get the cakes and coffees, and while he was safely out of the way, Kaisa removed her coat. She’d thought long and hard about what to wear to this awful meeting that she didn’t really want to have, and had eventually decided on a cream jumper and jeans. She certainly didn’t want to wear anything sexy, or feminine. Now she remembered that Matti hated jeans, but it was too late. Besides, she could wear what she liked. Her heart raced and she felt dampness in her armpits under the jumper. She sat down and tried to calm herself. She suddenly remembered that Sirkka had said Matti had something for her. What could it be? She tried to smile when she saw Matti walk towards her with the tray of coffees and cakes. He, too, had chosen an Aleksanterinleivos.
‘So, you’re back in Finland,’ Matti said while he was munching on the sweet cake. He glanced pointedly at her left hand where she still wore her engagement and wedding rings.
‘Yes, but I’ll be going back soon.’ Kaisa was surprised at her own lie, but she didn’t want to give Matti the satisfaction of thinking her marriage was over. She began fiddling with her rings, turning the diamonds the right way up. ‘Peter is away at sea, so I thought I might as well come over and stay with my sister and mother for a while.’
Matti had stopped eating. Another thing Kaisa had forgotten was how straight he held his back, even when sitting down. Even here in a café, enjoying a cake, he was behaving as though he was on some army parade ground. He now looked at Kaisa and said, ‘That’s not what your sister told me.’
‘Really?’ Kaisa tried to keep her voice level, but she heard the shrill tone. She couldn’t look at Matti.
‘Sirkka thinks you’re getting a divorce,’ Matti said and touched Kaisa’s hand.
Eight
That night in bed Kaisa cried, silently without waking Sirkka. Her sister had been working late, and when she came in around midnight Kaisa had pretended to be asleep. She couldn’t believe Sirkka had actually told Matti about her troubles. She had no right!
But Matti knowing about her separation, however temporary, hadn’t been the worst of it.
Kaisa couldn’t believe how stupid she had been. She thought of how in love – or lust – she must have been to have done what Matti had asked her. And how even more stupid to have forgotten, or pretended to have forgotten, about the existence of the photographs. A cold wave had run through her body when Matti had brought out the worn-out yellow folder and handed it to her.
‘I have a new girl now, so I thought you’d like to have these back,’ he’d said, grinning. ‘She’s sixteen. Innocent and pure just like you were.’
Kaisa hadn’t listened to Matti as he told her about this new conquest. As if in a dream, she saw him lift the flap and look at the first photo in a stack of some ten, fifteen prints. In the photo, Kaisa was lying on a bed, in her old room in the small flat in Lauttasaari that Pirjo had rented after the divorce from Kaisa’s father. Kaisa was naked, apart from a pink silk scarf tied around her small waist, and lying on her tummy. Her upper body was lifted, with her arm supporting her head, revealing her small, pert breasts, her pink nipples echoing the colour of the scarf. Her expression, looking straight at the camera, was the same she’d seen on the sex magazines she’d so eagerly, but with a huge feeling of shame, studied while working at the R-Kiosk the summer she’d been seduced by Matti. Her face showed pure lust. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it was what was showing in the lower half of her body. Her bottom was slightly lifted, and with her left knee pulled towards her tummy, Matti behind the camera had had an uninterrupted view of her most private parts from behind.
In the café, Kaisa had quickly put the photos away, and buried the packet deep inside her handbag. Soon after this she’d left, trying to stop the tears of shame just behind her eye sockets.
She now remembered vividly the day Matti had convinced her to pose for the photos. He’d been telling her how beautiful she was, like a model, and during a weekend when both her sister and mother were away, they had spent the whole two days in bed. Matti had taught Kaisa things she’d never heard of, how she could satisfy him, but also herself. Something inside of her had flipped; she’d been a different person, she’d imagined herself as one of the women in those magazines, full of lust, just thinking about how best to be fucked, how best to suck, lick and bite to arouse Matti, her new grown-up boyfriend. All she had wanted to do was to please him, and pleasing him had felt good. When Matti had brought out the camera, she had felt even more aroused, and had done everything he had asked of her; posed in every way he had wanted her to. Even the scarf had been his idea.
Afterwards, during the four years they spent together, Kaisa had felt embarrassed each time Matti had shown her the photos, which he kept in a locked drawer in his bedroom. Once, as a joke, he’d said, ‘You shouldn’t be ashamed, they’re so good they should be in a magazine.’
Kaisa had been horrified and had made him promise never to show them to anyone.
How could she have forgotten about their existence?
Now, lying in bed she knew that if she was honest with herself, she hadn’t forgotten, but with the love she felt for Peter, the love that was so different from anything she’d ever felt for Matti, she’d stopped thinking about them. The idea of asking Matti to give the photos back, or even of discussing them with him, was so repulsive that she’d let it be, hoping he – in his rage – would have destroyed them himself.
That was obviously not what had happened. Kaisa felt sick thinking that he would have been looking at them during all the years she’d been with Peter. She felt violated by Matti. Thinking back, she had been so young, barely sixteen when the photos had been taken. Whereas Matti had seemed like a grown-up, at 23. He’d certainly been more experienced, in sex, as in everything else. Had he taken the photos as some kind of insurance, to have something hanging over her if she changed her mind and didn’t marry him after all? Kaisa shook her head. No, if nothing else Matti was honourable. Besides, surely he would have used them against her when she fell for Peter? And why give them back to her now? Suddenly Kaisa thought of something. He had given her the prints, but what about the negatives? Were they tucked inside the sleeve of the packet as they sometimes were? With her heart thumping, Kaisa got out of bed, picked up her handbag, and tiptoed into the kitchen.
She found the packet, took out the photos, and not wishing to look at them, turned them face down on the kitchen table. She spread the photos, feeling between them, but there was nothing there. Next her fingers searched through the paper sleeve, looking for a strip of black film, but there was nothing inside the envelope, and the see-through pocket on the side of the packet was empty. The negatives had been taken out.
* * *
After the discovery of the missing negatives, Kaisa hardly slept. She lay awake, trying to make herself have sweet dreams by thinking of other things, of Peter, and how wonderful their love-making had been. But it seemed he no longer loved her. Rather than cry, again, and feel helpless, she suddenly realised, in the dead of night, that she must take charge of her own life. Never again would she be taken advantage of in the way Matti had, and even Peter had, not understanding how difficult life as a Navy wife would be for her. Hadn�
�t he just left her to it, expecting her to cope with his absences, and the different language, culture and people in Britain, on her own? Always just worrying about his own career, not taking into account her ambitions for a meaningful job of her own?
Kaisa still loved Peter, she knew that, and she also knew she’d do almost anything for him, but she also needed to live her own life. She decided she’d start applying for jobs in earnest, and find a place to live. She’d stop waiting for a letter from Peter, and ask Tuuli if there were any jobs in the bank where she worked. She needed to get out of Sirkka’s flat, and out of this area, where she might bump into Matti any day. Kaisa turned over and punched her pillow hard. She had wanted to scream at Sirkka for talking to him; for telling him anything about her present life. She wanted to go back in time and not be so stupid as to agree to be photographed naked and full of lust. But she couldn’t. What would Sirkka have done in a similar situation? Not that she could imagine her in a similar situation. Apart from one boyfriend, who always drank too much, Sirkka kept in touch with all her exes. For Kaisa, just seeing Matti in the flesh was repulsive. Besides, her current situation would bring nothing but pleasure to her ex-fiancé. Hadn’t he predicted as much when she’d left him for the Englishman?
‘It won’t last,’ he’d said when he’d phoned her the last time. She’d still been living in the flat in Lauttasaari, the small apartment belonging to Matti’s aunt, which Kaisa had eventually been unable to afford. She’d spent all her small student loan on expensive telephone calls to England, mooning over Peter’s letters and failing her exams, so much so that the university had stopped her grant.
Kaisa opened her eyes and looked at the shadows the streetlights painted on the wall of the darkened room. This had to stop. She would have to stop running her life according to the men in her life. The thought sent a current through her body. She flung off the duvet and sat bolt upright in bed. She listened to see if Sirkka was asleep in the room next door, and heard the faint sounds of steady, sleepy breathing. Slowly, so as not to wake Sirkka, she got out of bed again and tiptoed into the kitchen. She shut the door gently behind her and in the light coming from the streetlamp outside wrote on the notepad that her sister kept for shopping lists: