The Good Heart

by Helena Halme

  When the wine was finished, Tom asked if she’d like to move to the sofa in the large main living area. He locked his eyes with Kaisa’s and she nodded. She knew what was about to happen, as did he.

  Tom put some music on his brand-new record player. The steely stack of equipment stood alone in one corner of the room. When Kaisa saw him open up the cover of Faces, by Earth, Wind and Fire, her heart beat faster. The first track transported her back five years to the first time Peter had come back to Helsinki to see her, and they’d listened to almost nothing else. Perhaps if Kaisa had said something then, had told Tom to choose another record, things could have been different.

  While the first track played, Tom came to sit next to Kaisa and started to kiss her again. Trying to push the music and memories of Peter away, she pressed her lips against Tom’s. He slid his hand underneath her mohair jumper, and started to fondle her breasts. Kaisa hadn’t worn a bra on purpose. She wanted Tom to see that she was prepared to go to bed with him. Under her jeans, she was wearing a pair of lacy French knickers. Earlier, getting dressed in Sirkka’s flat, she’d considered wearing a skirt with stockings and suspenders, but thought that would be over the top. She didn’t want to appear too prepared, or too easy. Besides, the weather had been awful all day, with a combination of rain and sleet beating down the windows in the small flat in Töölö. Kaisa couldn’t afford a taxi all the way to Ullanlinna, and would have frozen to death waiting for the tram in such skimpy underwear.

  She felt a pleasant excitement from Tom’s hands exploring her body, and for a moment, Kaisa relaxed. Tom pulled away, gazed at her eyes and silently led her to his bed – a mezzanine built into one end of the large room. Not letting go of her hand, he coaxed her gently up the wooden ladder. Once there, he pulled his T-shirt over his head and took his jeans and pants off.

  Kaisa gazed at Tom’s muscular torso, not daring to look down. Not yet. Instead, she too pulled off her jumper and jeans.

  ‘Nice,’ Tom said when he saw her knickers.

  But when Kaisa moved her eyes down from Tom’s handsome face and broad chest, she was surprised to see that he wasn’t ready.

  ‘Just play with me for a bit,’ Tom said in a hoarse voice, and Kaisa did, but there was no change. She kissed him on his lips, moving to his neck and chest, but Tom pulled her up again and hugged her, ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  * * *

  While Kaisa had been up in Tom’s flat, the temperature in Helsinki had dropped again and a blanket of fresh snow covered the city. It muffled all sound and made the streets artificially quiet. As Kaisa waited for the tram on Tehtaankatu, she felt as if she was in a magical place. This was in such contrast to the embarrassing events of just a moment before, adding to the weird times she felt she was living through. In the tram, her sense of being an actor in a surrealist play continued. The streetlights along South Harbour cast a magical glow against the white landscape as the tram trundled past the now empty market square and towards the imposing view of Helsinki Cathedral. Sitting in the empty tram on the way home, viewing the impossibly beautiful snowy scene, she wondered what had gone wrong with Tom. They had both vowed not to breathe a word to anyone about what had happened, but she now thought she must have done something wrong. Perhaps if she’d asked him to speak Italian to her, things would have gone differently. With everything that had happened to her in the past few weeks, she knew she’d been tense, and perhaps Tom had sensed that.

  In a way Kaisa was relieved. She realised going to bed with Tom wouldn’t have helped. It would only have made her more confused, would only have complicated her life further. What on earth had she been thinking?

  * * *

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Tuuli exclaimed. ‘But good for you for facing up to him. Let’s just hope he is as honourable as he always made out and gives you back the negatives.’ She clinked her glass with Kaisa’s and they both laughed. Although Kaisa had no desire to laugh.

  Kaisa had decided to tell Tuuli about the photographs. Or rather, the words just tumbled out of her while they shared a bottle of wine in Tuuli’s minimalist apartment in Töölö. Her friend asked how she was and what she’d been up to. It was almost too good a story not to share, although Kaisa still felt the shame of her behaviour. How had she been so stupid to let Matti take those images?

  ‘It was terrible. He was so smug with his Russian fur hat and army posture.’ Kaisa said.

  They both laughed again, and Tuuli poured Kaisa more wine.

  ‘It’s good to have you back,’ she said, and examining her friend’s face, added, ‘I always wondered what you saw in him.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I was young and with my parents’ divorce, I guess he was a father figure.’

  Tuuli nodded and grew serious. Again they were quiet for a while. Kaisa looked around the small flat. It was a studio, with one large room, a separate kitchenette and an alcove, which was entirely taken up by Tuuli’s bed. In the hall, there was a small bathroom. It was exactly the kind of place Kaisa wanted. It had high ceilings, and the window in the living room overlooked an internal courtyard, formed by two L-shaped 1950s stone buildings. Although the flat was close to the tram, and the main Helsinki thoroughfare, Mannerheim Street, none of the traffic noise reached this side of the block. Tuuli had bought the place six months earlier, and she’d told Kaisa the mortgage was killing her. That was the reason for the sparse decoration, Kaisa supposed, but she loved the simple style; there was a standard lamp, a small desk and one print hanging above the sofa – the same sofa Tuuli had in the flat she’d rented during her studies at Hanken. Her old apartment was just a few streets away. Kaisa remembered the place – and the sofa – where she’d crashed so many times after missing the last bus to her own place in Lauttasaari, or later Espoo, the commuter town West of Helsinki, when she was living with her father. The walls were white and a single piece of light fabric hung on one side of the window. Venetian blinds fitted inside the triple-glazed windows, a standard feature in all flats and houses in Finland. Curtains were just for decoration here – unlike in Britain, Kaisa thought, where you needed heavy drapes to keep out the light and noise, not to mention the chill from drafty windows.

  ‘I’m pleased to see you still have the same sofa,’ she said and smiled at Tuuli.

  The two friends began to talk about ‘the good old times’ when they were studying at Hanken, before Kaisa married Peter and left Helsinki for Portsmouth.

  ‘So what’s really going on with you and Ricky,’ Kaisa said. Tuuli was a very private person and although they told each other everything, Kaisa always felt Tuuli was more reticent than she was. Kaisa felt another pang of guilt; she hadn’t written to Tuuli many times during her short marriage. Again, she’d been too self-obsessed to think about her friends. That must stop now, Kaisa thought as she waited for her friend to open up.

  ‘I told you, we have occasional sex!’ Now Tuuli giggled.

  ‘And you aren’t hooked on him?’

  Tuuli took a large gulp of wine, ‘No!’ she exclaimed, but Kaisa wasn’t convinced. She knew that Tuuli had been hurt badly by a boy in their second year at Hanken, just when Kaisa’s relationship with Peter had got more serious and he’d asked her to marry him. Although they never discussed it, Kaisa knew Tuuli was afraid the same thing would happen to her again.

  ‘He looks pretty smitten with you,’ Kaisa now said.

  Tuuli grew serious, ‘You think so?’

  Kaisa nodded.

  ‘Hmm,’ Tuuli said and added, ‘No more talk of old flames, what about we go out this weekend and don’t go to the Helsinki Club afterwards?’

  Kaisa smiled and agreed; nothing would convince Tuuli that men were trustworthy. Perhaps she was right.

  ‘But before we drop the old flames altogether; what about you. How did your date with Tom go?’ Tuuli said, and nudged Kaisa’s knee with her toe.

  Again Kaisa found it impossible to keep a secret from Tuuli. And so, making her friend swear to secrecy, she recounted her disastrous attempt
to have sex with Tom.

  ‘Wow, that’s a surprise!’ Tuuli said, but now she wasn’t laughing.

  ‘Remember you mustn’t tell anyone, especially Ricky!’ Kaisa said.

  Tuuli grew even more serious, ‘Of course I won’t!’

  ‘It was so embarrassing,’ Kaisa said. ‘It seems he doesn’t fancy me after all, if he can’t even get it up.’

  Tuuli looked at her friend, and leaned over to touch her arm. ‘Kaisa, you must know that had nothing to do with you! It’s his problem. Probably just all that drinking they did in Hanken.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Kaisa said, but she knew she didn’t sound convincing, because she wasn’t even convincing herself.

  Thirteen

  Sirkka and Kaisa got off the bus near a cluster of newly built high-rise houses. To get to the suburb of Soukka in Espoo, they’d taken the tram to the bus station in the centre of town, and then a coach. Sitting in the bus, Kaisa had been flooded with painful memories of the time she lived with her father. Not that it’d all been unhappy, but for the most part she’d been desperate to finish her studies. She’d longed for Peter, and had been fearful of her father’s sudden mood changes. Her father could be pleasant to be with, or a drunken bear with a sore head. She’d never know which version of him she’d find at home.

  ‘I can’t believe he’s still living in Espoo,’ Kaisa said, as they made their way past a children’s playground, a covered cycle store, rubbish bins and the traditional carpet airing stand common to all blocks of flats in Finland. The developers had left a rocky mound in the middle of the utilitarian looking houses, where a couple of boys were climbing up and down a slippery rock. Kaisa was transported back to her own childhood; she remembered how she often played alone in the small courtyard outside their block of flats in Tampere.

  This was Sirkka’s second visit to the four-bedroomed flat that their father had bought with his girlfriend, Marja, a few months back.

  ‘And I can’t believe Marja is still with him,’ Kaisa added.

  Sirkka said nothing. Inside the block of flats, they entered the lift and Sirkka pressed 10 for the top floor.

  But as they waited for the lift to make its way up the many floors, she looked gravely at Kaisa. ‘He’s very keen to see you.’

  ‘Really?’ Kaisa said. Sirkka had changed her tune, she thought. She’d always been the one to be the most critical of their father. For many years the two hadn’t seen each other, so Kaisa had been surprised when Sirkka had not only suggested going to see their father and his girlfriend on Sunday but also admitted that she’d been there once before.

  ‘He just called on me at work one day and asked me to come over the following Sunday,’ Sirkka had told Kaisa.

  ‘And you just went?’ Kaisa had asked.

  ‘Yes, well, I like Marja, besides, I was curious.’ Sirkka had regarded Kaisa for a while. ‘He was OK, you know. Since the accident he’s been a lot more … I don’t know, softer somehow.’

  Kaisa remembered being told about the accident the previous winter. His car had veered off the icy Lauttasaari Bridge. She’d not even contacted him afterwards. Again, Kaisa felt she’d been selfish. But she’d still been angry with him for trying to stop her mother from attending her wedding to Peter. In the end, Kaisa’s refusal to bar Pirjo had led to her mother paying for the wedding instead. The person absent from the reception had been her father. He’d come to the church, but her uncle had given Kaisa away, not him. How could one forgive a father that?

  * * *

  Kaisa’s heart was beating hard and she noticed that her palms were damp when she and Sirkka rang the bell outside her father’s flat. The hall smelled of fresh paint. The bell didn’t make any sound, so after a few minutes, Sirkka knocked on the door instead. Almost immediately, Marja opened the door. She flung her arms open and hugged the two girls hard. Kaisa was unprepared for the gesture and could feel her body tense.

  ‘Come in, step in,’ Marja said. She was wearing one of Kaisa’s old jumpers. When she saw Kaisa looking at it, she said, ‘Oh, you remember this?’ She pulled at the picture of a deer, rendered with old-fashioned stitching on the front. Kaisa remembered that she’d bought the jumper at Hennes and Mauritz in Stockholm during one of the trips Sirkka and Kaisa had made to their old home town when they were first living in Finland. That was at least ten years ago. Before she left for Britain, she’d filled a bag with old clothes for the Salvation Army, which Marja had promised to deliver to the charity.

  ‘This was such a great jumper, I couldn’t give it away. I decided to keep it for myself. So many of the clothes that you discarded were perfectly fine! Waste not, want not,’ she said and opened a door into a large living room.

  Kaisa was so surprised by this thinly veiled criticism of her spendthrift ways that she said nothing. She turned to face Sirkka, raising her eyebrows. Her sister made a face, crossing her eyes and pursing her lips. Kaisa stifled a giggle, and followed Marja.

  Her father was sitting in one of the large comfy chairs she remembered from their old house. He was wearing dark navy cords and a navy jumper with a light blue Marimekko shirt underneath. These were the clothes Kaisa had helped him choose when she was still living in Lauttasaari. Kaisa could see he had lost weight. He looked tanned, and combined with the colour of the shirt, his eyes seemed bluer. There was a healthy glow about him. He opened his arms and Kaisa rushed to hug him. Swallowed by her father’s bear hug, Kaisa let her body relax. She fought back tears, sensing the old feeling of security that her father’s embraces had given her as a child. When he eventually released her and hugged Sirkka in turn, Kaisa stepped aside and, turning her head so that Marja’s beady eyes couldn’t see, wiped the corners of her eyes with her fingers.

  Marja had prepared coffee with bread, cheese, gravad lax and ham for them. But before they were allowed to tuck into the spread, proudly presented by Marja, their father showed his daughters the various rooms in the large apartment. The rectangular lounge overlooked a wooded landscape and had a glimpse of the sea on the far horizon. The rays of the early spring sun glittered on the steel-blue surface. The ice had all but gone, but the sea still looked cold and uninviting.

  ‘Not bad, eh, for your old man?’ Their father grinned.

  Sirkka nodded and Kaisa made a show of looking at the view, ‘That’s wonderful.’

  ‘The flat is on the top floor and occupies one whole corner of the building, with two aspects. This is the biggest flat in the whole of the block!’ their father continued. Kaisa could see his chest fill with pride. As he took them from room to room, she made the ‘ooh,’ and ‘aah’ sounds she knew he expected. Sirkka, however, remained impassive, seemingly unimpressed by the place. Kaisa nudged her, as their father led them to each bedroom in turn. Having been so keen on this visit, Sirkka now appeared to be bored by the flat and their father. But Sirkka gave Kaisa a quick smile.

  ‘Enough room for grandchildren to come and stay!’ their father said, turning around to face his daughters.

  This last comment at least made her sister react. She said, laughing, ‘You’ve got a long wait for that!’

  ‘On a sunny day you can see all the way to Björkö island!’ their father continued, as he brought them back through the lounge and ushered them onto the wide balcony. It was a sunny but cold day, and at this height the wind was stronger, making their father’s thin hair stand up. He looked a bit like a friendly professor rather then the Jekyll-and-Hyde character Kaisa had lived with a year ago. He offered Kaisa a pair of binoculars that he kept on the windowsill. Not knowing what she was looking for, but seeing the contrast of colours between the dark wooded forest, the pale blue sky with fluffy white clouds, and the cold grey colour of the sea on the horizon, she nodded appreciatively. She saw no island, and had no idea what, or where, the place he was talking about could be. She assumed the island was much further away, towards the Gulf of Finland.

  ‘Can we go inside, it’s too cold out here,’ Sirkka said and rolled her eyes at Kaisa. It was a look
Kaisa remembered vividly from her childhood and it sent her into a fit of giggles that this time she couldn’t contain.

  Her father gave Kaisa and Sirkka a look of impatience, a carbon copy of the encounters between Sirkka and their father when the sisters were growing up.

  ‘Oh well, you girls are too young to appreciate a good property deal. But there will come a time when you do. Let’s have something to eat – and more to the point something to drink!’ he said, seemingly determined not to spoil the good mood of the occasion.

  Marja, who hadn’t joined them on the tour around the flat, was sitting at the round kitchen table, looking very satisfied with herself, wearing Kaisa’s discarded, ten-year-old jumper. Suddenly Kaisa wondered whether there had been any underwear in those bags of old clothes, and if her father’s girlfriend was at that very moment wearing her old knickers. She wracked her brains, fighting off another fit of unexplained laughter, but decided such things had probably gone straight out with the rubbish. She hoped so.

  When they opened the Lonkero, which Marja said they’d bought ‘specially for you, Kaisa’, a comment that caused Sirkka to snort, and Kaisa to kick her shins under the table, Marja suddenly said, ‘So, Kaisa have you left the Englishman?’

  * * *

  On the way back to the city, Kaisa was fuming.

  ‘She’s unbelievable!’ she said to Sirkka as soon as they’d sat down in the empty bus. The bus driver, who seemed to be in a hurry, had not bothered to wait for Sirkka and Kaisa to sit down before pulling away from the bus stop, making both girls lurch along the gangway. The smell of the bus reminded Kaisa of Peter’s visits to Espoo when she was living with her father, and those happy memories somehow made her even angrier.