by Helena Halme
* * *
A few days after the phone call, when Duncan picked her up from the flat, he complimented her on how she looked, but Kaisa kept her eyes down on the floor and couldn’t even thank him. The only other people she knew at the Ladies’ Night were Maureen and her husband Matthew, and the blonde girl, Jeff’s ex-girlfriend, Billy, who was partnered with some old friend of Matthew’s. Kaisa felt a bit odd when she had to introduce Duncan to the two couples. Kaisa felt Maureen’s eyes on the cleavage of her dress, and knew that she should have chosen the burgundy one that was less revealing and frumpier. Kaisa knew she looked quite good, but the black-and-white dress was too body skimming. Not eating for a couple of days had got rid of the little toast-and-jam tummy she’d acquired in the past few weeks. Luckily, Maureen and Matthew didn’t sit at their table, but she could see Maureen keeping a close eye on her and Duncan, who was being his usual attentive self. She talked about Peter, his promotion to the bomber and their impending move up to Scotland. But Duncan didn’t seem interested in her future in Scotland. Instead he made her laugh with stories of his three cousins and half-deaf uncle. The uncle was desperate for the daughters to marry well, while the girls were anything but willing. They all wanted to work in London, rather than live in a Dorset farmhouse and become farmers’ wives. As she listened to him, Kaisa thought Peter would call Duncan ‘posh’. She felt out of place sitting next to him at the table, laid out in the usual linen tablecloths and napkins and heavy silverware. Duncan had eyes only for her all evening, but this made Kaisa feel like an imposter. Of course, it was flattering, to be admired by another man, but it was also very wrong. She knew she was using him to massage her own ego while Peter was away. Even then, when he tried to kiss Kaisa goodnight on the lips, she was taken by surprise. ‘No,’ she said and pulled herself away. They were standing in the doorway to the King’s Terrace flat and she was worried he expected to be asked in for a night cap. But Duncan acted like a gentleman. He held onto Kaisa for just a second longer than he should have done, so that Kaisa could feel the strength of his grip on her bare arms. Then he let go, stepped back and apologised, ‘Sorry, Kaisa, I didn’t mean to …’ Without looking at her, he turned away and walked down the stairs. Kaisa listened to the clatter of his footsteps, followed by the heavy slam of the door, before going in. She was sure she’d not see Duncan again very soon.
The next day at midday the doorbell rang and there was a boy with a huge bouquet of flowers. Kaisa immediately thought they must be from Peter, but when she read the card it said, ‘Thank you for a wonderful evening and sorry if I upset you, Duncan.’
That same evening, Kaisa got a phone call from Peter. The submarine had arrived in Faslane. Peter was tired.
‘I’ve missed you so much,’ Kaisa said.
‘Me too, but soon you’ll be up here and we can be together every night when I am ashore!’ Peter said and yawned.
Kaisa told him about Ladies’ Night with Duncan. ‘That was nice of him,’ Peter said.
But when she told him about the flowers (she left out the bit about being sorry when she read out the card), Peter sounded a bit miffed. ‘So he’s sending you flowers, now, is he?’
Was Peter jealous? Kaisa said she thought that was the done thing after a lady had accompanied an officer to a ball. Peter had to agree this was true, and he also agreed that it was not unusual for bachelor officers to take naval wives whose husbands were away at sea. Kaisa didn’t tell him what a fantastic arrangement it was – she’d never seen more beautiful flowers in her life.
When the telephone rang again the next evening, Kaisa felt sure it was Peter, and was disappointed to hear a woman’s voice at the other end.
‘It’s Maureen here, Matthew’s wife.’
‘Hi,’ Kaisa said, wondering why on earth she’d be phoning her.
‘I just wanted to call you to let you know that people are talking about you.’
Kaisa gasped. She immediately thought the woman was talking about Duncan. She prepared to defend herself against all allegations when Maureen continued, ‘You and Jeff are seen out together a lot these days. Especially now that Peter is going to be a Bomber Queen (she spat out the two words); you’ve really got to be careful that stories about the two of you aren’t doing the rounds. It could be very damaging to Peter’s career.’ Maureen’s voice was thin, almost quivering, as if she was trying to stop herself from shouting her allegations into Kaisa’s ear.
It turned out that Maureen, Matthew’s wife, had been a close friend of Jeff’s ex-girlfriend Billy since school. Billy was a funny sort of girl with long, blonde hair that seemed out of proportion to her short, slight frame. Kaisa never really got to become her friend properly – besides Jeff was only with her for a matter of weeks.
Maureen’s words rendered Kaisa speechless. For a while neither of them spoke. Kaisa felt Maureen’s heavy silence at the other end of the line, as if she was holding her breath. Kaisa couldn’t understand how anyone could think that something was going on between her and Jeff. It was ridiculous. After a while, Kaisa said, as coolly as she could manage, ‘Peter and Jeff are best friends. He was our best man, for goodness sake.’
‘Oh, I know,’ Maureen said with fake kindness in her voice, ‘I know it’s innocent, I’m just saying that other people …’
‘What other people?’ Kaisa asked.
‘Oh, you know, when Jeff ended it with Billy so abruptly, a lot of people were coming to me and asking what was going on between you and Jeff. If perhaps, he and you were, you know, and that’s why he broke it off with Billy …’
Now Kaisa felt like laughing. The woman was blaming the break-up between Jeff and Billy on her! So it was Billy who’d got her friend to make the call. Kaisa wondered if Jeff’s old girlfriend was standing next to Maureen now, listening to Kaisa’s answers. They were acting like schoolgirls! Making her voice firm and as ‘posh’ as she could manage, Kaisa said, ‘Well, you can tell Billy and those other people that they needn’t worry. And you don’t have to worry about me either. I’m absolutely fine.’ Kaisa was very tempted to slam the phone down on Maureen (and Billy), but she knew it was important to stay cool, so they exchanged a few more words on the Navy, and Peter’s time on HMS Tempest. Matthew was a skimmer, serving in the Navy’s surface ships, so Kaisa knew he’d know nothing at all about submarines, and it made her laugh that Maureen asked about Peter’s sub. Kaisa said she was in the middle of ironing (which she actually was), and that at last got Maureen off the line. ‘Yes, of course, I mustn’t keep you,’ she said and hung up.
Later that evening, when she’d calmed down, Kaisa phoned Jeff. He thought the whole situation was very funny, but after she’d put the phone down Kaisa suddenly felt a little scared. What if the bitch started spreading rumours about her around the Navy? Maureen was right, rumours about a wayward wife could damage a naval officer’s opportunities for promotion. Kaisa decided not to mention the call to Peter, but by the time he phoned, gone eleven o’clock, she couldn’t stop herself. Kaisa even shed a few tears, thinking about how awful the call had been.
‘Don’t worry about Maureen, she’s just jealous of you!’ said Peter.
Kaisa hugged the phone close and smiled into the receiver. This was her Peter, her defender, her hero!
Eleven
Kaisa had a call from Duncan on the Tuesday night after the ball. She’d just put her feet up with her supper on a tray, ready to watch Brookside on TV. She’d had jacket potato with cheese and tinned tuna for two nights in a row now because she kept forgetting to buy food. When the telephone went, she thought it would be Peter. Hearing Duncan’s voice was quite a shock. He asked how she was, and made some other nonsensical small talk, which made Kaisa wonder if he’d ever get to the point. Eventually he said he was on some kind of course up in London.
‘You remember I told you about my cousin Rose who works up here?’
‘Yes.’
‘She’d love to meet you. I can’t promise anything, but she may know of a job th
at would suit you, and since you’re not working at the moment, I thought you might want to come up and see her?’
When Kaisa didn’t say anything, he added, ‘I thought this would serve as an apology for my behaviour the other night.’
Kaisa wanted to ask what kind of a job, but instead she told Duncan she’d think about it. After she put the receiver down, she wondered what Peter would think if she met up with Duncan on her own. Luckily, he didn’t know about the attempted kiss, but he had been jealous over the flowers. Jeff had said they knew each other because Duncan had been at Dartmouth Naval College with him, and had joined the submarine service at the same time.
‘Have they been on the same boat?’ Kaisa had asked Jeff, but Jeff said he didn’t think so. Jeff was a ‘skimmer’ after all, Kaisa thought, and as an officer serving on surface ships, moved in completely different Navy circles from Peter and Duncan.
Kaisa desperately wanted a job, and a job in London would be a dream. If Peter was ashore for six weeks in his new job, surely he could come down and stay with Kaisa in London instead? She’d be like Mercier, the Captain’s wife, with a career of her own. Why couldn’t they have a home in London instead? All they would need was a small flat.
The next day, Kaisa called Duncan and told him she’d come up to London. He gave her an address somewhere in Chelsea. She decided she’d go up on Saturday and come back on Sunday morning. Duncan sounded elated on the telephone and after the fairly brief conversation, Kaisa dug out her old A-Z and looked up the address. He wasn’t far from Sloane Square Tube station, which was great, because Kaisa knew the area well from the year before, when she’d taken her exams at the Finnish Embassy. She looked at an old timetable for the trains and hoped it was still valid. If so, she’d travel from Portsmouth Harbour on the 3.12pm and be in London at 5.25pm. Duncan assured her that she’d have a room of her own in his house.
But what would Kaisa tell Peter? That she was going on a wild goose chase after a job in London? Or should she tell him at all? She thought about writing it in her letter later (she wrote to him nearly every day). But then she thought, he’d just worry about her being in London on her own.
Still, she was nervous on the train. It was guilt, mixed with excitement and worry about finding Duncan’s house. As the train pulled into London and the view of fields out of the window were replaced by rows and rows of houses, with long gardens in between, she’d decided to keep her cool with Duncan, and avoid any tension building up between them by talking about Peter. About how happy she was to be married, and how proud she was of his new appointment. She’d paint a chocolate-box picture of her life. By the time she’d got into Waterloo and made her way to Sloane Square she felt a little calmer.
Duncan met Kaisa at Sloane Square station (he sweetly said he didn’t want her to be wandering around the streets of London trying to find his home). They dropped off her bag in his house and Duncan took her to a wine bar near Charing Cross. It was a dark-looking cellar that made Kaisa feel a bit worried at first. But inside there were men in suits and women in sleek-cut jackets and skirts, drinking, smoking and laughing together. Duncan led her to a table at the back, where a woman in a beige ruffle blouse and pointed low-heeled shoes sat drinking a glass of wine. Her blonde hairstyle reminded Kaisa of Princess Diana. The woman got up as soon as they came in. Duncan and the woman kissed each other’s cheeks and the woman offered Kaisa her hand.
‘I’m Rose, how do you do?
Kaisa replied in the way Peter had taught her, ‘I am Kaisa, how do you do?’, even though it seemed rather silly to her to repeat what the other had just said. Kaisa tried to smile when Rose asked her to sit down. Duncan told Kaisa that Rose was one of his cousins and an editor at a magazine called Sonia. Rose looked down at her hands for a moment, as if to feign embarrassment. From her gesture, Kaisa guessed this magazine was quite a big publication. Duncan went to get some drinks, while Rose started talking. She asked Kaisa a lot of questions about her degree, about where she’d worked and how she’d enjoyed working for IDS. Kaisa told Rose she had considered a career at IDS, but that she also really liked writing.
‘I did some translation work when I lived in Finland,’ Kaisa said.
Rose kept nodding and listening to Kaisa intently, and when Duncan came back with the drinks said, ‘Great find,’ to him, and raised her glass. Kaisa took a sip of her spritzer and smiled at Rose as she carried on talking. Rose asked her more and more questions, which Kaisa was able to answer quickly and fluently. Afterwards Kaisa felt as if she’d told Rose her whole life story; all about how she’d met Peter and moved to King’s Terrace in Southsea. All through their conversation Rose kept glancing over to Duncan, who was sitting next to Kaisa on the same wooden bench.
‘And your husband, what does he think about these ambitions you have for a brilliant career?’ Rose said towards the end of their conversation.
Kaisa looked over to Duncan. What had he said about Peter? ‘He wants you to have a career, doesn’t he,’ Duncan said.
Kaisa turned back to Rose, ‘Of course he does.’
There was a brief silence. Rose was looking at Kaisa, as if to assess her, while she took another sip of her wine.
Kaisa didn’t understand what they were both getting at until Rose said, ‘So he’s not after babies, then?’
Kaisa felt her cheeks redden and was sure she’d blushed, but managed to blurt out, ‘Actually, not at all. He wants to wait ten years, at least.’ Kaisa laughed nervously at her lie, but Rose seemed to accept her words, and said she was looking for an editorial assistant. She said they’d had a Swedish girl working in the office, and that she’d been very good, but had to go back to Sweden because she had no work permit.
‘Your English is even better than hers, so I have no problem on that score. And Jannica was so smart and efficient, that we miss her already! I have great hopes for you. And no problems with a work permit, eh?’ she said and emptied her glass. ‘I must dash, see you next week – what day can you make it for an interview?’
Kaisa was so shocked she couldn’t say anything for a while. ‘I can come at any time,’ was all she could say.
‘How about Wednesday at 10am?’ Kaisa nodded; she was speechless. ‘Don’t be late,’ Rose said. She shook Kaisa’s hand, kissed Duncan on both cheeks, and left.
‘Well done!’ Duncan said and clinked his glass with Kaisa’s. She was so delighted that instead of drinking, she put the glass down and hugged Duncan. ‘Thank you so much!’
Duncan took hold of Kaisa willingly. Feeling his chest muscles underneath his shirt tighten against her breasts, she froze with the pressure of his strong arms around her. Kaisa quickly checked herself and pulled back from Duncan’s embrace. His face was now very close to hers and she could see he was leaning towards her mouth. She moved away from him on the seat and took a sip out of her glass.
‘Is that what this is about?’ Kaisa said, not looking at him, but down at the table. Kaisa tried to keep her voice level. Suddenly she felt cheap; this is how the world goes around, she thought. Duncan organises a job for her and as thanks for that she has to sleep with him.
Duncan touched her arm, ‘Kaisa, please.’
Once again Kaisa pulled herself away so that his hand fell back on the table.
‘I’m a married woman and I am not going to sleep with you even if I get this job!’ she said and lifted her eyes to his face.
Kaisa was surprised by what she saw. Duncan had gone entirely pink; the whole of his face and his neck were blushing. ‘I’m so sorry, Kaisa, I didn’t mean to …’
‘Well, don’t then,’ she said and got up. ‘I’m going to take the next train home back to Pompey.’
‘Please, Kaisa, sit down.’
Kaisa looked around the bar. The dark cellar was filling up and a few people were eyeing up the potentially free table, while watching their apparent argument with mounting curiosity. She saw Duncan was embarrassed, his face was a little less red, but everyone could see he had upset her fo
r some reason. Now Kaisa felt sorry for him, and thought staying another ten minutes wouldn’t hurt. She sat down opposite Duncan, on the chair Rose had vacated. ‘Go on, I’m listening.’
‘Kaisa, I care for you. You know I do.’
Kaisa could tell he was going to take hold of her hands at that point, but at the last minute decided against it. ‘Peter is a friend, and I know how happy you two are, so you must trust me, I would never come between you two. But I am a red-blooded man, you know, so if you insist on putting your arms around me, I cannot help but respond.’ Duncan smiled at her, and his eyes had a friendly expression.
Kaisa relaxed, of course Duncan was a gentleman, and returned his smile.
‘Another drink to celebrate?’ he said and got up.
‘OK!’ Kaisa replied.
They stayed in the wine bar until it closed. Duncan bought a bottle of something called Cava, a really lovely bubbly wine. ‘Spanish champagne,’ Duncan said. He seemed to have no money worries, and he wouldn’t hear of letting Kaisa pay for a thing.
After the wine bar closed, Kaisa and Duncan staggered back to his place, which was a charming old terraced house with white-framed sash windows. Duncan offered Kaisa a nightcap, but she said, ‘No, thank you.’
‘Oh,’ he said and swayed a little.
Kaisa realised he was drunk. They both were. ‘I’m quite hungry, though,’ she said and giggled.
Duncan made some scrambled eggs, sausages and baked beans.
‘The only thing I can cook is breakfast,’ he said and gave Kaisa a boyish smile. His blond hair flopped over his eyes when he was spooning the beans onto her plate. They took the food to the front room and watched Hitchcock’s The Birds, balancing the plates on their laps. When the film was over, Duncan said, ‘Time for Bedfordshire!’ He showed Kaisa upstairs to a little room overlooking the dark street, lit up by a single yellow lamp. ‘The loo is at the end of the corridor,’ he said and put her bag on the top of a double bed. The room was furnished in the same way as Jackie’s flat, and fleetingly Kaisa wondered how well Duncan knew her. Had they been lovers? The flower-pattered curtains tied with a satin bow on either side of the sash window matched a frilly cover on the bed. Two bedside tables had lamps with shades bearing the same flower pattern. The room looked very feminine. Kaisa felt her shoes sink into the thick, light-coloured carpet. She felt as if she’d stepped inside a doll’s house; all satin and frills.