by Helena Halme
‘Wait Kaisa!’ Rose shouted.
Kaisa sighed. Perhaps it was the sleepless night after such an incredibly wonderful, but unsettling evening that was making Kaisa so ratty and sensitive. Or maybe it was the knowledge that she’d be jobless soon. She had a month’s notice on the bedsit, but she could pay the rent with Peter’s allowance, which he was still paying into her account every month. She had no idea how he could afford to do it, but presumed living in the wardroom was cheaper. But without any other income, that left no money whatsoever for food. At worst, she’d have to go back home, to Helsinki, and sleep on her sister’s sofa bed again, but after everything that had happened, with Matti’s death, the disastrous date with Tom, and her sister’s new relationship, she didn’t even know if the sofa bed was still available to her. Besides, she had no money for the journey. She’d have to call her mother and ask her for the fare.
‘Let’s go to Terroni’s – I’ll buy you a proper coffee and a sarni. I know how much you like your coffee!’ Rose took hold of Kaisa’s arm, and Kaisa couldn’t help but smile at her.
‘Hello, Toni,’ Rose said. A tall dark-haired man came out from behind a counter laden with Italian meats, fresh salads and cheese. At a further section, Kaisa saw cream filled cones and small cakes. Behind the counter were two large coffee-making machines, where another man pulled leavers amid plumes of steam.
‘How is my favourite lady?’ the Italian man said as soon as Kaisa and Rose walked in. ‘Please, please sit down and tell me what you want.’
‘Thank you, Toni, we’ll have two caffe americanos – yes?’ Rose looked over to Kaisa. ‘Black coffee, that’s right, isn’t it? No milk?’
Kaisa nodded. Rose had never taken her to this place before; it was like being abroad with the hustle and bustle of diners, staff hurrying between tables, and the steam rising from the coffee machines. The sweet scent of real coffee made Kaisa’s spirit rise. Kaisa remembered the Italian restaurants in Stockholm; they’d had the same aromas of cooking and coffee.
‘And who is your beautiful young friend, Rosa?’
‘This is Kaisa. She’s come all the way from Finland to work with me.’
The man took Kaisa’s hand and kissed the back of it. Kaisa was reminded of how Duncan had done the same when she’d first met him at Jackie’s party. ‘Finland! A beautiful woman from a beautiful country.’ Toni was a slim man, with a mop of dark hair, a little older than her, Kaisa supposed. His eyes were dark and he was shamelessly flirtatious. Kaisa noticed a ring on his left finger.
An older, shorter man, with a round belly, shouted something in Italian to Toni, and he sighed theatrically. Letting go of Kaisa’s hand, he went back to the counter. ‘I will bring you coffee.’
‘I keep telling him my name is Rose, but he says that Rosa is the same name in Italian, so he insists on calling me that.’
Toni made a fuss of the two women, bringing them toasted bread called bruschetta, topped with tomatoes, olive paste and strong smelling cheese.
As soon as they had a moment to themselves, Rose looked at her. ‘I know you must be worried about your job.’
‘I am,’ Kaisa said.
‘Which is why I brought you here.’
‘Oh?’
‘I know it may be difficult for you to find something similar to Adam’s Apple, but I will recommend you to a couple of people. However, I’ve been thinking about it, and I think it would best if you enrol on a journalism course. I can write you a letter of recommendation, and it’ll just be for one year, but it’ll open doors for you.’
‘But, I haven’t got the money,’ Kaisa said. Suddenly she felt huge affection towards Rose. How wrong she’d been; instead of gossiping about Kaisa’s love life, Rose had been worrying about her future.
‘Yes, this is why I brought you here.’
Kaisa said nothing; she was confused.
‘I know it’s not what you want, but hear me out.’ Rose took a deep intake of breath and continued. ‘Toni here is always looking for someone to help out, and I know if I ask him, he’ll give you a job as a waitress. I know it shouldn’t count, but your looks will bring in customers.’
Kaisa stared at Rose. This was completely against what they both believed in.
‘Don’t look at me like that. Sometimes when the chips are down, we have to take advantage of what we have.’ Rose grinned. ‘While working, I think you should enrol on the journalism course. There’s an evening programme, so you can work during the day here, and attend lessons afterwards. It’ll be very hard work for a year, but I know you’ll manage.’
Kaisa looked around the café. It was busy with men in suits. Some were queuing up at the counter, and some were sitting at tables eating their lunch and drinking coffee. Toni smiled at her from the other side of the counter. Even though he’d been flirty before, his smile now was friendly. Had Rose already spoken to him about her? To her surprise, Kaisa could imagine working here. She nodded to Rose.
The older woman put her hand on Kaisa’s and said, ‘Think about it.’
Twenty-Eight
London
The phone began ringing when Kaisa was still outside, looking for the keys to the front door. She hurried to open up and ran down the few steps to the back of the hall.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, it’s me,’ Peter’s voice sounded low.
Kaisa hugged the receiver. ‘Hello.’
‘You got back OK?’
‘Yes, the train stopped at every station, so I didn’t get much sleep.’ Kaisa said.
‘I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking of you,’ Peter said. ‘I miss you,’ he added.
Kaisa didn’t know what to reply to Peter. Did his words mean that they were back together now? But surely he didn’t think that she would come back to him, and the life of a Navy wife, after everything that had happened? ‘Peter,’ she began.
‘Yes, I know, Kaisa. I’m going away tomorrow, and you’re up in London with your career. But I just wanted to tell you how much I love you.’ Peter paused for a short moment. ‘I wanted to tell you that before we sail.’
Kaisa could hardly breathe. Did he know how she’d longed to hear those words? All those months in Helensburgh, first when the bomber was on its long patrol, then after the fight, when they’d both been so unhappy and Peter had drifted further and further away from her. And all the time in Helsinki, when she’d written to Peter and he’d replied in short, official-sounding communications. But what, she suddenly thought, about that girl he was seeing?
‘Kaisa, are you there?’
‘Yes,’ Kaisa tried to disguise her sniffles.
‘Please don’t cry. I promise I will sort something out. If we love each other, we can make this work, I promise.’
‘The magazine is folding,’ Kaisa managed to say between sobs.
‘Oh.’
‘Yes, we have about six weeks until we are out of the office and I’m out of a job. I don’t know what I’m going to do.’ Kaisa found a tissue in her handbag. She heard a door open and the man who lived with the landlady passed her on his way to the kitchen in the back of the house. He gave her a look of utter disapproval. Was crying against some sort of house rule? Kaisa turned her head towards the wall and away from the man’s gaze.
‘Kaisa, you know you can always go and stay with my parents, don’t you?’ Peter said. ‘I’ll write to them tonight and tell them you’ll be in touch.’
‘No, Peter.’ The thought of having to face Peter’s mum’s disapproving gaze, or worse still a sad one, filled her with dread. And his father, who’d been so kind to Kaisa, how would she ever be able to meet him after everything that had happened? Having to see Peter’s family again hadn’t crossed her mind before. She knew for certain she couldn’t face them alone.
‘What will you do then?’
‘Rose has organised a job for me in an Italian café, and she thinks I should go to night school to take a journalism qualification.’
‘I see,’ Peter’s voice was dry. Kaisa remembered
how Peter had reacted when she told him about working for Rose, Duncan’s cousin. He hadn’t believed that Kaisa no longer had anything to do with Duncan. ‘It’s one alternative. She has also recommended me to other magazines, but without a journalism qualification, she thinks it’ll be difficult.’
Peter was quiet at the other end of the line.
‘I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet, but if nothing works out, I might go back to Helsinki.’ Kaisa was surprised at her own words, at her confidence. Suddenly, she knew what her options were after the most confusing twenty-four hours of her life. She realised she couldn’t go back to being dependent on Peter again. And the thought of seeing Peter’s parents scared her. Her only alternative was to go back home to Finland. Her hands holding the receiver became clammy just at the thought of facing Peter’s parents, let alone his brother and sister-in-law, or lovely Nancy, his sister. She felt sure that his family would think everything that had happened was her fault. And they were right, of course. It was all her doing. She had ruined Peter’s career and she had no right to him, she saw that clearly now. She didn’t want to spoil his life any further.
‘Well, I just wanted to hear you’d got back to London, OK,’ Peter now said. His voice had cooled.
‘Thank you, that was very kind of you.’ After a short pause, she added, ‘I really enjoyed last night.’ She wanted to tell him how much she loved him, but she knew that by doing so she would give him false hope.
‘Yes, so did I.’ Peter’s voice was dry. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said and put down the receiver.
Kaisa listened to the long tone on the line. She was rooted to the spot, looking at the scribbled notes on the wall before her. Half-covered by another, newer communication to someone called Tracy was a piece of paper in Kaisa’s own handwriting asking to be told of any phone calls for her. How long ago it seemed since she’d missed Peter’s call. And now, today, after the most wonderful reunion, she was the one who’d decided there was no future for them.
Twenty-Nine
Kaisa fell in love with Italian food and culture. Had she not been on her feet all day long, she was sure she would have put on tons of weight and become the shape of the ‘Mama’ who cooked in the kitchen. Mama was as tall as she was wide, but as soon as Kaisa started at the café, two months previously, Mama had taken Kaisa under her wing. She even taught Kaisa Italian, though in truth all the family members who worked at the Farringdon Road café corrected her pronunciation of the dishes and words like ‘prego’, which meant please, and ‘grazie’, which meant thank you. Kaisa found it easy to pick up the language, and she began to feel like one of the family.
When she’d phoned her mother to tell her she was working in an Italian café, her mother had said, ‘You have Italian blood, of course you like it. And you’ll learn the language fast.’ Kaisa had laughed She didn’t quite believe the stories about her Italian roots. There was no evidence, just some tale, told by an old aunt, that the family name, Flori, on her maternal grandmother’s side, hailed from a small village in Northern Italy. Kaisa didn’t think her mother would have approved of her graduate daughter working in a café if it hadn’t been Italian.
Kaisa still lived in the bedsit in Notting Hill and took the tube to Farringdon each day, but instead of turning right towards Clerkenwell Close, she walked for ten or so minutes to the café on Farringdon Road.
She’d even started calling Rose, ‘Rosa’, during her daily visits to Terroni’s. Kaisa knew the older woman was checking up on her, making sure she was OK. She also helped Kaisa with her English. The course at London School of Journalism was demanding, and her assignments were becoming more and more difficult, so Kaisa needed all the help she could get. Rose was now working for the Observer where she’d become the editor of a supplement aimed at women. ‘Back to fashion, make-up and trouble with men,’ Rose had laughed, but Kaisa had heard from Ravi, whose friend worked at the paper, that Rose had been taken on to revamp the supplement and make it ‘more current and relevant to women of today’. He also told her that Rose was doing a brilliant job and that she was highly regarded by everyone in the industry.
‘You’re lucky to have such a prestigious woman as your friend,’ Ravi said.
Something good had come out of all the bad that her affair with Duncan had caused, Kaisa thought, but she didn’t say anything to Ravi. Although she was seeing him regularly, she didn’t consider that she was in a relationship with him. They’d had sex a few times, but she didn’t feel the same about him as she had about Peter. She’d discussed Ravi at length with Rose; in fact, she’d discussed her whole life at length with Rose. They’d become firm friends in spite of their ten-year age difference. Kaisa felt much older than her 25 years, because of all that had happened to her.
‘It’s OK to have sex with someone who you’re not madly in love with,’ Rose had advised her. ‘It’s a lot easier, and less painful. Just enjoy it! Men don’t worry about being in love with women they fuck!’
Kaisa had laughed nervously and looked around to see if anyone had heard what they were talking about, or Rose’s language. They’d been sitting at a restaurant in Maida Vale, where Rose often took Kaisa after her course finished in the evening. She refused to let Kaisa pay for anything. She said she still felt responsible for what Duncan had done, however much Kaisa protested that she’d been a willing partner. In the early days of Kaisa’s course, which had started in September, Rose had surprised Kaisa by waiting outside the Victorian red-brick building where her classes were held. She’d hugged Kaisa warmly and suggested they go and eat something. When they’d sat down, she’d put her hand on Kaisa’s arm and said, ‘Let me treat you. I don’t have any children of my own to look after.’
‘I’m too old to be your child!’ Kaisa had protested, but Rose had just laughed and said, ‘OK, a younger sister then!’
Soon it had become a regular event, that once a week, on a Thursday, Rose would turn up at the school and they’d walk arm in arm to their favourite place by the canal in Little Venice, where the Maitre D’ knew Rose and Kaisa and gave them their favourite table at the end of the glass-walled room.
It was now late November. Terroni’s café in Farringdon was filled with elaborate Christmas chocolates, beautiful glacé fruits and piles and piles of tall Italian cakes called panettone in cardboard boxes. Kaisa was desperately home-sick and really wanted to go home to Helsinki for the holidays – she had three weeks off from the School of Journalism – but she couldn’t afford the airfare. So she’d decided to work in the café on the days it was open, but she still had the whole of Christmas week to fill, when Terroni’s would be shut. Rose had asked her to come to the family farm in Dorset, but Kaisa didn’t want to risk seeing Duncan, nor did she wish to meet any of Rose’s other cousins. They were bound to know about the affair and how it had caused Duncan’s dismissal from the Navy, and the break-up of Kaisa’s marriage.
‘Duncan would behave, you know that, don’t you?’ Rose said with concern in her eyes.
But Kaisa shook her head, and Rose didn’t mention the matter again.
Even Ravi, who didn’t celebrate Christmas because he was a Hindu, was going to his parents’ home outside Birmingham. He hadn’t invited Kaisa to come with him, and she suspected his mother wouldn’t approve of their relationship.
On the last Thursday in November, two weeks before her classes were due to finish for the year, Rose and Kaisa were sitting at their favourite table in the restaurant in Maida Vale when, smiling widely, Rose said, ‘I’ve got some great news!’ She brought a newspaper cutting out of her handbag. ‘Look at this!’
Kaisa read the notice: ‘Finnish radio journalist for BBC World Service.’
‘But I’ve never worked for radio, and I’m not even a journalist yet.’
‘Yes, but read on, they say they can train you! How many Finnish speakers do you think there are in London?’ Rose said. ‘Holding a valid work permit, that is!’
Kaisa hung her head; the work permit a
nd her marriage to Peter were still unsolved issues. She hadn’t spoken to him since that awful telephone conversation after returning from Plymouth. He hadn’t contacted her about a divorce, so in theory she was still married to him and had the right to work in England. And the monthly allowance was still going into her bank account. But a national broadcaster like the BBC would surely check her living arrangements and see that she was separated from her husband? She looked at Rose.
‘You know, Rose, if I’m separated from Peter, I am not entitled to a work permit, so I’m actually illegally employed by Terroni’s at the moment.’
‘Who says?’
‘Ravi.’
Rose leaned back in her chair and said, ‘I see.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t want to tell you before.’
‘Oh, I’m sure no one will check,’ Rose said. She was quiet and suddenly Kaisa got the feeling that something else was worrying her.
‘Are you OK?’ Kaisa asked.
Rose looked up, startled. ‘Yes, I’m just thinking about Christmas.’
‘What about it?’
Rose gazed at Kaisa and hesitated, ‘Oh, it’s nothing.’
Kaisa leaned over and took hold of the older woman’s hand, ‘Something’s bothering you, I can tell.’
Rose lifted her pale eyes to Kaisa’s. ‘Roger’s asked me to marry him!’
‘That’s wonderful news!’ Kaisa got up and went to hug Rose, but before she could put her arms around her friend, Rose said, ‘I haven’t said yes yet.’
Kaisa sat back down. ‘Why not? Don’t you love him?’
Rose sighed, ‘Well, I just never thought I’d marry. You know, with my career, there’s just not been time for a serious relationship.’ And then she smiled, ‘But I really, really like being with Roger. He has his own career at the Guardian, and we are quite grown-up, both of us, so …’
‘So, why not marry him?’
‘He’s coming to the country with me for Christmas, to meet my uncle and the rest of the family.’