by Helena Halme
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, the silly campers hold a demonstration every Wednesday.’
A dozen or so women and men in colourful baggy clothes were using pots and pans and large spoons to make as much noise as they could. They held a large canvas ‘Peace’ sign between them and advanced slowly along the road. On both sides of the road cars had stopped to let the demonstrators pass. Two policemen in uniform looked on, joking and laughing with each other. When the group came closer to their car, Kaisa caught sight of a girl with big dark-green eyes. She was visibly pregnant and gave Kaisa the peace sign and the sweetest of smiles. Kaisa couldn’t help but smile back.
‘They look friendly,’ she said to Peter.
‘They’re a nuisance, is what they are,’ he said and revved up the engine.
* * *
During the first few days in their new house, while Peter was at work, Kaisa was mesmerised by the view from their married quarter. She sat in the lounge and watched the submarines come and go, and the yachts sail in and out of view. The loch looked beautiful in all weathers, although Kaisa loved the stormy days best. Of course, watching the view meant that she didn’t get any unpacking done, or send any job applications, so eventually Kaisa had to stop gazing out of the window all day long.
Because it was too far to walk to the shops from the new place, Peter decided he should teach Kaisa to drive, but after two attempts, it wasn’t going very well. Peter got exasperated when she stalled the car or used the wrong gear, and Kaisa just got angry and eventually refused to go out with him. ‘Darling, it’ll be so much easier for you if you can drive when I am away,’ Peter said and squeezed Kaisa tightly after the second failed attempt. Kaisa just nodded and tried to hold back the tears. Of course, she could walk into town, but it took nearly an hour there and an hour back. And it was often raining, or at least drizzly, so it wasn’t very pleasant. There was a small shop at the bottom of the hill, but the mouldy vegetables she’d spotted when she first went in put her off going there again. Kaisa thought back to Southsea and how much easier life was when she could just walk to Waitrose, or Commercial Road for clothes shopping.
Luckily, Peter was ashore until HMS Restless got back, and working at the nearby Faslane base, so he was home every night. They went out to the pub with Peter’s new friends from Restless, and once they went to visit Stef in Dumbarton, where she and Tom had bought a house. Tom was away, but Stef greeted them full of smiles. She was huge now, and complained bitterly about how uncomfortable pregnancy was. Kaisa looked at her large shape, while Stef sat and drank a mug of tea and smoked a cigarette in the little semi-detached house. Her living room was still full of boxes, but Stef didn’t make any excuses for the mess.
‘Tom left me with all this,’ she laughed and held onto her back. ‘That’s what they’re like,’ she said and nudged Kaisa.
Peter and Kaisa exchanged looks when Stef went to make them coffee in the kitchen at the other end of the house. It was bitterly cold inside the place, and Peter blew on his fingers and rubbed his hands together. Kaisa stifled a laugh.
‘How long is Tom away?’ Peter shouted into the kitchen.
‘I wish I knew, but I think he’ll be back for the birth in December – I bloody well hope he will anyway.’ Stef reappeared at the door carrying a tray with a pot of tea and some mugs. She’d emptied a packet of chocolate Hobnobs that Peter and Kaisa had bought with them into a blue bowl. Peter sprung up to take the tray from her and urged Stef to sit down.
‘What a gentleman he is,’ Stef said and laughed again.
Driving back towards Helensburgh, along the Gareloch, which was veiled in a wall of rain, Peter said, ‘When you can drive, you can go and see Stef any time you like.’
Kaisa was quiet. Stef hadn’t been talking about anything else but the forthcoming birth; about what kind of painkillers she would demand, and laughing at the ‘natural birth brigade’, as she called women who attended antenatal classes with the National Childbirth Trust. ‘I know how to breathe, thank you very much,’ she’d said.
Peter looked across at Kaisa and said, ‘Too much baby talk?’
Kaisa smiled. ‘Yeah.’ She needed to get a job fast.
Every day she scanned the papers (they got The Telegraph, and even the Helensburgh Advertiser), and applied for a lot of jobs. But she never heard anything back. Kaisa didn’t know if it was her foreign degree, or what, but no one seemed to want to employ her.
Perhaps it was all the pregnant women, or the new mothers, or the lack of a job offer, but since they’d been up in Scotland Peter and Kaisa argued a lot, and then made up in bed. They didn’t talk properly any more, or clear the air after a fight. Sometimes Kaisa thought she loved Peter more when he was away and that he’d noticed she loved him less. Kaisa wouldn’t take any criticism from him, and got mad straight away. The driving lessons didn’t help. Peter said they had to get used to each other again, and laughed and hugged Kaisa when she got angry. Even though Kaisa wanted to be happy, she couldn’t feel content. It was so much more difficult to do anything while Peter was at work; she couldn’t just walk down to the seafront or to the shops like she could in Pompey. And the weather was always bad.
Peter greeted Kaisa’s outbursts with silence, and she wished she knew what he thought. When she said she wasn’t good enough for a job, he said, ‘Of course you are,’ but it didn’t sound as though he meant it anymore. Kaisa often thought he simply said what he imagined she wanted to hear, as if she herself had put the words into his mouth.
‘My God, I wish you would come up with something original for once!’ she’d shouted after he’d thrown yet another platitude at her, about how she’d soon find a good job. His hurt silence made her even more angry, but desperate at the same time. She wanted to burst into tears when she thought about their marriage. Why hadn’t she thought about how life would be with him before she got herself into this mess?
Kaisa was sitting on the ugly sofa, watching the darkening sky above the Gareloch. It was just after three o’clock and she’d finished another job application, so she allowed herself an hour or so to rest her eyes on the sea view before Peter came home. It had been drizzly all day, and she hadn’t managed to get to the shops. They’d have to have tinned soup for supper.
When Peter came home, he told Kaisa the bad news: HMS Restless was going to be on patrol over Christmas. Kaisa looked at Peter, but said nothing. It was their first Christmas together as a married couple.
‘Couldn’t you go and see your mum and Sirkka?’ Peter was holding onto her hands. They were sitting on the uncomfortable sofa, facing each other. Peter told her that he’d suspected this, but had received the confirmation that day.
‘I’m so sorry, darling.’
Kaisa thought about what Christmas would be like in her mother’s small flat in Helsinki. It would most likely be just her mother and Sirkka, just like when they’d been teenagers, after their parents’ divorce. Those Christmases had been for the most part happy, but also a little sad. They had all missed father, even though no one had voiced it out loud. Kaisa didn’t really want to relive those times, and she also felt she was too grown-up to spend Christmas with her mother. Besides, the flights would be expensive, and since she wasn’t earning any money, they could ill afford the fare. ‘No, I’ll stay here.’ Kaisa said.
‘Or, you could go and stay with my parents. They’d be delighted to see you.’ Peter’s face was full of concern.
Kaisa thought this was possibly worse; she really didn’t feel she knew Peter’s parents well enough to be spending the holidays with them. ‘I’ll think about it,’ she said. ‘But don’t go telling your mum anything yet, until I’ve decided what I’m going to do.’
Peter also brought home a ‘Next of Kin Form’, which Kaisa had to sign. They had to decide whether they wanted any bad news to be delivered during the patrol.
‘If something happens to you, I wouldn’t want to know while I’m away, because I couldn’t come back anyway.’ Peter
was still sitting next to Kaisa on the sofa, looking intently at her face. ‘And same for you. If something were to happen to me – which it’s obviously not going to – would you want to know? Because the boat would not come back under any circumstances.’
‘Not even if you … or me … died?’ Kaisa asked. She was speaking very quietly, and was fighting back tears. It wasn’t enough that Peter was soon going to sail away for months in a submarine full of nuclear missiles; she would now have to sign a form giving away her right to know if he was even alive. And vice versa, if she was deadly ill, or dead, he’d not know until the boat was back in Faslane.
‘Darling, I know I have the strangest job, but this is what I do.’ Peter hung his head.
Kaisa put his arms around Peter, and hugged him. ‘It’s OK, it’s best to not know, I agree.’ She picked up the form, ticked the ‘no news’ box and gave it to Peter.
Peter kissed her and then, sounding a lot more cheerful, said, ‘There is the Familygram, where you can tell me your news each week.’ Peter said that all the wives could write up to 50 words. ‘No sports pages though, because the Captain or Jimmy, you know the 1st Lieutenant, will read them before they pass them onto us.’
‘OK,’ Kaisa said.
‘I’m going to leave you a Christmas present, though, and I already know exactly what I’m going to get you!’ Apparently, the other officers had told him they left presents for their families, and took their own away to sea. They would have a Christmas dinner onboard, and open their presents on the morning of the 25th as if they were at home. Kaisa felt a little tearful again, thinking about Christmas on her own, but decided not to dwell on it now. There were a few more weeks until Peter’s departure, so she had time to think.
Sixteen
After the many arguments during the driving lessons with Peter, they decided Kaisa should get a proper instructor. Peter was going away soon, and the thought of having to ask someone like Phoebe, or be dependent on Stef, or any of the other wives, made her more determined to try to learn as quickly as possible. Kaisa needed to be independent. Her first lesson with a small Scottish man went well. He even told her that she’d probably only need a few sessions with him and she’d pass easily. Peter promised to take Kaisa out in the little Ford Fiesta at the weekends.
‘As long as you don’t shout at me,’ Kaisa said.
Peter sighed and said, ‘I never shout at you.’
Kaisa didn’t point out that when he’d tried to teach her to drive every session had ended with an argument. He would shout at her about not looking in the mirror, or being in the wrong gear or going too fast. Kaisa also didn’t remind him that her last so-called lesson with him ended in them not talking to each other for a whole day.
Someone from the boat had recommended the driving instructor, and although his Scottish accent was so strong that Kaisa couldn’t always understand what he said, he was very nice, especially after she told him she was from Finland. ‘A fellow Viking, eh?’ he said and laughed.
He was a very patient man and didn’t bat an eyelid when Kaisa stalled on the first corner they came to. He had glasses that hung on his chest by a long strap, and which he would occasionally put on his head to look at a map or some kind of handbook kept in a pocket on the side of the door. His hair was wispy and grey, and he had pale blue eyes that looked at Kaisa from under bushy grey eyebrows. His car was a bright red Ford Fiesta, a newer model than the one Peter had, but he said it would be easier for her to learn with the same type of car. After driving up to the shops in Helensburgh and back, he said Kaisa was a natural. She stalled only once more and loved the feeling of speed.
‘We need to be careful with her, I can see that,’ the instructor said to Peter on their return. Peter stood at the doorway with the money for the lesson.
‘Finns are great rally drivers and I think we have another one here!’ the instructor said as he waved goodbye.
‘Yes, I know,’ Peter said and sighed.
After the successful driving lesson, Kaisa decided she’d take the train into Glasgow and register with an employment agency in the city centre. She got up early and Peter dropped her off at the station. She wore her black trouser suit and the beige mac (it was raining again), and felt a little like a businesswoman going to a meeting in the city. Glasgow seemed a very large and busy city, and it took her a while to find the office in West George Street, but she’d allowed enough time and was ten minutes early. The lady at the agency was friendly. Her Scottish accent was a bit difficult for Kaisa to understand, but once Kaisa showed her the certificate she’d got from Hanken and told her about working in the bank in Helsinki, plus her time at IDS in Portsmouth, and the job offer from Sonia magazine in London, the woman became much more interested. ‘Aye, I’m sure we’ll find you something,’ she said.
On the way home, Kaisa was overjoyed. In Glasgow, she’d killed time before catching her train back by shopping on Buchanan Street. Peter was going to pick her up from the station at 5.30pm, so she had a few hours to spare. On the spur of the moment, she’d bought herself a new dress from the House of Fraser to wear to work, even though they couldn’t really afford it, and she didn’t even have an interview yet. But the woman at the agency had been so efficient and professional, and hopeful. She stuffed the shopping bag into her almost empty briefcase, which she’d taken to portray a professional attitude. She didn’t want the agency people to think she’d be happy with a job in a pub or a department store.
When Peter met Kaisa at the station, he kissed her lightly on the lips. Before he could ask, Kaisa told him everything about the agency, the woman, and how hopeful she’d been that Kaisa would get work.
‘Is this an actual job in Glasgow?’ Peter asked.
Kaisa looked at his profile; he was waiting to cross the street into West Clyde Street, which ran along the waterfront. ‘I don’t know, they didn’t have one for me at the moment, but she was hopeful.’ Kaisa said.
‘Oh, that’s good.’ Peter said nothing more.
Kaisa was suddenly furious; he hadn’t listened to her at all. She’d told him she’d seen a woman at an agency, and that they would now start to match her details with employers. She sighed and looked out over the water. The morning rain had cleared and the Gareloch looked calm and blue for once. You could clearly see the opposite bank. There were some lush green and red colours of autumn still visible, even though it was early October. It was truly beautiful, but Kaisa could not enjoy the view. Why was it, she thought, that Peter didn’t seem to understand her at all? Why wasn’t he interested when Kaisa talked about her career? Or perhaps it wasn’t his lack of response, but the language he used. She wondered if he even knew what kind of job she was after? He didn’t really know what she did in the bank, or at IDS, nor did he ever ask. Perhaps it was the same with him; Kaisa didn’t understand Peter’s job. Besides, he wasn’t allowed to tell her (or didn’t want to tell her, she didn’t know which). All Kaisa knew was that he was good at his job on the submarine, because people, like the Captain on Peter’s previous sub, HMS Tempest, kept telling her so. Even Duncan had told Kaisa that Peter was very clever.
Still, Peter and Kaisa were arguing a lot less now. They’d settled down to married life in Smuggler’s Way, and Kaisa had unpacked most of the boxes. In the past few weeks there’d been many parties and Kaisa had met some of the other wives of officers serving as port crew in HMS Restless. Peter had told Kaisa that there were two crews, one called starboard and the other port. Peter was part of the latter. Peter had even been given a few days off and they’d been to stay with Jeff in his parents’ pub in Southsea. Kaisa had no idea they had so much room upstairs on the third floor. Peter and Kaisa had their own bedroom while Jeff stayed in a room opposite, with his girlfriend, Susan.
On the night of their visit, as they sat with their first drinks in their usual seat in the far corner of the pub, Jeff glanced at Susan and, grinning at Kaisa and Peter, said, ‘We’ve got some news!’
‘You won the pools?’ Peter
said.
‘Very funny,’ Jeff said and took hold of Susan’s hand, ‘We’re engaged!’
‘Oh, congratulations,’ Kaisa said, and Peter added, ‘Well done, mate,’ and stood up to kiss Susan.
Although Kaisa knew Peter didn’t like Susan much, Jeff seemed a lot happier and more serious about Susan than Kaisa had ever seen him before. After they’d done the usual hugs and kisses, Jeff’s mum and dad had come over to talk about the engagement party they were planning, which Peter and Kaisa wouldn’t be able to attend, since Peter would most probably be away.
Jeff and Peter then started discussing their respective careers. Jeff was about to serve on a ship, which would be based in Northern Ireland. Kaisa listened to the men’s conversation with half an ear, because she knew about the political situation there, and knew Jeff would be in danger. It was his second time there and Kaisa worried about him. But she didn’t want to say anything, and instead listened to Susan talking about the people she and Kaisa both knew at IDS. Kaisa wondered if she’d forgotten that they’d both applied for the same job, and whether she knew that she’d been employed in Kaisa’s stead, merely because of Kaisa’s marriage to an officer in the Royal Navy. How would they react to the news that she, too, would now be married to the Navy? But Susan seemed to enjoy gossiping about the girls, Richard and Kerry and couldn’t wait to tell her that Ann had been sacked; she’d had too many days off sick, Susan said. There was some justice then, Kaisa thought. Susan said that Kerry was as tight-lipped as before and Richard as vague and smiley as he always was. Listening to Susan, Kaisa was transported back to that painful day when she’d found out that IDS hadn’t wanted her, and realised she’d not completely gotten over it. She’d thought that the job offer from Rose at Sonia magazine had wiped away any previous disappointments, but listening to Susan going on and on about IDS and how fantastic her job was, made Kaisa feel inadequate again. Nobody wanted to employ her now. She realised all she was good at was satisfying Peter in bed, and that was it. When he went away again, Kaisa wouldn’t even have that.