How I came to be in England

2010-03-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

ONE

'Englishmen are boring,' I told my then boyfriend. It was his third phone call. He didn't like that I was getting ready for a British Embassy cocktail party in honour of a Royal Naval visit to Helsinki. I was going as a favour to a friend from work, Maria. She'd been unlucky in love.

It was October 1980. My lectures at the School of Economics hadn't started yet, and I was working as a summer intern at a bank in the centre of the city. One of the permanent ladies in the bank was married to a Finnish naval officer and organised an invite for Maria. She asked me to go along, 'You speak good English, I bet.' She was right. Languages came easy to me. I'd lived in Sweden as a child and studied English from the age of seven.

My rented flat, which belonged to the aunt of my boyfriend, was a little away from the centre, on an island, but still within Helsinki city limits. Maria lived in Töölö, in the Northern part, while the Embassy was in the South. Maria'd asked me to come via her flat, so she didn't have to arrive at the party alone. Five minutes before I set off, the telephone rang.

'I can't go, I have nothing to wear,' Maria said and burst into tears.

I glanced at myself in the hall mirror. After four outfits I'd chosen a black and white crepe dress which hugged my body. I'd lost a bit of weight in the last week (on purpose) and was fairly happy with what I saw.

'Nonsense, I'm just leaving. See you in about half an hour.

Maria's face was scrubbed clean, with no trace of make-up. At twenty, I was three years younger, but I became her mother and told her what to wear. She even made up her face again. After the fights about the party with my boyfriend, the two hours of preparation and the bus and tram journey to Töölö, I wasn't going to give up on seeing the inside of the British Embassy now.

It didn't disappoint. The chandeliers were sparkling, the carpets soft, the antique furniture gleaming. We were early - the invitation was for 18.30 and we arrived 25 past six. I didn't know in England one must be late for everything, especially parties. In Finland tardiness was considered rude.

Maria and I were welcomed by the Ambassador and his wife, who to my horror wore a long dress. We settled into a corner of a brightly lit room and sipped sherry out of peculiarly small glasses. A few people in the vast room were talking in small groups. Some of the ladies glanced at us and smiled, but most were unconcerned with two Finnish girls, shyly staring at their shoes, trying not to look out of place.

After about an hour, and three sherries, we'd had enough and decided it was time to leave. 'Do we have to say goodbye to the Ambassador and his wife?' Maria asked nervously. It was then that a large group of men burst through the door, noisily crowding the makeshift bar. Suddenly the room was filled with laughter. We were pushed deeper into our corner.

A tall, slim man in a Navy uniform stood in front of me. He had the darkest eyes I'd ever seen. He reached out his hand, 'How do you do?' and gave me an electric shock. He asked for my name over and over, as if he wanted to memorise it. Though his language was foreign, his manners strange (he was extraordinarily polite), his laughter too loud, I felt I'd known him all my life.

At the end of the evening he said he wanted to see me again.

'I have a boyfriend,' I said.

But he insisted, even after I told him I was engaged to be married.

'You're too young,' he persisted.

People were leaving, it was getting embarrassing to stay under the bright lights of the chandelier. But he wouldn't let me go. Finally giving in, I scrawled my number onto a paper napkin with my lipstick. (We couldn't find a pen anywhere).

Outside on the steps of the Embassy he kissed me to the cheers of the officers of HMS Newcastle. I was mortified. 'I'll call you tomorrow,' he whispered as I stepped into the taxi.
Two days passed and I heard nothing.

I told my boyfriend, or fiance, I was ill, but I was really filled with fury. He'd been right, I should never have agreed to go to the cocktail party. Luckily he didn't know what a fool I'd been, taken in by a foreign sailor. Thank goodness all he'd got out of me was a quick, stolen kiss.

TWO

On a Thursday in mid October in 1980, I was baking bread in the small kitchenette of my Helsinki flat. It was two days after the Embassy Party where I'd met the Englishman. Who'd promised to phone and hadn't.

I knew sooner or later I'd have to come clean to my boyfriend. But not tonight. I started mixing flour with water and yeast. That's when the phone went. The Englishman sounded so elated when he heard my voice.

'You're late.'

'Sorry?' Now there was a serious tinge to his tone.

'Exactly 48 hours late.' We Finns don't beat about the bush. Nor do we do small talk. Not even with potential lovers, especially not with the unreliable ones.

I balanced the avocado coloured receiver between my neck and shoulder and listened. Even when he was being serious I could hear the smile in his voice. He'd rung the wrong number for two days. The digit 'one' that I'd written in lipstick on his napkin looked like a seven, he explained. A mate had told him Europeans write numbers differently.

'I see.' How could I believe this foreign sailor? They had loose morals, everyone knew that. I thought about my fiancé. Meeting up with the Englishman would end it. Was I really prepared to do that?

'Please, please come and meet me?'

'But it's impossible.'There was a short pause. I held my breath, was he giving up on me?

'If I phone again in half an hour, you'll think about it?'

When I manoeuvred the receiver down with my floured hands, I thought, 'What if he doesn't call back?'

While I'd listened to his apologies I was already planning what to wear. Luckily I'd completely lost my appetite and my weight had plummeted. I rushed to wash my hands, phoned my mother, sister and best friend to canvass opinion on a) Whether to meet him and b) What to wear. I only really needed an answer to the latter.

We did all the things would-be lovers, who have nowhere to go, do: walked along the Esplanade under the steel coloured sky, flitted from one Helsinki bar to another. I was petrified we’d meet anyone I knew, especially as the handsome English Naval Officer insisted on holding me close to him. So I steered him to places I didn't think my boyfriend's posh family would be frequenting.

Of course we bumped into his shipmates everywhere we went, causing hilarity and cheering.

‘We sail tomorrow,’ the Englishman said and asked me if he could kiss me. I couldn’t resist him.

'Can’t we go to your flat?’ he asked breathlessly

‘My boyfriend might be there. He has a key.’

When he insisted I had to tell him my fiancé had a hobby: guns. ‘He shoots moose, rabbits, wood pigeons, whatever he can find in the forest. He has a favourite handgun which he sometimes carries.’

The Englishman didn’t ask about my flat again.

When, gone past midnight, he put me into a taxi, I cried all the way home. I was convinced I'd never see the Englishman again. I felt very alone. Next day, or even that same night, if he was in my flat waiting for me, I’d have to confess all to my fiancé, and that would break off the engagement.I shivered when I thought what his mother would say.

THREE

The first letter was a wonderful surprise. It arrived ten days after I’d said goodbye to the Englishman and twelve days after I’d met him at the Embassy cocktail party. When I found the blue oblong air mail envelope on my doormat, I nearly screamed. I held it in my hand for just a moment. It was thick and silky, and I recognised the handwriting immediately. The first sentences took my breath away.

‘It rained when we sailed from Helsinki and the weather seemed to echo my mood. I am sure I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. I miss you so much.’

The Englishman was a poet. I read the pages over and over. Then I carefully folded the three full sheets of writing back into the envelope and held it against my chest. I hadn’t been dreaming. He was real and he missed me as much as I missed him.

My life since he’d left had been far from poetic. When, on the same night I’d parted with the Englishman, I opened the door to my flat, it looked empty. There were no lights on. I inhaled deeply. I had another night to dream about the Englishman before having to confront my boyfriend.

I jumped when I heard him call my name. He was sitting in the dark on my bed.At first my fiancé was quiet. As his silence grew, my talking increased. I tried to explain.

'It's as if I’d known this stranger all my life, I didn’t go to the cocktail party in order to meet some-one. It was just an accident.'

'Accident?'

After the silent shock came his anger. My boyfriend, who’d I’ve known for four years to be a calm, controlled man, started to shout at me.

‘But you went to see him again!’ he bellowed. ‘You’re no better than those girls who hang around ports, prostituting themselves to sailors. How much did he pay for you?’

‘We didn’t do anything!’

‘Oh yeah? You expect me to believe you!’

I’d never seen my fiancé like this. In spite of the love for guns, he was not a violent man. He was a lot older than me, and I guess that had been his attraction. When the boys at school and University drank too much and hardly remembered what they’d done with you the morning after, my fiancé would cook a wonderful meal, or take me for long walks in the forest, or read me poems. He was never in a hurry and he never did anything without considering the consequences. And he’d never said a cross word to me. Until now.

‘You know he’ll have a girl like you in every port.’

I felt sick. Tears were running down my face. We were still sitting on my bed, fully clothed.

‘And what do you know about him – nothing! I bet you’ll never set your eyes on him again.’

I sobbed. I couldn’t look at him.Suddenly his tone changed, ‘So what are you going to do?’

I looked at the brown eyes. It was as if the man I known so well was back again. ‘I don’t know.’

We were both silent for a long time. I could hear a lonely car somewhere in the distance. I wished I was in it, I wished I was anywhere else but here.

My fiancé put his arm over my shoulders. ‘Let’s get into bed.’ He was pleading now.

I nodded. It was late. I grabbed my nightie and went into the bathroom. I needed to be alone. In his fury my fiancé had expressed all the worries I had. What did I know about the Englishman? He was only 18 days older than me. He didn’t have a girlfriend, but he’d been writing to someone who he’d been seeing before. I hated her already. He was, tall, dark and handsome. He loved books and believed that character is fate. He told me to read Thomas Hardy. His lips tasted of the cigarettes he smoked and mint. He laughed a lot and when he did his eyes sparkled. He looked at me as if he wanted to wrap me up and protect me and devour me at the same time.

As I sat on the loo seat, shivering in my thin nightie, I realised I’d never felt this before. This was love. The stuff I’d read about in books since I was a teenager, and before. This was how Ryan O’Neal felt about Ali McGraw in ‘Love Story’, and Barbara Streisand about Robert Redford in ‘The Way We Were’. I grinned. I had wanted to pose the same question to the Englishman that Katie did to Hubbell, ‘Do you smile ALL the time?’ I sighed and flushed the empty loo and ran the water for a second or two. I didn’t want my fiancé to think I was doing what I was doing in there – daydreaming about the Englishman.

My fiancé was in bed already. When I lay beside him, he turned his face close to mine. I knew what he wanted. ‘I’m really tired,’ I said as gently as I could and turned my back to him. For a moment I could feel his body tense. He was lying on his back and from his breathing I knew he had his eyes open. I curled myself into a ball and forced my eyes shut. I felt his body move and press against mine. I remained motionless until I could hear his breathing steady and knew he was asleep.

FOUR

My university lectures restarted the last week of October 1980. But my mind was not on Macro Economics. All I could think about was my handsome Englishman. The words of the first letter were engraved onto my brain. He told me he lived in a house in Portsmouth, which he shared with three friends, all from the Navy.

The Englishman also asked if he could phone me one evening. I penned a quick reply and two weeks later the wonder of (then) modern telecommunications occurred. His voice, clear as if he was standing in the next room, spoke to me. I swooned. It was past one o'clock in the morning in Helsinki, only eleven in the UK. He'd just come home from the pub with his friends. At first I thought I was dreaming. I'd got out of bed too quickly and ran to the living room where the phone was, afraid I'd miss the call. Then there he was, talking to me. His voice was low and manly, and when he said he missed me I nearly fainted. Instead I hung onto the receiver, trying to press the avocado coloured phone as close as possible.

'I miss you too,' I whispered.

He was quiet for a moment. 'I wish you were here right now. The things I'd do to you...' His voice had become even deeper. And then he said it.

'I think I'm falling in love with you.'

'Me too!' I tried to control my voice, to keep it level. What I really wanted to do was shout those words to him.

International telephone calls were expensive, so we had very little time to talk. He promised to phone again soon. I replaced the receiver and slumped down to the sofa. It was pitch black outside, only the street lights cast shadows into my small flat.

The next day was a Saturday and my ex-fiance was due to come over to pick up the remainder of his things from the flat. There were a few of his LP's left, some shaving cream and deodorant I found in the bathroom. A heavy jumper I'd knitted him the previous winter. Looking at the pile of his things I could not remember how I'd felt before I met the Englishman. I couldn't understand how I'd been able to be with another man. How I could have thought I loved him.

I was making coffee when the phone went again.

'Hello,' the grave female voice said.

When I was quiet, it went on, 'Didn't think you'd hear from me, did you?'

I couldn't get any words out, but my heart was racing. It was my fiance's mother.

'So, what have you got to say for yourself?'

'Sorry...?'

'You're a nasty young woman. First you seduce my son, then when it suits, you cast him out like a used dish cloth. But then I knew this from the beginning. Your mother's divorced after all.'

I was still speechless.

'Well?' she demanded.

'I'm sorry, I can't do anything.'

'Why not? You don't think the English sailor is ever going to marry you - are you?'

'Well...'

My rage was slowly emerging from the coma the phone call had initially placed it. But I couldn't get a word in.

'You are a very silly girl. If you have any sense, you place that expensive ring on your finger again and accept that life with my son is the best you can do with yours.'

My face grew hot.

Suddenly she stopped talking. I heard sniffles in the other end.

'I'm really sorry,' I said as calmly as I could. I took the receiver off my ear and disconnected the call by pressing the plastic buttons down. My hands were shaking.

When a few moments later the doorbell went, I took the pile of my ex-fiance's things and handed them to him over the doorstep.

'Your mother called.'

'Oh,' he said and tried to step inside the hall.

For the past few weeks he'd still been coming around. I'd felt sorry for him, and guilty for breaking off the engagement. He'd been sleeping in my bed, and I'd let him hold me.

'I'm sorry, ' I said and kissed him on the cheek. 'Goodbye.' I closed the door.

The coffee percolator was making gurgling noises. From the small kitchenette window I watched my old life walk towards his moss green Opel Kadet. He was holding the pile of things in front of him, as if he was a robot. The sky looked dark, it was about to rain. The first drops fell when my ex's car disappeared from my view. I felt light-headed. The rain didn't matter. The mother's insults didn't matter. My ex-fiance didn't matter.

All that mattered was that the Englishman loved me.

FIVE

By March 1981 I'd been exchanging letters with the handsome Englishman for five months. At times I doubted his sincerity. Showing affection seemed to come easily to him. Yet we hardly knew each other and had only met twice the previous October.

At least the fights and recriminations with my ex-fiance and his mother had finally come to an end. I'd returned the mink fur coat she'd given me as a gift the winter before. The expensive ring her son gave me was no longer on my finger.I started to think the affair with the English Naval Officer might also soon become just a memory. Perhaps he'd only been a trigger for me to finally realise that the relationship with my boyfriend wasn't right. He made me understand I was too young to settle down. What I now needed was to concentrate on my studies at the School of Economics and forget about men for a while. I was still only twenty years old.

'You'll have many, many lovers yet,' my mother said on the phone from Stockholm where she'd began a new life. Not usual motherly advice, but I knew she could be right.

In the middle of March '81 the Englishman called. Again it was late, two o'clock in the morning in Helsinki.

'I've done it!' he said.

'Sorry?' He'd woken me up from a deep sleep.

'I'm coming to Helsinki! I picked up the tickets from the travel agent today!'

That woke me up. In only three weeks' time, in early April, he'd stay with me for a whole week.

After I put the phone down I panicked. I needed to go on a diet. I'd been the thinnest ever when we met five months earlier. And what would I wear? A new wardrobe was out of the question, my funds were at an all time low. And I needed to clean the flat. I looked around and saw my bed. What if...we didn't get on? I'd never had a boyfriend who'd been the same age as me. What if he wasn't very experienced? I couldn't bear the embarrassment. What would I do with the Englishman for a whole seven days and nights if it all turned sour?

My best friend at university said I worried too much. 'Throw him out if you don't like him.' She smiled and added, 'But I know you won't.'

In his letters the Englishman told me he liked women who wore skirts and dresses. I lived in jeans and trousers. In my wardrobe I had one skirt. I'd made it myself from a silky fabric with a print of mountain scene at the hem. I decided to wear it with my new high-heeled beige boots and a cardigan with small pearly buttons my mother gave me for Christmas.

Standing in front of the mirror two hours before I was due to leave for the airport, I was satisfied. I looked almost like a proper girly girl rather than the boyish, lanky thing who attended her lectures wearing jeans and an over-sized jumper.

On the way to the Helsinki Vantaa airport I felt dizzy. The shiny air-conditioned Finnair bus with tinted windows was nearly empty. A couple of foreign-looking men in expensive dark suits sat at the front. One of them smiled at me when I got on board. I looked down to the floor. The Helsinki sky outside was grey, it was a cold and rainy April. A few patches of dirty snow were still visible on the side of the road.

When the bus pulled up to the terminal, I let the men get off first. I couldn't wait to see the Englishman, but at the same time I was scared stiff. I had no photo of him. Would I still recognise him after five months? And would I still like him - love him?What if he was disappointed when he saw me?

SIX

When I finally saw the Englishman through the glass wall at the Helsinki airport arrivals hall, I felt suddenly calm. I hadn’t imagined how handsome he was. The Naval Officer I’d met at the British Embassy cocktail party six months earlier in October 1980 was real. I hadn’t fooled myself into an affection of this man just to have courage to end my relationship with another. I hadn’t fought with my ex-fiancé and his mother for nothing. Here he was, the man of my dreams, standing a few metres from me, impatiently changing position and staring at the empty baggage conveyor belt. He hadn’t seen me yet. I was grateful for the few moments when I could observe him without his intense eyes on me. At the same time I was desperate for that look of burning desire. He didn’t see me until, with his bag over his shoulder, he walked through the automatic doors. He dropped his bag and kissed me. I melted.

I’d planned a celebratory dinner at my flat of prawn cocktail, followed by chicken fricassee. He ate heartily, praising my cooking while I could hardly face a bite. When I served coffee with the small Pepe cakes I’d bought in the bakery that morning, he asked if we could move to the sofa.

Instead of eating we kissed, and kissed. ‘You haven’t had your coffee,’ I said emerging for a breath.

He gave me an intense look, ‘Please let’s go to bed?’

We didn’t leave the small flat for the next 48 hours.

‘We have to go for a walk,’ I said on the 3rd morning of our seven days together.

His arm around me, we walked on the shores of Lauttasaari Island. The sea was stormy. Spring was late that year and the chilly wind blew against my face. I didn’t feel the cold, but the Englishman had not brought the clothes for the Baltic spring storms.

We took the bus to the centre of Helsinki and bought him a water proof coat from Stockmann’s.

On the way home, it started snowing and he pulled out his sunglasses. Everyone on the street stared. I laughed.

‘What?’

‘There’s no sun,’ I said.

‘The snow flecks hurt my eyes.’

The Englishman brought music tapes with him. Finnish radio played just domestic hits or a few foreign tracks by Elvis or Frank Sinatra. When the Englishman had left me the first time he gave me a tape of Pretenders, ‘Brass in Pocket’ LP and told me to listen to it. I wore it down.
This time his tapes included Billy Joel’s ‘Just the Way You Are’, 'She's Always A Woman' and the Isley Brothers with ‘When Will There Be A Harvest For The World’. We listened to the tapes so many times I learned the lyrics by heart.

The day before the Englishman was due to go back home was my 21st birthday. My mother made a visit. She bought a layered sponge cake with pineapple slices arranged on top. I made coffee.

‘She’s come to see if I’m good enough for her daughter,’ the Englishman said while we were waiting for her.

‘No, it’s my birthday!’ But when we sat around the small table and I saw my mother assessing the Englishman, I wondered if he was right, perhaps my mother had planned it?

My mother didn’t speak English. Before we had the cake, I’d put out some bread, ham, cheese and slices of tomato and cucumber. I’d bought some white bread for the Englishman. I didn’t think he’d like the Finnish dark rye.

‘Please,’ I said and nodded towards the Englishman to start. My mother and I watched as he took two slices of white bread, buttered them both and filled one side with ham and cucumber. Then he put the other on top and pressed hard on it with the palm of his hand. He took the butter knife and diagonally cut the thing in half. There was a silence.

The Englishman looked up from his plate and smiled. ‘What?’

‘That,’ I said pointing at the thing he’d made with the bread.

He laughed. ‘It’s a sandwich!’

‘Oh’ both my mother and I said at the same time.

‘It’s what we do in England.’

I showed the Englishman what we did in Finland, filled just one side and balanced the contents with out finger as we ate it.

I translated to my mother. She laughed.

When the Englishman excused himself and visited the loo, my mother whispered to me, ‘He’s so handsome!’

I nodded.

‘When’s he going back?’ she said.

My mother knew me too well. The thought of the week ending had been on my mind since the first evening. Like a ticking bomb, the day loomed, getting closer and closer. How could I go back to living in the flat on my own, how could I be able to sleep in the same bed on my own? The longing for him would kill me.

‘Tomorrow.’ Tears filled my eyes. My mother put her arm around me, until we heard the loo door open and I got up and escaped to the kitchenette to wipe my eyes.

Back at the airport I felt a horrible dread. I’d cried on the smart bus that took us there. The Englishman held me.

‘It’ll be alright, you’ll see. You’ll come to England in August, promise?’

August was four months away.

After he’d checked in his bag, we had half an hour before the flight was boarding. We stood looking at the large display of flights. The white characters flicked, and moved upwards. Now there were only three destinations before London.

Suddenly the Englishman said, ‘Wait here, I’ll be back.’

I stood there watching another flight move forward. An awful emptiness filled me. Every molecule in my body felt his absence. Why did he go when we had so little time left?

He handed me a red rose. ‘This is for you’

I started crying again.

He took my face in his hands and wiped away my tears with his thumbs. ‘I love you. Don’t forget it.’He took me in his arms once more and whispered. ‘I have to go now.’

I nodded.

He kissed me and then he was gone. I couldn’t watch but ran blindly down the stairs, clutching the rose.

SEVEN

The Finnair flight to Heathrow in August 1981 was almost empty. There were two air hostesses and one steward, who kept me topped up with orange juice and water. I was nervous. I’d never been to England before. I was used to travelling on my own, but London was a big city to get lost in.As the plane swung over the Thames, the very blonde haired air steward came and sat next to me.

‘Been to London before?’

‘No,’ I answered, thinking, what if the Englishman is not there to meet me?

‘That’s Big Ben, and there’s Tower Bridge.’ He leant closer to point out the rest of the London landmarks through the window on my side. He smiled, flashing a perfect set of white teeth.

As we left the centre I saw rows and rows of houses. There seemed to be no end to them.

The Englishman was waiting for me. He took my bag and gave me a long kiss. The steward from the plane came past and waved to me.

‘Who was that?’When I told him how kind the Finnair guy had been, he said, ‘I bet.’ I

t was the first time the Englishman had been jealous of me. It felt good. I pushed myself closer to him as we walked to the car park.The air outside the revolving doors of the airport terminal was warm. It smelled of sour milk and traffic fumes. There were people everywhere.

‘Here, put this on, it’ll keep your hair in place.’ The Englishman opened the car door and handed me a Red Sox baseball cap. He’d told me in his letters he had an open top Triumph Spitfire. ‘It’s yellow, but that means I won’t be missed on the road!’

The car looked tiny. The seats were black leather and very low. The Englishman rolled down the top and sat beside me. ‘It suits you,’ he smiled and kissed me again. ‘It’ll take us a couple of hours to get to Pompey.’

The warm air rushed past my face. The busy concrete spaghetti junctions were followed by rolling green hills with occasional cows grazing by the side of the road. I felt so happy I could burst. While travelling at any speed, with the Spitfire top down, we could only hear each other by shouting, but occasionally the Englishman would lean over, take my hand and squeeze it. He’d smile and pull it to his lips.

Suddenly there was water on either side of the road. ‘This is Southsea,’ the Englishman said and slowed down. We drove past the Common and down along the seafront. At one end was a large Ferris Wheel, then a long promenade. People in ones and twos, some with their children or dogs strolled along the pavement, laughing and chatting to each other.

I realised we were nearly at the house the Englishman shared with his Navy friends. I grew nervous again. What if they didn’t like me? I’d chosen what I wore very carefully, but now felt shabby and old-fashioned. What if his friends were very smart?

From the seafront the Englishman drove down one street, and turned into another, then yet another. They all looked alike, with rows and rows of the kind of houses I’d seen from the aeroplane. The street names were displayed on white signs attached to low-slung brick walls. He stopped on a tree-lined street called ‘Winter Road’ and said, ‘We’re here!’

The door to the house was ajar. The Englishman took my hand and led me inside. ‘Wait here,’ he said. I stood in a shabby looking room with a worn-out sofa, a large TV and a stereo with two speakers either side. A stack of LP’s stood on the floor. A wooden staircase next to a narrow hall had a strip of carpet on it. The Englishman leaped up the stairs taking two or three steps at a time.

A guy with light-coloured hair in a faded t-shirt walked in from the hallway. He was barefoot. ‘You must be the Finnish girlfriend.’

I took his outstretched hand and smiled. He was followed by a shorter man with dark, tidy hair and clothes. His girlfriend came after. She had short sandy coloured hair and dark eyes. They both smiled and shook my hand too.

My Englishman tumbled down the stairs. ‘Oh, here you all are.’ We stood in a circle and for a while no-one spoke.

‘I’ll show you my room,’ the Englishman said. His friends sniggered until the English girl looked sternly at them. I was very embarrassed but allowed myself to be led up the stairs.

EIGHT

During the two weeks I spent in the UK in August 1981, the sun never stopped shining and the music never stopped playing. At first Radio 1 sounded very American to me. All laughter and superficial chatter. But it played the hits I didn’t even know to crave for in Finland. The station was always on in the car or in the terraced house in Southsea. The Englishman sang along, ‘Every little thing she does is magic, magic, magic’, or ‘I’m just a jealous guy.’

Half way through the first week he drove me to the country to see his parents. I wore my now familiar Red Sox cap to keep my hair in place in his yellow sports car.

‘How far is it?’ I asked when we were in Salisbury.

The Englishman must have noticed a nervous note, because he squeezed my thigh and smiled. ‘I’ll let you know when we’re ten minutes away.’

The Englishman’s mother was attending to a flower bed outside a pink house. She gave a little laugh as she kissed her son and shook my hand.

‘Hello, so nice to meet you at last.’

It was Wednesday lunchtime and the Englishman’s father was still at work. Wearing an apron, his mother made us home made chips and served them with thick slices of ham. We ate in a large kitchen overlooking a green lawn and chatted about what we’d done during my two days in Portsmouth. She wanted to know when I’d arrived and when I was going home. She raised an eyebrow when she heard I lived alone in a flat in Helsinki. I wondered if she knew my parents were divorced.

‘I’ve put you in the blue room.’ She lifted her eyes towards her son. ‘And you can sleep in the yellow one.’

It was like a scene form Jane Austen. I didn’t dare to look at the Englishman. I thought about his bedroom back in Southsea. On his wall he had a large poster of a girl playing tennis, showing her bare bottom. He also had a Pirelli calendar with scantily clad women on every page. What would his mother say if she saw them?

The Englishman’s father was a charming man with almost white hair. When he came home his piercing dark eyes fixed on me.

‘Hello,’ he said simply, but smiled as he shook my hand and nodded as if to show me his approval.

He put on an LP of Sibelius and told me how he admired the Finnish soldiers in the Winter War. ‘Brave men. You stood up to the Russians, eh?’

That evening the Englishman took me out to a pub in a pretty village called Lacock. The place was dark, with low rustic beams. We sat around a large unlit fireplace and chatted to his school friends. They surveyed me from under their eyebrows and were surprised I could speak English.

Late in the evening as we tiptoed into the house, the Englishman kissed me softly and said, ‘I’ll come into your room in the morning when my parents have gone to work.'

The Englishman took me to Stourhead. He said it was prettier in May when the Rhododendrons were in bloom. I couldn’t understand how those lush gardens could look any more beautiful. He also took me to Longleat, where we wandered hand in hand through the ancient manor house. And we spent a day in Bath. I fell in love with the Roman Spas, the Georgian architecture and the smart shopping streets. Cautiously I wondered if one day I might live there.

At the end of the visit, when I thanked the Englishman’s mother, she said. ‘Oh, it’s my pleasure dear. I try look after all the girlfriends my son brings home.’The Englishman laughed nervously.

On the drive back to Portsmouth I looked at his handsome profile as he negotiated a large roundabout. How many girlfriends had there been? Did his mother want to warn me? Was I taking this relationship too seriously? More seriously than the Englishman? Perhaps all the sightseeing, the introductons to various friends and the love letters were something he did all the time. He certainly seemed practised at making a girl feel special.For once, when the car sped up and the fast rushing of the wind made it impossible to talk, I was grateful. I was too busy to stop the tears from smudging my make-up.

NINE

Now and then during my last week in the UK, the words of the Englishman’s mother about 'all of my son'd girlfriends' rang in my ears. But as soon as the Englishman took me into his arms, or even just touched me, I convinced myself there was nothing in what she’d said to me. After all, I’d been engaged to be married when we met. He too could’ve had serious girlfriends before me.

The Englishman wanted to show me everything about his country. For my last weekend he took me to visit his older brother and his wife in London.

'I hear you were put in separate bedrooms in Wiltshire,' the brother said and smiled.

I blushed but was relieved they'd decided we were old enough to sleep together in the guest room of their semi-detached house in Surrey.

On Sunday, the day before my flight back to Helsinki, the Englishman planned a picnic in Hyde Park. It was a sunny, though a little windy day. Before lunch he drove me around the sights. The streets of London were quiet. I took pictures of Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace from the passenger seat of the little yellow convertible.

In the park we spread our blanket under a large elm. A few young boys were playing football in the distance. The vast lawns were incredibly green and even. The Englishman's efficient sister-in-law had prepared a picnic of sandwiches neatly cut in triangles and arranged into a Tupperware dish. There was a thermos of tea and one of coffee. The cheese in the sandwiches was strong cheddar, the pickle vinegary and salty, the ham too fatty. The weak, milky coffee was made out of instant granules. Like most Finns, I liked black, strong percolated coffee. But I would have drunk snake’s blood if I could have lived in the same country as the Englishman. It was just that, whenever I was close to him, I had no appetite.

Lying on the blanket next to the Englishman I tried not to think about the future, although this was the last 24 hours I’d spend with him for a very long time. We’d not been able to make plans for the next meeting. He gave me a kiss and whispered hoarsely into my year, ‘I’m going to miss you so much!’

I took a deep breath and said, ‘What are we going to do?’

The Englishman let go of me and lay down on the blanket. I wish I hadn't said anything, but I couldn't bear the uncertainty. I watched the Englishman reach out for his sunglasses and speak to the blue sky above him.

‘You know I’m joining a new submarine up in Scotland next week.’ He turned to me but I couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark glasses. ‘And you’ve got two more years at university?'

‘Yes’ I muttered.

The Englishman put his arms around me. ‘If only Finland was in the EEC, then you wouldn’t need a stupid work permit. You could just come and work here. In a pub or somewhere. I’m sure someone would take you on.…’

I moved away from him. I was shivering.

‘Are you cold?’ the Englishman removed his glasses and looked at me with concern. He handed me his jumper. It smelled of his aftershave and cigarettes. Then he lent over into the pocket of his jacket and retrieved a packet of Marlboroughs and lit one.

I was grateful for the interlude. Blood was rushing in my head and my heart was beating so hard I could hardly breathe.

The Englishman blew smoke out the side of his mouth. ‘We’ll just have to be together when we meet.’

I looked at his long legs. I couldn’t look into his eyes.‘What do you mean?’

'When we're not together we'll be free to do whatever we want.'

It was as if he’d hit me in the face. ‘You mean we'll be free to see other people?’

‘You know I love you.’

‘Yeah!’ I got up, and with my back turned to him, started tidying the uneaten sandwiches back into the container.

‘Come here.’

‘No.’

The Englishman lifted himself up onto his elbows. ‘Look, this has happened to me before.’

I froze.

The Englishman spoke to the back of my head, ‘When I was on a commission in the Canadian Navy I met this girl. She…well, we fell in love. But it didn’t last. She couldn’t work in Britain and I couldn’t afford to go to Canada all the time. So we slowly forgot about each other.’

My head was spinning. I dropped the Tupperware box onto the blanket and sat down again. I couldn’t talk.

The Englishman turned to face me and put his arms around me. In a low whisper he said, ‘I just don’t want that to happen to us.’

I looked into his dark eyes, at the straight line of his mouth. I turned around and rested my head on his shoulder and twined my fingers with his strong, long ones. I wanted the world to stop here. We sat like that while I waited for the tears to come. But there weren't any.

'You OK?' he said.

I turned to him and heard myself say, 'Yes.'

TEN

I had never felt as numb as I did waiting for my flight at Heathrow on 31st of August 1981. There were just a handful of us sitting outside the gate for the Finnair flight to Helsinki. No-one wanted to travel from London to ‘Hel’ as the label on my luggage read. It felt like Hell was just what I was going back to.

The Englishman and I hadn’t discussed our future any more since Hyde Park. I’d accepted I was on the losing side. He meant more to me than I did to him. That was one fact I understood. It served me right, I thought, as I watched a man wearing a pinstriped suit opposite me read his pink Financial Times. Had I not similarly cast a side a man who was more than devoted to me? My ex-fiancé’s heart must have hurt as much as mine did now. And he'd been right. A foreign man, a sailor, would have a girl in every port. The Englishman did not care for me, not in the way my ex-fiancé did. But the thought of going back to my ex-boyfriend made me shudder. No, I’d have to look after myself. I felt more alone sitting on the hard plastic seats of the airport terminal than I had ever done in my life.

The man in the suit dropped his paper and gave me a quick smile. I looked at my watch. The flight was due to leave in five minutes. We should already be boarding, but there was no sign of an official by the gate. I felt shabby in my jeans and a jumper. I should dress more smartly and take an interest in financial matters like the man opposite. I was a student of Economics after all. Instead I sat there like a love-sick puppy. I straightened my back and spoke to the man, ‘Is the flight delayed?'

‘Looks like it.’ He turned a page and lifted the paper back up to cover his face.

I took out my book, Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles, but I couldn’t concentrate on the text in front of me. The Englishman had given me the paperback. He said it was one of his favourite books. I touched my lips and remembered the long kiss he'd given me by the passport control only half an hour ago. I thought about what he would be doing now. Would he be listening to Radio 1 and singing along as he drove back to Portsmouth in his yellow sports car? Would he give a thought to me? On the way to the airport he told me it was the last night he’d spend with his friends in the terraced house in Portsmouth. His face had looked sad then. I wanted to shout, ‘What about me? This is the last time you’re going to see me for a long time too. Perhaps the last time ever.’ But I said nothing and listened to how the four friends were going to go out the pub for a goodbye dinner.

I didn’t even have a forwarding address for the Englishman. He’d told me only the name of the submarine he was going to join. ‘I’ll write to you as soon as I’m settled up there,’ he'd said when we were standing outside the passport control.

I nodded.

‘I promise.’ He cupped my face into his hands and kissed me. ‘I love you, remember that.’

I hadn't been able to speak. Tears were running down my cheeks. I gave him a last quick kiss and turned towards the man in uniform waiting to check my ticket and passport. I didn’t look back.

Helsinki was cold and rainy. The leaves were already turning yellow and brown. Autumn was here. The smart Finnair bus dropped me off at Töölö Square and I heaved my heavy suitcase down the hill to Mannerheim Street. I carried my luggage onto the tram and then onto a bus which took me to my empty flat in Lauttasaari. I ignored the pile of post, mostly bills, which I’d received while away. Instead, I dug out of my bag two LP’s the Englishman had bought for me. I read Tess of the d’Urbervilles while I listened to all the tracks on the Christopher Cross and the Earth, Wind & Fire albums over and over. When night fell, I crawled into bed and cried myself to sleep.

ELEVEN

The lectures at the School of Economics restarted a few days after I came back from my holiday in England. It was September and the afternoons were already turning dark in Helsinki.

On the first day of term I got up early, gathered all my bills, including the overdue rent for my flat and headed into town. I needed to check the balance on my bank account. It was embarrassing being late with the rent, especially now I’d broken off the engagement with my ex boyfriend. The flat belonged to his aunt after all. She’d tell his mother if I was late, and that would confirm all her suspicions about my flaky personality. How unreliable I was. How I could not be depended upon. Just like my divorcee mother.

The ladies in the bank wanted to hear all about my holiday in England. They felt responsible for the love affair with the Englishman, because one of them had organised for me to go to the cocktail party at the British Embassy. When eventually I tore myself free and asked for my bank book to be updated I stared at the black printed figures on the small page.

‘What’s up,’ the lady who’d handed me the book asked.

‘Nothing,’ I said and left.

At the School of Economics, I headed straight for the students’ advisory office.

‘My student grant has not been paid into my bank,’ I told the lady at the desk. She remembered me from the year before when I’d filled into the forms. There weren’t many students who were eligible for a grant at the Helsinki Swedish School of Economics in 1981. Most were from well-to-do families, not from a broken-up home like mine.

The woman with pale blue eyes and messy blonde hair, with grey streaks in it, looked at me kindly. ‘I’m afraid your grant was denied.’

I was speechless.

The woman pulled out a sheet of paper and looked at it. She turned it over and pointed at a set of computer printed figures. I saw my name at the top of the sheet with perforated edges and grey faded print on pale green and white striped paper.

‘You see, you only got 15 credits last term. You need a minimum of 20 to receive the funding.'

'Oh.' I lifted my eyes to the woman.

She tilted her head slightly and opened her mouth to say something. But she closed it again and looked down at the computer print-out.

I ran out of the office, past the common room where other students were smoking and drinking coffee. Loud chatter and laughter filled the space. I saw a guy who’d hit on me in my first year. Later I’d learned that he was titled, Von something or other. It was gossiped that he was part of a gang always on the look out for ‘fresh meat’. Since I’d turned him down, the gang often shouted remarks at me. I gave the tall, dark haired guy a quick glance and hurried out onto the cold street.

What was I going to do? I had fifty-seven Marks on my bank account. That would last for a month if I was very careful. But it didn’t pay for the rent, or for the electricity bill. Both were a week overdue. I didn’t have a job, and if I got one I wouldn’t get paid until at the end of the month. Besides, good jobs were hard to come by, even for fully fledged graduates. I’d only passed my first year.

On the Number 21 bus to Lauttasaari the dread for my future grew. What would I tell my mother? She’d been so proud when I got the letter from the School of Economics, telling me I’d not only passed the entrance exam but also the language test in Swedish. This was compulsory for anyone coming from a Finnish school. Unlike the Finns with Swedish as their mother tongue, I’d learned the language when my family lived in Stockholm for three years. I’d been eleven when we moved and fourteen when we returned to Finland. I had a Stockholm accent, which made me stand out at the School of Economics in Helsinki. But I really struggled with Swedish academic text. It had been four years since we’d left the country and my language skills were mostly spoken, apart from the little I learned in my Swedish class when back at school in Finland. Or at least this is what I would tell my mother. As for my father, I decided not to contact him at all.

At home I was greeted by another bill: the telephone. With dread I opened it: thirty six Marks and 79 pennies. Underneath the white envelope was an oblong blue one. A letter from the Englishman. I felt the silky texture between my fingers and tried to resist the temptation to open it. Rather than the struggle with Swedish, the reason for my failure to pass any exams at the School of Economics was the Englishman. Instead of studying, I’d been re-reading his letters over and over again, lying awake at night waiting for his calls, daydreaming at lectures, or not even turning up at them after a sleepless, love-sick night. When I should have been studying Employment Law, I was planning my holiday to England. Instead of making the most of the lectures of a visiting professor in International Law, I’d been looking out of the large windows of the lecture hall, remembering the feel of Englishman’s kiss on my lips.

‘When I arrived in Faslane it was snowing, can you believe that? It is so much colder up here in Scotland, just like Helsinki. And I got off at the wrong station and had to wait for another train for ages in the freezing weather. When I finally arrived at the naval base, I met an old mate who I didn’t know was also joining the submarine service. Of course we had a few beers too many in the Back Bar and now I’m a bit worse for wear while writing to you, my love. I miss you so much. When I saw you walk through to the other side at Heathrow I thought my heart would break. The drive back to Pompey was horrible without you next to me wearing my Red Sox cap.'

Tears ran down my face. I couldn’t read on. The Englishman did love me. He missed me.It was a short letter, just two sides on one sheet of paper. He gave me a new address and said he couldn’t tell me when he could call, as he didn’t know when or where they’d sail.

‘Even if I knew, I don’t think I could tell you my darling.'

I put the letter on the little dining table and went into my alcoved kitchen to make coffee. When I opened the tin, I noticed there was just enough for one load in the percolator. Coffee was expensive, but I’d have to go and buy some for tomorrow morning. I’d rather have coffee and starve I thought to myself ruefully. And I’d rather see the Englishman then have coffee. What a stupid, stupid girl I was.

TWELVE

The smart new ferry smelled of carpet freshener and paint. A large bellied man in uniform greeted the passengers with a smile at the end of a long ramp.

‘Welcome on board, Miss.’

My arm ached from carrying the suitcase and I barely managed a grimace in return. To my relief the luggage store was close by. I placed my heavy bag on a shelf and checked I had all I needed for the overnight crossing: Toiletries, a small towel and my purse. I placed the items into my small Marimekko holdall and went in search of the free bunk beds.

I felt like a refugee, fleeing Helsinki in the autumn of 1981. Escaping my unpaid rent and the wrath of my ex-boyfriend’s family. When my mother said on the phone, ‘Darling, come to Stockholm,’ I hadn’t hesitated. I had nothing to stay for. No money, no energy to study, no boyfriend.

After the initial elation caused by the Englishman’s last letter, I’d began to doubt him again. I remembered his mother’s words about all his girlfriends and the Englishman’s own wish to remain free when he wasn’t with me. How ever much he missed me, he didn’t seem worried he might lose me. I wondered whether I should write a reply, but then, the night before I was due to leave, came a phone call.

‘To Stockholm, when?’

I told the Englishman he was lucky to have caught me.

There was a silence.

‘What if I hadn’t called tonight?’

I didn’t say anything. I wanted to seem nonchalant, but his pain was hurting me.

‘I was going to write from Stockholm,’ I lied.

During the overnight crossing I slept very little. I had a prawn smörgås and a beer in the ship’s cafeteria before turning in with a large bar of Marabou chocolate. The tastes of my childhood in Sweden.

Not all the bunks in the free sleeping quarters were taken. During the middle of the night a drunk came wandering into the room and for a moment I was scared, but a large man occupying a bed opposite told him to leave.

‘I’ll call the ship’s crew,’ he said.

As I lay motionless listening to the drunk’s slow, but loud, departure I wondered if I’d always be this poor. Too poor to afford a cabin, like the man opposite me.

I cried when my mother embraced me. ‘Your sister’s at work, but you can stay with her until you find a place of your own.’

I relaxed. I wasn’t alone, my family would look after me.My sister worked at a large hotel in the middle of the city. She asked me to meet her after a late shift.

‘The staff go out together after we close. The bars and nightclubs are open till very late in Stockholm,’ she said.

She too, had fled Helsinki. Not for money, work or studies, but an unsuitable boyfriend. My sister was two years older than me. We’d always been close, and spent our teenage years going out together.

‘Just like old times,’ she now said and took hold of my arm. She smelled of perfume and her hair was done up with large bouncy blonde curls.

I had no money but she told me not to worry. ‘Pay me back when you get a job,’ she said and laughed. Her job as Maitre d’Hotel paid well. I couldn’t believe how full the bar was at half past midnight. The music was playing loudly, and all the tables were taken. My sister waved at a large group at the back of the room. Two empty chairs were found for us. I was introduced as Little Sister, the name too from the old days.From the bar we went to a disco, and for the first time since arriving in Stockholm I felt at ease. I danced with several of my sister’s friends, as well as totally unknown guys who’d just come up and asked me to the floor. Men in Sweden were so much more subdued than in Helsinki. You could talk to them without instantly being hit on

‘It’s because most of them are gay,’ my sister laughed later in her flat. She was making late night sandwiches. We were listening to a new Rod Steward LP, ‘Blondes have More Fun’. It was past three o’clock in the morning.The loud ringing of the phone made us both jump.

‘It’s the Englishman for you,’ my sister said handing me the receiver.

‘I’ve tried your number all evening.’

‘Sorry, I was out with my sister.’

‘Oh.’

My first job interview was with Handelsbanken, the largest bank in Sweden. The office on the third floor on Karlaplan was bright with desks separated by low walls. Smiling faces looked up at me as I followed a friendly woman to her desk. The office staff wore jeans, or casual trousers and tops. In the bank in Helsinki we had to wear a shirt and skirt, or a neat dress. Even on a hot summer’s day, the dress code was strictly adhered to.

At the end of the interview, which I thought had gone very well, the Swedish woman closed the file on her lap and smiled at me.

‘Can I give you some advice?’

I was surprised. This didn’t sound like a job offer after all.

‘Yes, of course.’

‘I know you’d make a great employee here at Handelsbanken. And I could quite easily give you the job, and I know you’d be good at it. But,’ the woman hesitated for a moment and looked at me, ‘I’d do you a disservice if I didn’t turn you down and tell you to go back to Finland to finish your studies.’

I looked down at my hands.

‘This is what you wanted to hear, isn’t it?’

I didn’t know what I wanted. The past two weeks in Stockholm had been wonderful. The Englishman had phoned nearly every night. Every time he’d told me he loved me, and missed me. Every time I’d wanted to ask him why he had said what he had said in Hyde Park. But I couldn’t. I didn’t have the words to.

When I told my mother what the lady in Handelsbanken had said, she took my hand into hers.

‘You think she might be right?’

Exactly three weeks after the ferry crossing to Stockholm I was on my way back in the other direction. This time I’d decided to make the journey during the day, and together with a good book, the hours sped past. As I watched the ferry dock at Eteläsatama jetty I hoped I’d made the right decision in returning to Helsinki and my studies.

I had no doubts until I saw my father waiting for me just inside the ferry terminal. He didn’t smile, just bear hugged me and took hold of my heavy suitcase.

‘We’d better get you into the car then.’ He sighed and walked ahead of me into the already dark Helsinki afternoon.

THIRTEEN

My father, who had two daughters, called me 'My Best Girl.' As I grew up his obvious favouritism became a burden to me, rather than a source of pride. So when my parents finally split up after years of fighting, it was a relief to both of their two daughters.

Our parents gave us a choice of which side to take. My sister was fifteen and I was thirteen. They sat us on our plush velveteen sofa and asked us each in turn who we wanted live with.

My father didn’t take the rejection well. ‘You’ve made your bed. There’s no more money from me.’ He stormed out. That night he came home drunk again.

But in 1981 I had no choice but to go and live with my father. In spite of the threats, over the last few years he occasionally invited his two daughters to lunch. As we parted, he always handed over a few dark purple 100-mark notes. When I told him about the School of Economics, he gave me a small allowance. And when I eventually phoned him from Stockholm, he promised me a temporary home in his house in Espoo, a town of suburbs just outside Helsinki. Of course I hesitated, but my mother said, ‘It’s about time he took some responsibility for his daughters.’

The Englishman on the phone from Scotland couldn’t understand what the problem was, ‘But he’s your father?’

I couldn’t tell him about the drinking or the violence.

At the School of Economics, I was greeted with a hug from my friend. ‘Coming back to study is absolutely the best decision you could've made.’

The blonde haired woman at the students’ advisory office agreed. ‘Why don’t you change your subject? Commercial Law is a difficult one to specialise in,’ she remarked, ‘especially as Swedish is not your mother tongue.’ Her kind eyes were fixed on me. ‘The next Committee meeting is early December. If you get two exam passes by then, we can re-approve your grant.’

So I became a student of Political Science at the School of Economics. The department was small and homely. We studied the theories of Karl Marx as well as those of Keynes. My horizons were widened. While the other students at the university learned how to make money, or account for it, our department taught us the principles behind the desire for wealth and power.

At the house in Espoo, my father got drunk only rarely now. He’d given up his bedroom for me and was mostly staying over at his new girlfriend’s flat in Töölö. I cooked for him when he was at home, and when he was in a good mood, he made Gravad Lax.

While I tried to forget about the Englishman, his letters wouldn’t allow me to. He wrote to me at least once a week and called when he was on dry land. Most often he was away with the submarine, to unknown destinations, for weeks on end. Then one night, I was woken up with a phone call.

‘We’ve just sailed in, and I’ve been told I can take leave for Christmas. Can you come to England?’

My grant came through in December and if I continued to live with my father, I’d be able to afford the fare. I told the Englishman I'd think about it, but I knew what my decision would be.

My friend at university shook her head. ‘Are you sure that’s wise? You remember what happened last time you came home from England?’ We were standing in the semi darkness of the student’s union disco in centre of Helsinki. We’d started going out a lot, most often to Monday night ‘Ladies Nights’ at the club when girls were let in free. The disco was full of students from all the Helsinki universities, but mostly students from the School of Economics. The gang of year 4 guys were always there, and I’d see them laughing and gazing at me and my friend. I wondered what would've happened if I'd agreed to go with the dark haired one. Would I now be arm in arm with him instead a tall red-haired girl he was with that week.

‘Nonsense,’ my friend remarked, ‘you know exactly what would have happened. He would have fucked you and that’s that. It’s what they do: as many as possible in as little time as possible.’

I laughed. But was this what all men were like? Was the Englishman like that too? Was he only so loving and seemingly committed to me because he was lonely up in Faslane, or Faslavatory, as he called it? Where he said there were no pubs or clubs. In other words, no places to meet girls in?

When I got home that night, I got another call. 'Well, are we going to meet up at Christmas?'

'Of course we are.'

I could hear the Englishman take a deep breath, 'Only two weeks!'

FOURTEEN

My sister told me a company called Fritidsresor organised chartered trips from Sweden to London. A week in a cheap hotel cost half of a Finnair flight from Helsinki to Heathrow. Especially if I travelled by ferry to Stockholm.

In late December 1981, the Englishman had never been to Stansted. When I arrived, he was the only person meeting the plane full of Swedish tourists, apart from an efficient travel guide, wearing a red and yellow shirt. She held a clipboard above her head.

‘Stockholm passengers please report to me,’ she shouted in her singing Swedish.

‘I’m not going to be staying in London,’ I said.

She glanced sideways at the Englishman and crossed my name off a list. ‘Make sure you’re not late for the flight's departure.’

I ran into the Englishman's arms. He smelt of the cold outside air. He gave me a long kiss. ‘God, I’ve missed you.’

The airport was at the end of a narrow road which followed the perimeter fence of the runway. With the roof up, the yellow Triumph Spitfire was cosy and warm.

‘We’re going to my parents for Christmas and then Pompey for New Year, OK?’ The Englishman reached over and squeezed my thigh. ‘We’ll be there in about three hours.’

I relaxed into the low seat and closed my eyes. This time I’d been even more nervous about coming to see the Englishman. But as soon as I saw him and felt his lips on mine, all that happened at the end of my last visit seemed like a bad dream. Had the Englishman really said he wanted us to be free to date other people? His letters since, and his behaviour now, was even more passionate and loving than before. It was as if we were a real couple, not just two singles meeting up for occasional sex.

The Englishman’s mother embraced me warmly. She made me a cup of sweet, milky tea and placed a slice of strongly spiced fruit cake in front of me. The kitchen smelt of her baking. The Englishman sat across the table and smiled while her mother fussed over me. I didn't dare to say I didn't like tea, milk, or fruit cake, but instead tried to sip the hot, sickly drink.

I heard the front door open. The Englishman’s sister walked into the kitchen. She kissed me lightly on both cheeks and sat down. She was dressed smartly in a navy blue skirt and a white blouse. She was seven years older than the Englishman and had the same dark features, with her eyebrows plucked into a neat shape and her eyes made up with discreet pale blue. Her smile was friendly when she looked from me to her brother.

‘I bet you two love birds are glad to see each other at last.’

I blushed and the Englishman shifted uncomfortably in his chair. We hadn’t made love yet. The yearning to touch each other was overwhelming. It was as if the Englishman’s sister had sensed it. Then with immaculate timing, his mother said, ‘I’ve put you in The Blue Room.’

I looked from her to the Englishman. My face felt hot.

‘Let’s get your things from the car.’ The Englishman led me out of the kitchen. Outside, he kissed me behind the open boot of the car. ‘They've agreed to let us sleep in the same room.’

I relaxed my body against his. He held me and whispered into my ear, ‘The things I’m going to do to you tonight...’

On Christmas Eve morning, the Englishman said, ‘I need to do some shopping.’

I was surprised. He hadn’t bought all his presents yet? He drove us into the nearest town, Trowbridge, bought some scented soap for his mother and a book for his father. Then he took me into a pub in the corner of the high street. It turned out to be a bar in a hotel and full of people and noise. A large chested woman approached the Englishman, embraced him and kissed him on the lips.

‘How are you darling?’ She was holding a drink and a cigarette above the heads of the other revellers. Her complicated hair do had ash blonde streaks in it. A few curly strands fell around her face.

The Englishman introduced her, ‘This is a friend of my sisters’.

‘So at last I get to meet the famous foreign girl!’ The woman let her gaze wander from my high-heeled beige boots, my tight jeans, to my cream satin blouse.‘She’s very pretty,’ she said and winked at the Englishman. 'No wonder you're smitten.'

In Finland we celebrated Christmas Eve with a church service followed by a meal of special Christmas foods, which took my mother weeks to prepare. When my sister and I were small we were allowed to watch a little television, but the highlight of the evening was the arrival of Father Christmas. He bought a sack full of presents for each of us, and as we played with our toys, the grown-ups had a drink or two. But no-one went out to a restaurant, or a bar. Even visitors were discouraged until Boxing Day. I couldn’t believe how different the celebrations were in England.

‘Oh, everyone goes out on Christmas Eve,’ the Englishman said, ‘and then you end up with a hangover on Christmas morning,’ he laughed.

The Englishman and I exchanged our presents on Christmas morning in the privacy of the Blue Room. When a week later I told my friend at the School of Economics about our gifts for each other, she smiled. ‘So sweet and so Freudian!’ I bought the Englishman a leather wallet and he gave me a fountain pen.

The Englishman’s house was busy on Christmas Day morning. The rooms were decorated with glittery paper streamers, balloons and tinsel. At around ten, the Englishman’s sister and her boyfriend arrived, followed by his brother and sister-in-law. His mother was rushing from one room to another, wearing an old-fashioned pinny, waving a tea towel, laughing. One by one the guests arrived for drinks. Soon the large sitting room was filled with cigarette smoke and noise. I was shy at first, but slowly I relaxed as the Englishman introduced me to the various family friends. Then suddenly, as if by previous agreement, the room emptied and with wishes for
‘Happy Christmas’, the guests departed.

Now there was a rush to get the food to the table. I’d never seen so many kinds of vegetables, roasted, boiled or mashed. The gravy was dark and juicy, and the turkey slices large and white. I felt drunk, but the Englishman poured more wine into my glass.

‘It’s Christmas,’ he said and kissed my cheek.

Everyone around the table smiled at me.

‘How do you like Christmas in England?’ The Englishman’s father asked. His dark eyes had a spark to them I hadn’t seen before. He too was a little tipsy.

‘I like it very much,’ I said.

He patted my hand. ‘We like having you here.’ He nodded to his son in the seat next me.

The Englishman put his arm around my shoulders and squeezed me closer to him. I looked through the French windows at the well tended garden with its green lawn and wondered if being this happy would make up for the lack of snow, or a little quietness, at Christmas.

FIFTEEN

I was back in Finland at my father’s place on January 4th 1982. It was Monday morning and I was tired from the travelling. First the late night flight from London, then the overnight ferry from Stockholm. I’d hardly slept on the free bunk bed, even though it had been a quiet crossing.

My father was at work. I wondered if he’d remembered I was coming home today, because there was no food in the fridge. Perhaps he hadn’t been home since Christmas which I knew he’d spent with his girlfriend in Töölö. To think of her as a girlfriend seemed strange. She was so much older and yet unmarried. A spinster.

I sat in the kitchen and looked at the thick covering of snow outside. There was a sharp Northerly wind and people passing were huddled against it. I went to bed and put on the cassette the Englishman had given me. The words of ‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic’ by The Police rang in my years as they had been sung to me by the Englishman on New Year’s Eve. I could still smell his aftershave on my clothes. I curled up on my bed and slept.

I woke up to the telephone. ‘I’m coming home later. Is there any food?’

‘Happy New Year, Dad.’

‘Oh, yes, Happy New Year to you too. So, I guess I have to go to the shop?’

I put the phone down and went back to sleep. I was so tired, I didn’t even care for my father’s veiled criticism. Or that he obviously thought me merely a nuisance. I’d be gone soon, and when I left I’d never see him again.

The Englishman phoned me in the evening.

'I love you so much. I can’t bear to be without you.’

I held the receiver close to my ear and listened to his breathing. My father had been home, eaten some raw herring and beetroot salad straight from the container and left again. I was glad to be alone.

‘Me too.’

‘Listen, I haven’t got much time to talk. But, I’ve got news.’

‘Yes?’

‘I’ve just bought a flight to Helsinki!’

I listened in stunned silence. The Englishman was coming to see me in February.

‘That means we’ll see each other…’

‘In just five weeks!’ The Englishman was jubilant. I could hear the laughter in his voice.

My father’s face fell when I told him the news the next day. ‘What, he’s coming here?’

‘I suppose we could go and stay with Mum in Stockholm.’

‘How did that woman manage to get a big enough place for you two to stay?’

I ignored my father. I wished I hadn’t mentioned my mother. We were sitting at the kitchen table, eating. I’d made him meat balls with a creamy sauce, boiled potatoes and courgettes. He looked at the green vegetables, ‘What’s this?’

‘It’s good for you.’

He reached out for the salt and sprinkled it liberally over the food. ‘Just like your mother, can’t season food.’

I looked down at my plate and sighed.

‘When is he coming then?’

Eventually my father agreed to stay at his girlfriend’s place for the week the Englishman would be in Helsinki. ‘But I want to meet him.’I looked up at him. His pale blue eyes were serious. For a fleeting moment I could see my old father, the one who called me ‘His Best Girl’ and who took me to the park and who let me sit on his knee and stroke the soft flesh of his earlobe.

He got up from the table, leaving his plate with the uneaten courgette on it. He belched loudly. I looked away.

‘I’ll teach him how to drink vodka,’ he said and left the kitchen. I heard him sit down heavily in the TV room. ‘You tell that Englishman he’s not to bother coming to Finland unless he’s prepared to drink like a man,’ he shouted over the noise of the TV.

SIXTEEN

The Englishman didn't seem at all fazed by the idea of meeting my Father.

'You've met all my family,' he said and put his arm around me. He'd just arrived from London and we were walking up from Mannerheim Street tram stop to the bus station to catch the number 105 to Espoo. The year was 1982.

It was strange to meet up so quickly again, after only five weeks, rather than the many months we'd endured without each other before. With the Englishman's lean taut body next to me, chatting about what I'd planned for the week, I was relaxed and comfortable. Again I felt as if we were a real couple. Had I imagined his doubts in Hyde Park? He put his hands inside my coat to warm them from the bitter cold of the late February afternoon. When he kissed me in full view of the other people queuing for the bus, I couldn't imagine he'd be with anyone else. But I couldn't ask. I couldn't even bring up the subject of 'The Future'. I was afraid he'd repeat what he'd said to me in the summer. If he did that I would die. I would never want to see him again and that alone would kill me. Never mind what the failed relationship would do to my ex, who still phoned me on any pretext. Asking, 'Are you still running after that Foreign Sailor?'

In the cellar of my father's place was a sauna with a pool shared by a couple of other houses in the development. I'd booked it for that first evening.

'I didn't bring my swimming trunks.' The Englishman stood in his underpants in the middle of the small changing room. After all we'd done in bed he was shy?

I pulled my top off, and stripped down to nothing.

'Ah,' the Englishman said, dropped his pants, and followed me into the hot, darkened sauna.

After a few moments, when our bodies were getting used to the heat, I threw water on the coals.
'This is called a löyly.'

The Englishman made a sound and ducked. The steam filled the space and the lovely prickly feeling of the heat touched my body. Like most Finns, I love the sauna. When I was only three days old my father took me into one in our summer cottage by the lake. I enjoyed the heat so much they called me The Sauna Baby.

'You OK?' I said to the Englishman. He was almost doubled over on the bench next to me.

'Yeah, a bit hot.'

'Sorry, we'll go for a swim to cool down.'

'I feel wonderful,' he said after we'd had a few more of rounds of löyly followed by another swim in the cold pool. I smiled. I'd make a Finn out of this Englishman yet.

We met my father at a Russian restaurant called Sashlikki. I’d never been there, but my Father said, ‘She likes it.’ I realised he was going to bring his girlfriend.

The place was decorated with dark red and blue colours, the table cloths looked like satin, the wallpaper velvet. Lamps were slung low over the tables. As we sat down my Father nodded to an unseen waiter who brought a round of clear vodka.

‘To the Finnish Ladies,’ my Father said and lifted his glass.

The girlfriend giggled.I took a sip of my schnapps, the girlfriend drank half of hers and both the Englishman and my Father emptied their glasses. His eyes did not leave the Englishman’s face. The waiter came around with the bottle to refill the glasses. My Father nodded to the man, who was dressed in an old fashioned Cossack’s outfit, to leave the bottle of Koskenkorva on our table. I glanced over to the Englishman at my side. He put his hand on my knee under the table and gave it a little gentle squeeze.

‘I’m fine,’ he whispered in my ear.

‘So, you like vodka?’ My Father said and lifted his glass again.

We hadn’t even looked at the menus yet.

My memory of that evening is a little hazy. But if I recall rightly, no-one fell under the table. No-one had as much as an argument. The food was excellent. Beetroot soup, rare spiced beef with dark sauce, garlicky potatoes, cabbage of some kind. We laughed a lot. My Father bought both his girlfriend and me a long stemmed red rose. He wanted us go dancing together. When instead we decided to leave, he looked sad and embraced me as well as the Englishman warmly.

‘I think I passed,’ the Englishman laughed outside the restaurant.

My Father had insisted on giving us money for a taxi and ordered it for us. It was as if the past ten years hadn’t happened. It was as if the Englishman had resurrected my old Father. During the evening he’d even called me ‘My Best Girl’ again. I curled up against the Englishman on the strongly smelling leather seat of the taxi and fell asleep.

The Englishman's visit coincided with the annual School of Economics Ball. My friend wanted to know if he was going to wear his uniform, but on the phone from Faslane the Englishman had told me he wasn't allowed to. I'd been a little disappointed but thought it must have something to do with Finland being so close to The Soviet Union and the Cold War. Not that I could see anyone in Helsinki being interested in my British Submarine Sub-Lieutenant.

On the night, he looked handsome in his DJ. I wore a ball gown an old school friend had made. It was a strapless white silk dress, with a narrow black belt, which tied with a small bow at the back of my waist. The long ends fell behind me.

This was my first university ball, but the Englishman had been to many during his time at Dartmouth and since. But none quite like this one. According to the School of Economics tradition, long tables were served rounds and rounds of schnapps, which were consumed along to various drinking songs. There was a Drinks Master who led the proceedings and towards the end of the evening some of the top table climbed onto the table to sing. One of them was the Finnish Foreign Minister.

But the Englishman didn't just watch the other people in the room. We danced. I floated in his arms on the vast dance floor. I wanted everyone to see, especially the gang of year 4 boys, how in love we were. Back at our table the Englishman turned to me and said, 'You're beautiful, did you know that?' I smiled and felt his warm hands around mine. He looked at me intently. I burned under his gaze. 'Can I ask you something?' he said.

'Of course.' I felt out of breath. Was he going to talk to me about 'The Future'?

'Will you marry me?'

SEVENTEEN

I felt a tap on my shoulder. My friend's face looked serious. 'Loo, now?'

I smiled at the Englishman, 'Sorry, I'll be back.'

He looked surprised but I didn't have time, my friend was already dragging me away from the table.

We made our way through of throng of people on the dance floor and passed the bar where my eyes met with the year 4 boy who'd asked me out. He lifted his glass as if to toast me. He'd loosed his black bow tie and undone the top button of his shirt. He was leaning casually against the bar, with the drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I smiled confidently back at him. I was so happy I didn't care what he thought.

'Guess what?' I said once were were inside the gleaming ladies' room. The School of Economics Ball was held in a smart private club in the centre of Helsinki. I'd never been inside. Every room was decorated in a thirties art deco style, with black marble and shining chrome. Absent-mindedly I wondered how they could keep a bathroom so clean all the time.

My friend looked at me through the mirror where she'd started adjusting her make-up.

'The Englishman asked me to marry him!'

My friend dropped her hand, 'What?'

'Just now, isn't it wonderful?'

'What about your studies?'

I looked down at my hands. It was as if she'd splashed cold water over my face from the white shining sink. 'Yes, I know, I'm not going to drop out - again - but isn't it...

'Have you even read Doris Lessing's The Perfect Marriage?

'Well, no...'

'I'll lend you the book.' My friend turned back to face the vast mirror. She was dabbing at her make-up while tears ran down her face smudging it further.

Suddenly I remembered she'd wanted to talk to me. 'What's the matter?'

'He's dancing with another girl!'

'Who?'

My friend shot me an accusing glance, 'The Incredible Hulk. I saw them smooching before and just now I saw him kiss her. On the mouth!'

My friend's boyfriend had an incredibly strong physique and with his spiky dark hair, he looked just like the cartoon character. The Hulk was her partner at the ball. I knew she was really smitten with him, although she said she didn't believe in love.

'The worst of it is , I know her. We went to school together, but she didn't get into the School of Economics. No brains.'

I hugged my friend. 'Bitch.'

She nodded and took a deep breath in. 'They can both go to hell. I was getting bored with the Hulk anyway.'

We walked out of the ladies room through a set of double doors. 'But, you must promise me that you'll not marry the Englishman. You can't just become some one's wife. You have to finish your studies.' My friend was facing me, her expression eager.

I knew she was right. I'd been to England, I'd seen how difficult it was to get a job. I didn't want to end up being a barmaid in a pub somewhere, bringing up the kids while my husband was away at sea. Or worse, have no job at all, to become a housewife. 'I promise.'

The Englishman was sitting just as I'd left him, with one elbow on the table holding a cigarette. He stubbed it out and got up. His politeness broke my heart. No Finnish boy would even have known that's what you do when a lady comes back to the table.

'Everything alright?' he said.

'It's a long story.' I watched as my friend made her way to the other side of the long table. I was glad to see she had another boy, our mutual friend to talk to. There was no sign of the Hulk.

The Englishman's gaze was steady on me. I knew he was waiting for an answer.

He took my hands into his. It felt trapped. I had a sudden desire to pull away from his grasp. I lifted my eyes to him. His dark eyes were wide, his mouth set in a straight line.

'I have two years left at university.'

The Englishman let go of my hand. He lent back in the chair. 'I thought you might say that.' He was smiling. He gave me a light kiss. The Drinks Master had climbed onto the table. It was time for another drinking song.

EIGHTEEN

When the Englishman left after his week long visit to see me in Helsinki in February 1982, I was heart broken, but didn't cry. Clutching the red rose he’d again bought me at the airport I sat in the posh Finnair bus on my way back my father’s place in Espoo, full of determination to do well in my studies at the School of Economics. I was enjoying my new subjects. Learning about political systems, about the workings of the labour market, about the intricacies of parliamentary democracy was a pleasure. And I was safe in the knowledge that the Englishman was serious about our relationship. I kept thinking: the sooner I get my degree, the sooner we can be together. Though we hadn't discussed it, I knew I’d have to move to England. Not a big deal. I’d moved countries before and didn't want to stay in Finland.

The house was cold and quiet when I got back. My father was at home, sitting in a dark room with a bottle of Koskenkorva vodka next to him.

‘Gone then, has he?’ he asked. I heard the sarcasm in his voice and knew better than to answer. It was his Jekyll and Hyde moments that I feared most, so I went into my room, locked the door and put on the latest cassette the Englishman had brought with him. I decided to read Karl Marx’s Das Kapital for an assignment due in the following week.

As spring arrived and the snow slowly melted in the small patch of land outside our living room, my work load at the School of Economics grew. My friend was still very upset about the Hulk and had immersed herself fully in her studies. She’d lent me all of her Doris Lessing books and I’d fallen in love with her writing, as well as her principles.I found an old bike in the communal cellar next to the sauna compartment my father said I could use. When the weather was a little warmer I cycled to see an old school friend who’d started at the School of Economics a year after me. She lived with her parents a kilometre away and we sat in her bedroom and talked about university, men and fathers. Occasionally I’d go out but had little money or time.

The Englishman wrote as often as he could, and phoned when he wasn't at sea. Which was more and more rarely.

During that spring I also spent a lot of time at the School of Economics library, reading or borrowing books too expensive to buy. It was situated at the top of a modern office building, with one lift constantly ferrying students up and down. The staircase, which we only used when absolutely necessary, was the library smoking room, whilst the library was the meat market. Much like a book you needed, you could pick up a date there for the evening. Needless to say, the year 4 boys spent most of their afternoons in the library. But I was invisible to them now. The boy who’d asked me out ignored me studiously. If I passed the desk which his legs were sprawled on, his eyes pretending to examine the text in a book held high above his eyes, he’d not look at me. But if I turned around abruptly, I’d catch him assessing my rear.

What did I care about him, the Englishman had proposed to me! And I’d see him in April. This time we were going to meet in Stockholm, where my sister had promised us her flat for the week. I couldn't wait to show the Englishman my second home town. Besides, Spring would be so much further along there. The city would be filled with greenery, with Easter decorations and sunshine. The very opposite of the dreary, grey, cold, windy Helsinki.

On the 3rd of April 1982 I got a phone call at 3 am. ‘We've declared war.’ The Englishman’s voice sounded grave.

‘I know.’ I’d seen it on the news, how the mighty United Kingdom, a former colonial power, had been humiliated by a small South American dictatorship. But to declare war, in the 1980’s?

‘And on my birthday!’I realised the Englishman had had a drink. ‘And they've cancelled all leave.’

I sat down on my bed. ‘Does that mean..?’

‘Yes, I can’t come to Stockholm.’

The Falkland Islands, a small group of islands I’d never heard of, somewhere off the coast of Argentina was spoiling my plans to see the Englishman. How could this be? Absurdly I asked, ‘What about the flight?’

‘Act of War is Force Majeure. I’m in the Royal Navy, I’ll get all my money back.’

Act of War. That was all I could think about. ‘Are you…?’

There was a silence at the other end.

‘I mean, are they going to send you to…’

The Englishman interrupted me. ‘Please don’t ask. I can’t say.’

NINENTEEN

The Englishman never told me if he went to war. During the Falklands conflict we spoke very rarely. I felt I was an undesirable, living as I was close to the Soviet Union. Even his letters dried up.

I tried to concentrate on my studies and spent most of my time in the University Library. It was still used as the pick-up spot, and was ever busy. I kept bumping into the 4th year boy in the lift, or on the landing where he'd stand leaning against the steel banister, taking long drags on his cigarette. Once when I went for a smoke with my friend, he came out alone from the library and was so startled to see us he stopped dead. His worn-out leather jacket was undone, and his dark brown hair flopped over his eyes.

When he finally moved away from the door and pressed for the lift, the devil in me said, ‘Can I have a light?’ I dangled the cigarette between my fingers. He stared at me for a moment then lit a match and held it in his cupped hands. They were shaking.

My friend and I couldn't look at each other until we heard the lift stop at the ground floor and the outside door open. We both burst out laughing at the same time.

‘He’s still got the hots for you, you know,’ my friend said, growing serious. 'I can’t believe what I just saw!’

In the bus on the way home I thought about the boy, or rather, man. We'd worked out he must be at least 26. According to the School of Economics myth, that group of students had been at the University since the mid seventies. This year would be their 7th. I couldn't believe it, besides, stories grow in the telling. But the guy intrigued me. I couldn't help it. I had so little contact with the Englishman, I was beginning to forget how his lips tasted when he kissed me. We hadn't seen each other for 3 months. As the Falkland’s war progressed, his image grew more and more distant.

No-one in Finland understood what it meant to me to have the Englishman at sea, not knowing whether he was involved in the war or not. If a British submarine was lost to the Argentine Navy, would Thatcher let the world know about it? I doubted it. Eventually his parents would be told if anything happened to him but would they think about letting me know? They’d be too grief stricken to even think of anyone else. Had the Englishman told his mother about the proposal? How I wished I’d said ‘yes’ on that magical night at the ball. I’d now have an official role in relation to my love, and a right to know if the Englishman had been sunk.

My Father was the least sympathetic of all. ‘You should find yourself a good Finnish man.’

He seemed to have forgotten the night at the Russian restaurant. I wondered what had caused this change of heart, but wasn't surprised. He’d always been like it: One day he’d say one thing, the next the complete opposite. For the past few weeks he'd spent all his evenings and weekends at home. Mostly in a bad mood. I wondered if he’d had a row with his girlfriend, but didn't dare to ask.

I was in limbo. I was confused. I was lonely.

The night the news of the sinking of the Belgrano was shown on TV, my Father had been drinking vodka all evening. The bottle of Koskenkorva stood on the floor next to his chair. The Finnish newscaster didn't say if there were any British casualties, but who’d know if several British submarines were involved? I'd seen enough war movies to know submarines hunted ships in packs. I sat on the plush sofa and watched the pictures move in silence. Involuntarily I put my hand against my mouth. My Father narrowed his eyes and glanced sideways at me.

‘You know the Englishman is not there!’

I ran out of the living room. I cried into my pillow, trying to keep quiet. And then the phone rang. I heard my Father answer. He said, ‘Just a moment,’ in English.

I ran out into the hall and took the receiver from him.

‘Hello?’

To hear the Englishman’s voice! It sounded as if he was far, far away, but I knew better than ask where he was calling from. I sobbed into the telephone, I couldn't help myself.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing, I was just watching the news, and I didn't know…’

‘I’m fine, except, I’m missing you.’

I sighed and sat on the floor in the hall. We spoke for over twenty minutes. I cried, laughed and whispered into the receiver, not caring how much of it my Father heard. When the Englishman said he had to go, I told him I loved him once more, put the receiver down and walked quickly to my room. I fell asleep dreaming of my handsome Englishman.

TWENTY

It wasn't until June that year of the Falkland's War in 1982 that I and the Englishman finally managed to see each other. We'd been apart for four long months, during which I'd feared for my submariner's life my every waking hour. He telephoned me very rarely. When the news of the sinking of the HMS Sheffield came, I didn't sleep until I had a letter confirming he was OK. How, during those war months, I wished I'd have someone I could call, someone who would've understood what I was going through. Instead I tried to study hard, and by the end of the term I'd passed all my exams with good marks.

Watching him collect his bag through the glass wall at the Helsinki airport arrivals lounge, I thought about the two years I'd spent waiting for his letters and phone calls, counting the days till I'd again be able to lean against his warm body. It seemed strange how my life had changed so dramatically, and so quickly, at the British Embassy cocktail party in October 1980. Before the handsome British Naval Officer had come over and talked to me, my life had seemed settled, pre-planned even. I was going to complete my studies, marry my boyfriend, move into a house his parents had promised to buy us in the same leafy area of Helsinki they lived in. As long as I didn't upset his mother, I had nothing to worry about. And of course she and my boyfriend wanted me to produce grandchildren, three to be exact. Instead I now stood in the deserted arrivals hall, again nervously waiting for my Englishman to see me, with no idea what the next year would bring let alone the next month, week or even day.

It was a hot, sunny afternoon, two days before Midsummer. In Finland the third Friday in June marks the start of the holidays. Everybody flees Helsinki for the weekend to go somewhere by the sea, lake or forest. Most stay away for two or three weeks leaving the city quiet and dusty. I'd booked us a room at a lakeside hotel an hour's train journey from the city. My parents had taken us there when I was little. It was an all-inclusive package which my father, uncharacteristically, had paid for.

'Show the Englishman how beautiful Finland is,' he said.

On the posh Finnair bus home from the airport, with the air conditioning on full blast, making me shiver in my thin cotton dress, the Englishman didn't seem impressed with my plans.

'We're going where?' he demanded.

I tried to explain, but the Englishman sat next to me on the velveteen bus seat, holding my hand with his face turned away from me, towards the front of the bus. I looked at his profile, at the dark stubble on his chin.

'Don't you want to go,' I asked nervously.

The Englishman turned his eyes to me and kissed me lightly on the lips, 'Of course I do. No problem, let's do it.' But he didn't sound at all sure.

The Rantasipi Aulanko wasn't as I remembered it. The vast, low ceilinged lobby was shabby. There was a large mark on the carpet right by the reception desk. The room, for which a surly woman at reception had handed us a key, had two single beds arranged head to toe.

The Englishman saw them and laughed. I wanted to cry. Instead I went to open the curtains of a large window at the end of the small room and saw what we'd come for. The lake, Vanajavesi, opened up in front of us. The sun, still high up in the afternoon sky, was blinding.

I went to hug the Englishman and tried to kiss him, but he turned away from me to put his bag down.

'Let's go, I'll show you around.' I said grabbing his hand.

I was eleven when my Father took the whole family to have lunch at the newly built Rantasipi Hotel. It was a drive away from Tampere, but it was Mother's Day. We had the buffet from a long table laid out with various dishes on a crisp, white linen tablecloth. The dining room was a square space with a high ceiling and large windows, which reached down to the floor. I wondered if the restaurant too would look shabby to me now as I led the Englishman around the paths through the Häme National Park, at the edge of which the hotel was built.

The Englishman was unusually quiet. When we first kissed at the airport, it felt the same as before. When we'd made love that night, it had felt the same as before. But today he had hardly touched me. Perhaps he really didn't want to come to this place with me? When I felt a few drops of rain fall onto my bare arms, I began to regret the whole idea myself. I ran into an old, circular shaped wooden summer house, with chipped paintwork, and sat on a half rotting bench to wait out the light shower. The warm summer rain fell softly against the old pointed roof. I felt close to tears. Even the weather connived to spoil the Englishman's week in Finland. Why had I not consulted him before booking this midsummer package? I looked at his straight back. He was leaning against the railing looking out to what I thought was the most beautiful view of the lake. But he didn't seem to be admiring it. Instead he turned around and looked at me. His face was serious. An awful thought entered my mind. Perhaps he was not upset about the hotel at all. Perhaps it was me - us? Perhaps he'd come over to finish it and didn't want to do it in a hotel? That was probably why he hadn't even wanted to do it with me on one of the ridiculous single beds just now. I shivered.

The Englishman came to sit next to me and put his arm around my shoulders, 'What's the matter?' His voice sounded soft.

'Nothing.'

The Englishman let his arm drop. We sat in silence until the rain stopped. When I got up, he took hold of my arm and said, 'What's really wrong?'

I sat back down and looked at the shifting clouds. The sun peeked out from behind the tops of tall, dark pine trees on the other side of the lake.

'You know the sun won't even set tonight? It'll never get properly dark. It's supposed to be a magical night.'

'Oh,' the Englishman said.

'It's you!' I said, 'Something's wrong with you, not me!' I was nearly shouting.

The Englishman looked startled. Now he'll have to say it, I thought. Now I've made him do it.

'It's this hotel...' he began.

I couldn't speak.

'It's expensive isn't it?'

I stared at him. 'Money?' I said. 'You're worried about money?'

The Englishman looked down at his hands and said very quietly, 'Yes'.

I wanted to laugh. 'Oh, that,' I said lightly. 'I've already paid for it, or rather...'

The Englishman looked at me surprised, 'How...?'

'My father paid for it.'

The Englishman's face changed. His jaw became more square than it already was, and his eyes became even darker than they were when he looked at me just before he kissed me.

'Your father has paid for me to stay here?' he asked with a steely voice.

That midsummer's night was all but magical. The Englishman told me he would pay my Father back for the hotel, and then refused to discuss it further. I couldn't understand him. As far as I was concerned my Father owed me big time for all the years my mother had to skimp and save for our school fees and food bills, when all he contributed was the occasional fifty Marks for a birthday or a Christmas present. And even those he sometimes forgot. But the Englishman wouldn't let me explain. We left the hotel almost without speaking to each other. I felt as if he'd suddenly turned into someone else.

Back in Helsinki, at night, my Englishman returned. As long as I didn't look into his eyes, where something had changed, he was as before. He whispered lovely things into my ear as before, his touch was as wonderful as ever and his kisses as sweet as always.

On the Monday after Midsummer I had to go back to work in the bank, where my annual summer internship had already begun, and leave the Englishman alone. He didn't seem to mind but stayed asleep in the morning while I tiptoed out of the house. In the evening I cooked him steak and salad while he read his book. We watched Finnish TV, which he thought was funny, and retired to bed where my old Englishman returned.

The night before the Englishman was due to fly home, he told me he was joining a new submarine at the Scottish base in Faslane. 'It's a nuclear sub,' he said. I'd been reading about the women protesting at Greenham Common against nuclear weapons. I was against them too. As a Finn you felt vulnerable between two superpowers wielding their nuclear armaments. I shivered at the thought the Englishman would be part of that deadly machinery.

'Don't you think the nuclear arms race should be stopped?' I said.

The Englishman regarded me for a moment. 'It's not for me to decide.' he said firmly and continued packing his things.

When we parted at Helsinki airport, we didn't discuss the future. The Englishman bought me a red rose, but I didn't cry.

TWENTY-ONE

The same Sunday night in late June 1982 I'd said my tearless goodbye to the Englishman I started to be sick. When two days later I still couldn't keep a glass of boiled cooled water inside me, I phoned the student health service in Töölö, in the centre of Helsinki. They told me to come and see them straight away.

The doctor wore a white coat. He had round gold rimmed glasses and grey thinning hair. I sat on his examination table while he took my temperature, tapped my knees, looked into my eyes, felt my glands and my stomach. I hurt all over, but I was so tired from two days and nights of diarrhea and throwing up, I had no energy to even utter a sound. He took two steps back and wrote something on his notes.

‘I think you might have salmonella poisoning.’

I nodded. All I wanted was to be allowed to sleep.

The doctor regarded me for a moment. ‘Did someone bring you here?’

‘No.’ I suddenly realised it was the journey from Espoo with a bus, walk to the tram stop and then another long walk to the health centre that had exhausted me.

'You need go to bed, take these and sip a mixture of this,’ he gave me a packet of tablets and a few sachets of something. ‘If you don’t improve within the next 24 hours, get an ambulance to take you to hospital.’ The doctor had kind eyes. 'Can you phone someone to come and get you?' He nodded at his desk phone. ‘You can use that.’

I couldn’t think who to phone. My friend was traveling around Europe for the summer and my mother and sister were in Stockholm. I hadn’t seen my father since Midsummer, didn't know if he was back at work. I dug in my handbag for my address book.

‘Yes?’

‘It’s me. I’m not very well, I’m in Töölö Health Centre and the doctor said I should have someone to pick me up.’

‘Oh.’

‘There’s no-one else I can call.’

‘Can’t you take a taxi?’

I was close to tears. My father sounded so irritable.

‘I haven’t got any money.’

My Father inhaled loudly. ‘Of course not,’ he said dryly. ‘What’s wrong with you anyway?’

When I told him he said he’d come and meet me at home and pay for my taxi there. ‘I don’t really want to catch it so I’ll stay away until you're better.’

I was ill for two weeks. I slept for most of it and had nightmares about sinking U-boats, nuclear mushroom clouds and men in uniform laughing at the suffering women and children. I didn’t go anywhere, I didn’t see anybody. My father phoned half way through the second week and when he heard I was still not able to eat anything, he told me he’d stay away for another week just to be safe.

‘You do that,’ I said and decided I would never forgive him for abandoning me like this. My mother didn't know how ill I was. She was too far away anyway.

During those strange summer weeks in 1982 I didn’t hear from the Englishman. There was no letter, or phone call. I didn’t even know if he had reached his new nuclear submarine in Scotland, or whether he was away at sea, or on dry land at the base. I didn’t know if we were still together, or if his disastrous week in Helsinki had finished our two year romance. It was strange, but I wasn’t sure I cared one way or the other. Not worrying about him, not longing for his touch, hearing his voice, or reading his letters seemed oddly liberating.

When I returned to my internship at the bank in mid July, I’d lost 10 kilos in weight. All my clothes hung off me and I loved it. Something good had come out of the suffering. The nice doctor at the health centre had signed me off the sickness register and given me a note to take to my bank manger.

‘I was quite worried about you, young lady,’ he said and smiled. Why couldn’t my father be worried about me if the doctor who doesn’t even know me was?

Finally three weeks and three days after the Englishman had returned home, he called.

‘You OK?’ he asked after we’d said the usual hellos. I noticed he hadn’t said he missed me.

I told him about the salmonella poisoning. ‘You didn’t get it?’

‘No.’

Hearing the Englishman’s voice I realised I was angry with him. Angry for spoiling our week together, angry for being an officer in the Royal Navy, angry for not being here with me, angry for not understanding how angry I felt. I said nothing.

‘So…’ he said.

‘Yes?’ I said.

‘You OK now, right?’ he tried again.

‘Oh yes.’

‘Right.’

I’d had enough. ‘Look, I’ve made a decision.’

He said nothing. I could hear noises in the background. Was he in a pub?

‘Where are you phoning from?’

‘Oh, the mess. I couldn’t get away, we’ve been at sea all this time and I couldn’t even get a letter to you.’

‘Oh.’

‘Hold on,’ he said and I heard him talk to someone. ‘Five minutes,’ I heard him say.
Now there was a time limit, of course. Foreign calls were expensive.

‘Anyway, as I was saying, I’ve decided it’s probably best if we stop this.’

‘What?’ the Englishman sounded absentminded, then his voice sharpened. ‘What did you say?’

I inhaled deeply and repeated my words, even though as I said them a strange lump formed on my chest, as if a heavy weight had been placed against it. It made me struggle for breath.

‘You can’t say that.’

‘I just have,’ I said breathlessly.

There was a silence. ‘Oh my God.’ He sounded truly shocked and I felt dizzy. Surely I was only saying what he thought too? Or…?

‘We never see each other. I’ve got another year at uni. How am I going to get a job in England when I’m finished? And you’re always away at sea. And…’ Tears were running down my face. I sniffled.

There were more voices behind the Englishman. ‘Look, I have to go, but please don’t cry. We have to talk about this, OK? Can I call you tomorrow night? Please.’

I could never say no to the Englishman.

With shaking hands I replaced the heavy telephone receiver on the hook and sat down on the floor. My heart was racing against my rib cage, it felt as if the lump had now engorged and was crushing the whole of my upper body with its weight. My heart had no space to beat and no air was reaching my lungs. What had I done? What if the Englishman didn’t call back, what if having thought about it he knew I was right? Our relationship was doomed, our future together hopeless. I put my head in my hands and howled like an animal.

TWENTY-TWO

The Englishman didn't phone the following day, or the day after that. On the Saturday morning, three days after I’d told him I wanted to finish it, I was woken up by a knock on my door.
A strong light filtered through the half-closed Venetian blinds on my bedroom window. The weather was continuing to mock me. That summer of 1982 was the sunniest I’d ever seen in Helsinki. It made everyone smile on the streets and in the bank, where, as the young summer intern, I was processing people’s mortgage applications. I had no desire to join them in their happiness. I just wanted to go to work, come home, watch TV and go to bed, where I’d lie awake trying not to think about the Englishman.This weekend was supposed to be the hottest of the summer so far and, by the looks of it, the sun was already high up in the sky. I climbed out of bed and opened the door.

Even my Father looked happy. 'We're taking the boat out to the archipelago. Do you want to come?'

I thought for a moment, then nodded to him and closed the door.

‘Don’t forget your swimming trunks or whatever you women wear,’ he shouted through the door.

Without wondering too much about his good humour, or the strange desire to include me in the first outing of his latest purchase, I got ready and was soon on board the legendary ‘Paula’ as he’d christened his speed boat. The girlfriend and I sat at the rear while my Father, proudly wearing a blue seaman’s cap, steered the thing at high speed under the bridges on the Western shore of Helsinki. He was behaving like a child with a new toy, veering it this way and that, making us scream as he accelerated and made the boat bounce on the surface of the sea.

The girlfriend had made a picnic. ‘Did you have a nice time in Aulanko,’ she asked when we sat around a checked tablecloth she'd placed on the ground. I didn’t know what to say, but instead looked down at the food: a plateful of my father’s Gravad Lax, a packet of thinly sliced smoked ham, a loaf of rye bread, butter, salted gherkins. She handed me a paper plate and my Father picked up slices of ham with his fingers and stuffed them into his mouth.

‘Don’t talk about that Englishman,’ he mumbled to the girlfriend.

She stared at him, the sea breeze making her messy hair blow over the dark brown eyes. ‘I just wondered, because the weather…’

‘She doesn’t want to talk about it – can’t you see that?’ my Father barked.

Here we go, I thought and lay down shutting my eyes.

The deserted cliff, which my Father had finally settled on, was warm against my bare back. I was so tired. I hadn’t slept through one night since the phone call from the Englishman.

‘Give her a Lonkero,’ I heard my Father say.

The girlfriend handed me a cold bottle of the gin and bitter lemon drink. I smiled. I felt sorry for her. She had no idea what she was taking on with my Father. And I felt a pang of guilt – should I warn her about his drinking and his moods? Should I tell her that he’d hit my Mother? But all men were pigs. She was old; surely she would've worked that out herself by now?As I lay in the warm sunshine, I wondered how it was that I’d let myself be completely steered by men. First by my Father, then by my fiancé and now by the Englishman. Wasn't it high time I took decisions on my own life without considering a man?

We stayed on that small, rocky island all day. We swam in the sea and talked of old times. My Father told stories about when I was little. How he had to buy me a large box of chocolates to stop me crying when my older sister started school. How, lying on his back, he used to rock me on his belly when I was a little baby, and how my hair was wispy and thin. How I’d been ill with diarrhoea and vomiting and nearly died when I was four. How useless my Mother had been, just crying, and how he had to be the one to take me to hospital. I looked over to his large frame splayed on the rock, the round, smooth shape of his belly mirroring that of the cliff, and wondered if he remembered what happened just a few weeks ago when I was sick with a similar virus. But there was no sign that he’d made the connection. So I listened and smiled and laughed when required to. But I knew this brief interlude of good humour with my Father would not last.

At the end of the day, when he steered the boat into harbour, my Father pressed a few purple hundred Mark notes into my palm and said, ‘There’s a bit of money for a Lonkero or two. Go and enjoy yourself!’

He'd decided to stay with the girlfriend for the rest of the weekend. On the bus home, I though for once he was right. But how did he know about me and the Englishman? He wasn’t at home during the fateful telephone conversation. How, when he didn’t even remember that I was seriously ill a few weeks ago, did he notice that I was in need of cheering up now?But I took his advice. When I got home it was only seven o’clock. I looked at myself in the mirror and noticed how the day spent in the sun had bronzed my face and limbs. There was no-one around to go out with, so I decided to do something I’d never done before.

Wearing a bright green miniskirt, with a matching scoop neck top and black lace-up sandals, I walked alone into the University disco. It was half-full even though it was a Saturday night. Most students must be either travelling around Europe on Inter Rail or at their parents’ summer places. At least that’s why my friends were out of town. I went up to the bar and ordered a Lonkero. As soon as I turned around I spotted him. Leaning against the railings of the bar upstairs on the mezzanine floor was the 4th year boy I’d flirted with since I started at the School of Economics. He was looking at the dance floor, but hadn’t spotted me. I ducked out of his sight. My heart started racing. I realized it was him I'd come out to find. But now I didn’t have the courage to go and talk to him, or even invite him over with a covert glance or gesture. I lit a cigarette and tried to look cool. I gulped down the drink and ordered another. I needed get drunk. Fast.

‘What’s the hurry?’ the guy at the bar said and handed me the second bottle.

I stubbed out my cigarette and said, 'No hurry, I'm just thirsty.'

The barman smiled and in his eyes I saw that I looked good. I smiled back and holding an unlit cigarette and the drink headed for the stairs to the mezzanine level.

TWENTY-THREE

I woke up with a dry mouth and a screaming hangover. I felt constrained, and realised I was pushed against the wall in a narrow single bed. The shape next to me moved and I looked around the room. A studio flat somewhere in Ullanlinna. There was a window draped with a see through curtain, a sofa covered with discarded clothes, a table stacked with books. I was incredibly thirsty.

I felt a hand on my waist, then a bulge against my back. His hot mouth closer to my ear. I froze.

‘Sorry, I feel a bit sick.’

He removed the hand, and got up. I closed my eyes.

‘Fair enough,’ he said and slapped my bum. I saw his strong hairy legs disappear into the loo.

The sound of his peeing reverberated against the water in the pan. Then the noise stopped and started again. I shuddered, got quickly out of bed and found my clothes. I cursed my stupidity. Why had I agreed to come home with this guy? Because he was a tennis player? Third in the Finnish rankings. Or because the 4th year guy hadn’t even looked at me when I’d stood next to him at the bar upstairs in the university disco? Because the tennis player with his strong thighs was the only one showing any interest in me in my short skirt and sexy sandals?

I was sitting on the edge of the bed, fully clothed when the guy came out of the loo. He looked surprised to see me, as if he’d forgotten last night.

‘Can I?’ I nodded towards the small bathroom door.

‘Sure.’

The loo smelled. I held my breath and splashed cold water on my face and wiped it dry with paper. I must get away, quickly.

When I re-entered the room, the tennis player was on the phone. Looking out of the window, wearing just his boxers, he laughed at something the other person said. I

found my handbag and opened the front door. ‘Bye then.’

Startled, the tennis player swung around and with a brief recognition passing his face, nodded and turned back to face the window.

The bus driver looked down at my short skirt and sandals. It was obvious I was still in my going out clothes. He knew me. I took this same bus into work and university every day. I felt so ashamed. Is this what I wanted – to feel cheap, used, not loved, just fucked? Is this what it was like to be free from my fiancé, who was obsessive but at least I always knew he loved me. Or from the Englishman who was forever deemed to be absent? Was this the alternative? Skulking back home in the morning after a cold, senseless one night stand? I looked at the people taking Sunday walks in the heat of the day, normal people with normal lives, not sluts like me with a hangover and dirty knickers on.

When the bus stopped in Tapiola, a woman in her thirties or forties, wearing a stylish one piece white jumpsuit and pretty white espadrilles, got out of the bus. I’d seen her before, though never with a man. Still, she looked happy, always smiling even to the miserable bus driver. She didn’t seem to need a man, so why should I?

It was 1982 after all, not 1882.

When I got home I realised the tennis player hadn’t even asked for my phone number. I must have been very disappointing. He was probably used to women like the one in the Tennis Girl -poster in the Englishman’s room. Slim things with a tiny pert bottoms and no fat on their thighs.

I was in the shower, washing away my shame, when the phone rang.

‘I’ve been trying to ring you all night!’ the Englishman sounded angry. He had a nerve!

‘I was out.’

‘Must have been a late night?’

‘I stayed over with a friend.’

‘Oh.’

Silence.

‘So how are you?’ The Englishman sounded hesitant now.

‘Fine.’

‘Please don’t be like this.’

‘Like what?’

‘Look, I’ve got more leave, and I’ve decided to come and see you. To talk. That is, if you want me to?’

My heart started beating very hard. ‘When?’

‘Week after next. Is that OK?’

There had never been such a short amount of time between us seeing each other. Only four weeks! When I told my Father the news, he just grunted and shot me a quick glance.

‘Guess you want me out of the way again then?’

But I didn’t care about my Father’s grumpiness, not now. I only had ten days to prepare for the Englishman’s visit. I decided not to arrange anything special. Helsinki was still basking in the most glorious summer weather, so I’d take him to Seurasaari, or Suomen Linna, or for a walk along the Esplanande, just like on that first wintry evening two years ago. We’d do just as much or as little he wanted to, but we would talk. I would tell him how much I missed him, how lonely I felt, how I worried about him being in the Navy, operating nuclear weapons, how I feared I’d never get a job in England. And I would have to tell him about the tennis player. I knew I should have told him over the phone, but then I thought we were finished, didn’t I? I felt so guilty, and for what. Why had I been so stupid? What if he wouldn’t forgive me? What if he never wanted to see me again?

We sat on the edge of my bed. The Englishman had arrived an hour ago. At the airport he’d hugged me tightly and kissed me for a long time. But now, he was sitting next to me looking down at his hands.

‘What’s the matter?’

He lifted his head and his eyes rested on me briefly, before he turned and looked away.

‘I’ve got to tell you something. I’ve been so stupid.’

I waited. What was he talking about?

‘I’ve slept with someone else.’

I heard the words even though they were whispered in a low tone. They were like daggers piercing my heart. This is what he had come all this way to tell me? I couldn’t speak for a long time. Then anger surged inside me.

‘Me too,’ I said, quickly.

‘What?’ he turned around and his eyes were black.

I couldn’t face him. I lowered my eyes and looked down at my hands. But the Englishman wouldn’t let me be. He took hold of my shoulders and shook me. ‘What did you say?’ His grip was strong.

‘You’re hurting me.’ I sobbed. I couldn’t help myself. I wiped the tears from my face with the back of my hand and stood up. ‘This is it. We’re both as bad as each other. What kind of a start is this to a relationship? We might as well stop here.’

The Englishman followed me into the dark kitchen. A lonely street lamp was shining against the August twilight. The refrigerator hummed into the silence between us. I don’t know how long we stood there either side of the small kitchen table.

‘Come here,’ the Englishman said.

I turned around and looked at his face. He’d been crying too. I ran into his arms and started sobbing again.

‘Shh, it’s OK, we’ll be OK.’ The Englishman stroked my hair, then took my face between his hands and looked deeply into my eyes. ‘Let’s go to bed. We’ll talk after?’

TWENTY-FOUR

The Englishman and I spent the week in August 1982 playing happy families. We stayed in every night, cooked together, and smiled into each other's eyes. In the mornings I went to work at the bank, and the Englishman went shopping for food. He told me the women at the meat counter laughed at him when he tried to use the Finnish phrases I'd written down for him.

When I came home from work he poured me a gin and tonic. We sat outside on the small patio at the back of the house and had our ‘sundowners’. The Englishman told me that’s what the officers called the first drink of the evening when on a naval visit somewhere hot. They'd watch the sun set against the horizon before it rapidly disappeared into the sea.

'It goes, psshht,' he made the noise of a lit match dropped into water.

I saw the noisy children from the houses around us play on the swings in the middle of the communal gardens. There was a the small area of neglected grass in front of us, grown patchy and yellow during the scorchingly dry summer. The sun was still high up in the sky. This far North it didn't set until much later in the evening. Still, in my mind, sitting next to the Englishman I was in Gibraltar or the Caribbean, smoking a cigarette and drinking a smart cocktail.

We didn’t talk much about serious things. Or not enough. At the end of the week when we said goodbye at Helsinki airport, I nearly pulled him back, wanting to start the week all over again. Later in bed, alone, my mind turned to what we hadn't talked about, and a chill spread over me. I wrapped my thin summer duvet tighter around my body. I tried not to think about the ‘girl’ he’d slept with. The Englishman said it was a ‘stupid accident’ that just ‘happened’. When I asked if it was someone I knew, he vigorously shook his head and didn’t look at me. I ransacked my brain for anyone, any girl, who'd shown signs of being smitten with my Englishman. But I hadn’t met many of his friends; I’d only been to Britain twice.

He blamed the drink. But how drunk did you have to be to accidentally sleep with someone? I’d been drunk too, too drunk to realise that I shouldn't have had a one night stand with a stranger, but I didn't call it an accident. I was fully intending to do what I did before I even set out that night. Did that make it better or worse? Had the Englishman, like me, decided that we were finished before he had his accident? If he had, what had changed his mind?

None of it made any sense and now he was gone I couldn’t ask him. Perhaps I should write to him? No, the wait for a reply would kill me. Perhaps when he phoned? I didn't have the courage to spoil a telephone conversation with my doubts. I too had been unfaithful, so why not just forget about it and plan for the future?
At the end of our week together the Englishman told me that in the New Year he was going to be shore based in Rosyth, near Edinburgh. He said I should come over for a longer visit.

Time passed slowly. In late September I re-started my Political Science course at the School of Economics and negotiated a postponement of my exams with my professor, a rare Finnish Anglophile. He organised a pass to Edinburgh University library for me, and recommended books I should seek out there. I could stay in the UK for six weeks. To save money I travelled to London by train and ferry. The whole journey would take 4 days, but I broke it up a little by staying over at my mother's in Sweden.

‘Can’t believe you're still going strong after two years,' my mother said as she helped carry my heavy bag to the Stockholm Railway Station, T-Centralen. ‘Must be love.’ She hugged me hard. I didn’t want to tell her how much I doubted the relationship.

On the first leg of the journey, I had a bunk in a four berth sleeping compartment. In late December Stockholm had a thick covering of snow, but as the train made its way South the landscape turned dull and brown. It soon became dark and there was nothing to see out of the window. I climbed into my bunk and was awoken sharply by loud clanking noises. It sounded as if the train had driven into a ravine. I gasped, and heard a voice in the darkness explain to someone below me, 'The carriages are pulled and moved into the ferry.' I sighed and lay back against my thin pillow. We were in Helsingborg, about to cross over to Denmark. I glanced at my watch and saw it was 1.30 am. I struggled to sleep for the rest of the journey. Tossing and turning under a scratchy thin blanket, I wondered what made me travel through a Continent to be with a man. I wondered if the Englishman did truly love me, and even if he did, was he to be trusted? Would this 'accident' of his be one of many. But I kept reminding myself I was just as bad. At the end of the night I'd convinced myself there was no future for us, and that we'd find this out during the next six weeks - the longest time we'd ever spent together.

Early next morning, when the conductor made his way through the compartments knocking on doors and giving a wake-up call in Danish, I was already in the loo washing my face. Tired after the sleepless night, I entered the busy Hamburg station. I had an hour to kill and found a place to have a bun and a coffee. I hauled my suitcase up a set of escalators and boarded the train to Ostend. I was to arrive there late afternoon and then take an overnight ferry to Dover.

Finally, three days after I'd said goodbye to my Mother, I was on British soil. I took in the warm sea air, and followed the line of equally exhausted passengers from the ferry to board the train to London. The carriages were full and the only free seat was in a smoking compartment full with noisy football fans.

A guy opposite me opened a fresh can of beer and winked at me. 'Fancy a drink, love?' I shook my head and looked away, out of the window at the green grass. I longed for my Englishman's touch. I closed my eyes and willed the train to move faster. I suddenly realised I knew what loving someone more than life itself meant. If the Englishman left me, I wouldn't survive. I had to make this work at all costs. It didn't matter about the 'girl' or the 'accident'. I had to make him want me, only me. There was no other option. I was going to be like Chrissie Hynde, tough and sexy. I started to hum a Pretenders track which the Englishman had given to me two years earlier.

Cause I'm gonna make you see

There's nobody else here

No-one like me

I'm special, so special

I gotta have some of your attention

Give it to me

TWENTY-FIVE

The Englishman and I drove up to Scotland on Boxing Day after a lovely, jolly Christmas with his parents in Wiltshire. The journey took a whole day. The Englishman had bought new tapes for the trip, ABC's Lexicon of Love, Night and Day by Joe Jackson and East Side Story by Squeeze. We sang along to the tracks and I tried not to think how apt the lyrics of Tempted were to us. We stopped for lunch - scampi in a basket - in a pub somewhere near the Lake District, in the shadow of an imposingly dark mountain. The sun never made an appearance that day in December and we arrived in Edinburgh in the dim light of a Scottish winter afternoon. It was raining, but the warm welcome the Englishman's friends gave us made up for the bad weather outside.

Lucinda was the first naval wife I'd ever met properly. Her husband, a balding man with a constant smile on his face, Richard, immediately went to 'mix the drinks'. Then he took our bags upstairs. I was ashamed for the amount of luggage I carried. I wanted to explain that I'd taken heavy text books with me, but Richard just smiled and said, 'Don't worry your pretty little head about it.' He winked at my Englishman. 'You've done well there.' I was glad Richard had turned towards the stairs and didn't see me blush.

Lucinda was heavily pregnant. 'I'm at the waddling stage,' she said the next morning when she poured hot tea into two brown glass mugs from a flower patterned tea pot. I smiled at her and looked down at the steaming milky stuff in front of me. I turned my face away from the smell. How to tell Lucinda I didn't drink tea?

The 'boys' as she called the men had left early for work at the Rosyth base. I'd not seen my Englishman in uniform since I'd met him at the British Embassy cocktail party in Helsinki two years before. He looked even taller than usual in his black trousers and a navy jumper with golden lapels. His eyes appeared darker. When he kissed me goodbye, I got a smell of diesel from the scratchy wool.

'You girls can natter to your hearts' content,' Richard smiled. My Englishman winked at me and placed the white cap on his head.

Trying to drink my tea, I looked over to the central garden between the semi-detached houses that made up the naval quarters. The grass was lush and green, but the grey concrete of the houses opposite and the steely skies above made the space look oppressive. I glanced at my watch. It was only nine o'clock, eight hours till I'd see my Englishman again.

'It's laundry day today,' Lucinda said and sighed, heavily lifting herself up from the chair. 'I like to have a daily routine. Makes time pass quicker.'

I looked at her. She had a pretty face, with large pale blue eyes and a luminous complexion. Her long hair, which she kept in an old-fashioned loose bun, was very fair, almost grey. Her vast tummy had spread around her hips and to her backside. The middle of her body looked out of place with her slender wrists and small ankles. I wanted to ask how long she'd been married, if she'd had a career. Or what she'd done before dealing with washing and ironing, dusting and tidying. But Lucinda liked to talk, not to answer questions. She wanted to show how I too could become an efficient housewife. I promised myself never, ever to sink as low as Lucinda had, and never, ever have children.

We stayed two nights with Lucinda and Richard at their naval quarter, until a room in a flat became available on the day before New Year's Eve 1982.

The Englishman and I drove to a part of Edinburgh called Leith in the dark. 'It's an old tenement building,' the Englishman said, but I didn't know what that meant. He parked the car on a narrow street, and hauled our luggage out of the boot. All I could think was that we'd have our own place for five weeks. We could come and go as we pleased, we could stay in bed all weekend if we wished.

The vast hallway had a wide, stone staircase. There was a strong smell of disinfectant. On the second floor landing the Englishman stopped in front of a door, one of many that looked exactly the same, and rang the bell. A slim dark-haired girl appeared, and immediately flung herself onto the Englishman. He kissed her cheek, and freeing himself from her embrace, pulled me to his side. 'This is my girlfriend.'

'Hi,' the girl said and took my hand. Her slim fingers felt bony and cold.

The flat had high ceilings and smelled musty. Our room was the largest, overlooking the street. There was a mattress on the floor, an electric fire and a comfy chair covered in dark green velveteen fabric. Heavy brown curtains were drawn across a large bay window.

'This is great,' the Englishman said.

'How do you know her? ' I asked as casually as I could after the dark-haired girl had left us alone in the massive room. The Squeeze lyrics rang in my ears, 'Tempted by the fruit of another, Tempted but the truth is discovered'. Was this slim girl with the cold fingers the Englishman's 'mistake'? Would he really bring me under the same roof as 'the girl'?

'Oh, she's the sister of a friend.' The Englishman took me into his arms and kissed my neck. I closed my eyes and decided not to think about anything else but the sensation of his body against mine.

TWENTY-SIX

The Englishman and I spent our first day, New Year's Eve, in the flat in Edinburgh kitting our room with a few missing essentials. Our street was just off Leith Walk where small shops sold everything from light bulbs to loaves of bread. On the corner of our street was a place called Naz Superstore. In there the Englishman bought a cheap reading lamp, a travel alarm clock and small transistor radio. I felt like we were a young married couple buying our first supplies for our new home, when the Asian man rang the till and with heavily accented Scottish told us what we owed. We walked out of the shop hand in hand, carrying our purchases, back to the flat. It was cold and rainy outside but inside it felt even cooler. Our landlady, the dark haired girl, was standing in the hallway as we entered. She wore a short skirt, long leather boots and a black waxed jacket. Around her neck she'd tied an expensive looking silk scarf. I felt shabby and inappropriately dressed in my new suede jacket, which wasn't standing up very well to the constant rain. Wet streaks had formed in the front and back, soaking through to the padded lining.

'I'm off to a party tonight. You guys doing anything?'

'I'm on duty tomorrow morning,' the Englishman said. The girl kissed him on the cheek, nodded to me, and disappearing out of the door, shouted, 'Too bad. See you in 1983!'

'How come she's got a big flat like this?' I said, scrutinising the Englishman's face. I still wasn't sure about this girl, though I just couldn't believe he would be as stupid and unfeeling as to bring me to the home of someone he'd been to bed with. However much a 'mistake' it'd been.

'I think it belonged to her aunt or something.'

We planned to see in the New Year in a small pub opposite the tenement block. It was full of middle-aged chain-smoking men. When the Englishman asked what I'd like to drink, I said 'A pint of 80 shillings'. In Finland girls always drank what the guys did and the Englishman always had a pint.

The Englishman turned to me from the bar and said quietly, 'I'll get you a half.'

I looked around the brightly lit pub. I was the only woman there. We drank our drinks quickly, amongst the men who'd stopped talking as soon as we entered and didn't start again until we handed our empty glasses to the barman and headed for the door. When I asked what that was all about, the Englishman said, 'They hate the English.'

I didn't understand any of it, but my Englishman looked upset, so I took his arm and started running towards the door of our block.

The mattress on the floor was a narrow single one, but the room was so cold, we were glad for the warmth of each other's bodies when we slept. In the mornings the Englishman would get up first and put on the electric fire, before I could even think of getting out from under the blanket. To keep warm I wore the Englishman's thick submarine socks and his long white uniform shirt in bed. On the days when he went to work in the morning, I'd lie in until ten, then either walk into town or take the bus to the university library. The room was too cold to do any studying in, and I didn't feel brave enough to use the lounge in the flat in case I'd bump into the dark-haired girl.

It rained every single day of the five weeks we spent in the cold, dark flat in Edinburgh. I realised early on I'd brought exactly the wrong clothes. My suede coat, that I'd been so proud of, was ruined, my beige leather boots looked dirty.

But I fell in love with Edinburgh. The imposing presence of the castle, which at night was lit up and looked like a fairy tale fortress, bewitched me. The people I met in shops along Leith Walk or on Princes Street, in the more affluent part of the city, or at the university, were friendly, in a direct, almost Finnish way. This was Viking country after all, I thought.

Though we had little money, the Englishman and I were the happiest we'd ever been. The longer we spent together, the more in love with him I was. I tried not to think about the future, or that time was ticking away, my return home getting closer by the day.

The Englishman taught me to eat blue cheese, after we found an Italian delicatessen on Leith Walk. We ate the Gorgonzola with water biscuits and red wine on the floor of our cold room, laughing and listening to Radio One on the small transistor radio. In the the small kitchen at the other end of the flat, he cooked new foods I'd never heard of, like kebabs: strips of beef fillet tucked into pitta bread, eaten with shredded lettuce and yogurt. Some nights we met up with his many friends in the small, dimly lit pubs scattered around the old part of town. It's cobbled streets and low buildings were as charming and enchanting to me as the castle. I felt I was living a dream.

The evening before the Englishman was due to drive me down to Newcastle to catch a ferry to Gothenburg, the first leg of my journey back to Finland, I cried my eyes out. The shoulder of the Englishman's shirt was soaked from my tears.

'I know this is the end, ' I sobbed. Again we had no idea when we'd next see each other. The Englishman didn't know where he'd be based next, or even when that would be.

'This is just the way the Navy is. You must trust me,' he said taking my face between his hands. 'You know I love you.'

I looked into his eyes. Before I knew what I was saying, the words came out of my mouth. 'But what if...what if there's another girl, just like our landlady, and another accident?'

The Englishman stared at me. He dropped his hands and walked over to the large bay window. He formed his hands into fists and looked down at the dark street below. I held my breath. I wanted to take the words back, yet at the same time I wanted to hear what he had to say. I couldn't bear another long journey across Europe, not sleeping, thinking about this girl my Englishman had slept with. I had to know the truth. Who was she? What had she meant to him? If as he claimed it was nothing, a mistake, what then of our future? Did he still want to spend it with me, did he still want to marry me one day? Or should I return to Finland without a boyfriend. To carry on as we were, together, but 'free'. I had to know before I left. I just had to.

'You know I love you,' the Englishman said, not turning around. He folded his arms across his chest.

I got up and went to stand next to him. I put my head on his shoulder. 'And I love you.' I burrowed myself between his chest and his hands. He laughed, briefly. A dry sound, almost a cough.

'I need to know.' I said quietly.

'It wasn't our landlady. How stupid do you think I am?' he said, freeing himself from my embrace. He walked to the other side of the room.

'Who was it then?'

'I told you, nobody.'

I thought for a while. 'So what are we going to do?'

The Englishman came over to me and took my hands into his.' We'll find a way. I promise. You know I'm going to miss you so much. Being here on my own in this flat, in this room.'

'I know,' I said. His eyes looked sad, his hands were trembling. I knew he was speaking the truth.

'I won't be a naval wife like Lucinda, you know. Never.' I looked into his eyes.

He laughed, relieved now. 'I know that. And I bloody well hoped you wouldn't.'

TWENTY-SEVEN

The drive from Edinburgh to Newcastle was much shorter than the journey from Wiltshire to Scotland had been five weeks earlier. Sitting next to the Englishman in his yellow Spitfire I wished time would stop and we’d be on the road South forever.

‘You must take one of these,’ the Englishman said. We were on-board the musty smelling ship, standing in a 4-berth cabin I’d booked for the crossing to Gothenburg.
‘Why?’ I looked at the packet of Stugeron.
‘It’s going to be choppy.’ He put his arm around me. ‘The North Sea at winter.’
It hadn’t even occurred to me I might be sea sick. I'd never been sick on the ferry between Finland andSweden but when I tried to explain this to the Englishman he laughed and said, ‘Just take them, believe me you don’t want to take the chance. There’s a saying in the Navy, “When you’re seasick, first you fear you’re going to die, then you wish you would.” ’
I put the packet into my handbag. I didn’t need to be seasick to wish to die. The tannoy announced that the ferry was leaving in fifteen minutes. I lifted my eyes to the Englishman, trying not to cry. He took my face between his hands.
‘You’re eyes are very blue today.’ He looked at me for a very long time, then whispered, ‘I love you.’ We kissed.
And then he was gone.
I stood in the middle of the large space wondering if the ache would ever pass. A woman in her late thirties came into the cabin, dragging two heavy suitcases. She introduced herself, but I couldn’t talk. I nodded to her and mumbled my name. I sat on my bunk and pretended to look for something inside my bag, hoping she’d not see the tears running down my face. I tried to control myself but all I wanted to do was scream. My stomach ached, my chest felt as if it had caved in. As I watched the ferry pull away from the dock, with the afternoon light fading, it felt as if my heart was left on the jetty, a part of my body being ripped away.
I went to the cafeteria, which was full of lonely men, lorry drivers, I presumed. I bought myself an egg and anchovy open sandwich and a bottle of Elefanten. My Father had told me this was the strongest beer you could have and I wanted to be anesthetised. I spotted the packet of travel sickness pills in my bag and swallowed two, downing them with gulps of beer. After the meal I walked around the ship. I went up to the deck, or the 'Upper Scupper' as the Englishman called it. I smiled, then fought the tears again. I saw there was a film on later, some adventure tale or other in a couple of hours’ time. It was only six o’clock, but I felt tired and drunk from the beer so I decided to go and lie down in my cabin.
I slept for 23 hours. I woke once or twice to the movement of the ship and once or twice to people coming in and out of the cabin.
‘We were worried about you,’ the woman who I’d met when the ship was still docked at Newcastle said. She had blood shot eyes and smelt strongly of alcohol. ‘Thought you’d died on us!’ she giggled.
I’d slept through the crossing. The woman told me the seas had been heavy and that many people had been sea sick. She’d decided to spend the time in the bar and had met a great guy. Why was she telling me all this, I wondered wearily. I felt slightly drunk myself, as if I’d been drugged. Then I remembered the sea sickness pills. Perhaps I shouldn't have taken any alcohol with them?
The short train journey up to Stockholm passed quickly. My mother greeted me warmly and I spent two nights with her and my sister. Eventually I had to return to Helsinki and my Father’s house. He met me at the ferry terminal, together with the girlfriend. It was a Sunday morning and the sun was bright against the white snow at South Harbour.
‘The wanderer returns!’ my Father said. He hugged me and I felt as if he was truly glad to see me. The girlfriend giggled and my Father said, ‘I’m going to take you both out to lunch!’
I nodded and thanked him, though I wasn't at all hungry. In my ruined suede jacket I felt the cold and shivered. We walked towards my Fathers’ dark blue Saab.
‘Happy New Year,’ the girlfriend nudged herself close to me, ‘How did you celebrate the arrival of 1983?’
‘Oh, we went to the pub.’
She launched into a long tale about a language course she’d attended years ago in Eastbourne. How she’d survived the month on Mars bars because the food was inedible. But how she’d loved the pubs and the beer in particular. I was bored and tried not to listen. Besides, she knew nothing about England, the real England. There was no proper coffee, that was true, and the whole country seemed to smell of milk that had gone off, but there was some good food. I’d never had chips which tasted as good as the ones the Englishman’s Mother made, or the cabbage salad, called coleslaw, they served with ham in pubs. And the ham was thickly sliced and tasty, not like the thin salty stuff my Father bought from the local shop. And there was no cheddar cheese in Finland. I felt like crying again when I thought about the Gorgonzola I’d eaten with the Englishman, sitting on the floor of our flat in Edinburgh.
My friend at the School of Economics was glad to see me too, ‘I thought you might not come back,’ she said when she hugged me.
I looked at her serious eyes. That must have been what everyone thought, I realised. My Mother, Sister, Father, the girlfriend. That’s why everyone was so glad – relieved – to see me. What did they think, that I’d just stay, marry my Englishman and abandon my studies for good?
The possibility hadn't even occurred to me. Or to the Englishman.
Why hadn't it?

TWENTY-EIGHT

In February 1983 I got a part-time job at Stockmann’s department store selling fabrics on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings. My studies at the School ofEconomics were going well and I’d passed all the exams I took when I came back from Edinburgh. I continued to get good marks for my coursework, even though as well as working, I went out every week with friends to the University Disco. Once or twice I bumped into the 4^th year guy who’d been flirting with me, but his attentions didn’t bother me anymore. Once I even saw the tennis player there. He walked towards me and our eyes met. I just nodded and turned my back to him. My friends were on the dance floor and I feared he’d come and talk to me because it looked like I was alone again. Just like the summer before when he picked me up. I held by breath and was glad he didn’t. Then I thought, well at least he recognised me, and smiled to myself. But I had no desire to speak to him, or see him ever again.
I missed my Englishman wherever I found myself.
He wrote nearly every week, his words full of longing and love for me. Occasionally there’d be a late night phone call. Sometimes a fortnight would pass without any communication, and all I could assume was that he was away at sea onboard his submarine. I replied to each letter, but often our messages to each other would cross in the post, and a question would take two or three letters to be answered. Wedidn’t write about anything important though, such as The Future, but just what happened to us each week. I told the Englishman about how Russian customers at Stockmann’s would try to buy dress fabric with a bottle of vodka, or what marks I’d got in my exams. The Englishman told me about his nights out with his mates, about a trip down to Portsmouth to see his old friends. He said very little about his work, only sometimes referring to ‘refits’, ‘work-ups’, or ‘programmes’. I didn’t understand what the ‘boat’, as he referred to the submarine, did when it sailed, nor what my Englishman’s job was. I assumed I wasn’t supposed to know or understand.
In April he told me that when he visited his parents they gave him money towards a new car as a birthday present. He sold the yellow Spitfire and bought a more reliable car, a Ford Fiesta. I mourned the open top sports car and couldn’t imagine my Englishman at a wheel of anything else.
I spent my 23^rd birthday later the same month with my Father and my sister, who was over fromStockholm.
‘If I were you I’d just move to England,’ my sister said.
We were sitting in the Happy Days Café where our Father had taken us to have a buffet lunch. For once the girlfriend wasn’t with us, even though it was a Saturday. I looked at the uneaten Gravad Lax and pickled herring on my plate and sipped at the half litre glass of beer my sister had insisted I should have. ‘It’s your birthday and he’s paying, for goodness sake,’ she whispered in my year when I’d hesitated on what to order.
‘But I won’t be able to get a job without a work permit.’ I said.
‘Get a work permit then.’
‘You can’t get one. There’s huge unemployment in the UK, just like here, and no-one outside the EEC gets a work permit. Unless you’re a brain surgeon or something.’ I looked at my sister’s blonde curly hair and dark eyes. Living in Stockholm suited her. She looked slim and fashionable in her short black skirt and frilly blouse. I continued, ‘I’d have to marry him to be able to live and work there.’
My sister smiled broadly. ‘So, what’s the problem? You love him, he loves you.’
‘I know.’
‘Besides, he’s already asked you to marry him, so just say yes!’ My sister lifted her glass and clinked it with mine.
Our Father had a large plateful of food and sat heavily next to me in the leather booth. ‘Yes to what?’ he said, looking suspiciously at my sister.
‘Oh, I just think some-one should marry and leave this godforsaken city and country for ever.’
My Father’s nostrils flared as he took a deep breath in. I wondered if I could ask them not to fight on my birthday. But it was already too late.
‘You’d think that, wouldn’t you! You, who scarpered over to Sweden to follow that bitch of a mother of yours. Foreign men, that’s what you’re after, just because no Finnish man would have you. I bet you’ll marry some soft, milk-drinking Swede.’
There was a silence. The little appetite I had before, vanished. I didn’t know what to say. My sister was looking down at her plate. She glanced at me under her eyebrows. Her eyes were dark, dangerous-looking. Father was staring at my sister, holding his knife and fork upright. Like a man-eating giant about to pounce. Waiting for the retaliation. But my sister was silent, for once not rising to the bait.
A waitress came to the table. ‘Any schnapps here?’
My Father’s eyes lit up. ‘Yes, we’ll have a round of Koskenkorva.’
I glanced at my watch. It was barely 11.30 am.
‘Oh, I don’t care what he thinks,’ my sister said later. We were walking along the Esplanade towards a restaurant where a friend of hers was working. It was a sunny, almost warm day. Trees along the park were beginning to bud. Spring was definitely on its way, at last. We’d left Father drinking himself stupid at Happy Days Cafe. His mood had improved with the Koskenkorva. After we’d eaten, he told us to go out and have fun, pressing a few hundred Marks onto each palm. The same old routine. ‘Might as well use the money as His Pisshead Lordship wishes,’ my sister laughed and took my arm.
The Englishman phoned later that night, wishing me ‘Happy Birthday’. I very nearly told him what my sister had said about moving to England and marrying him, but at the last minute I hesitated. It was for the man to ask the woman, not the other way around.
‘I’ve only got three weeks left of term.’ I said instead.
‘Right, and then what?’ the Englishman said.
‘I start at the bank on Monday 23^rd May.’
‘Oh.’
That was it. I couldn’t get any more out of him. I tried not to worry that he had stopped loving me or that he’d accidentally slept with another girl, or even the same mysterious girl. In bed that night I again re-read his last letter. He swore his undying love for me. Perhaps he truly didn’t know or couldn’t tell me what he was doing in the next few months, or even weeks? There was a Cold War on after all. Goodness knew who might be listening in on our telephone conversation. It always sounded as if several lines were open when the overseas connections were made. I often heard a click or two as if some-one put the phone down during our call. The Englishman’s jokes about sleeping with a spy, or the ‘honey traps’ the ship’s company had been warned about when we’d met still rang in my ears. Surely he didn’t suspect me of being a Soviet spy after all this time? After two and a half years?

A month later, when I’d already started my fourth summer internship at the Kansallis-Osake-Pankkion Erottaja in the centre of Helsinki, a letter from the Englishman was waiting for me at the doorstep at home. Just that day, I’d discovered the British Council library in a building next to the bank and borrowed Graham Greene’s spy novel, The Human Factor, in English. I was looking forward to curling up in bed reading about England in English, but first I ripped the blue envelope open.
‘I have been so miserable here without you all this time. But now I finally know what my schedule is going to be for at least the next few months. As you know our refit has been delayed so many times now, and as a consequence they’ve decided to send me on an OPS course in Portsmouth. I’ll be on dry land and away from Scotland for six months! The course starts early June and ends at Christmas.’
The Englishman was going to live in his friend’s house in Southsea again and he wanted me to come over‘for as long as you can, as soon as you can make it.’
I sat down on my bed. My father was still at work, or perhaps he wasn’t going to come home that evening. I was glad, I needed to be alone and think. I had no idea what an OPS course was, but it didn’t matter. How could I ask for time off at the bank when I’d just started? Would they understand I needed to go and see the Englishman? I was OK for money, I’d saved some from the part-time job atStockmann’s. At the end of the month I’d have my first pay check from the bank. Even though it was just for one week’s work, it would cover the cost of the flight.
The next day I went to see the Manager at the Bank.
‘Young love,’ he muttered and smiled. I’d known him since my first summer at the bank He’d graduated from the same university as me ten years earlier and kept calling me ‘The Lady Economist’. He thought me very smart and I feared the day when he’d realise the truth.
‘Take two weeks paid leave. I’m sure we’ll manage without you.’
I was amazed. It was unheard of for summer interns to get leave, unpaid or paid. We were there to cover for when the permanent staff took their holidays after all. I shook his hand and thanked him. I skipped out of his office.
That afternoon walking back to the bus stop along Mannerheimintie I hummed to myself. Straight after work I’d gone to the Finnair travel agents in the corner of Aleksi and reserved my flights to Heathrow. In only two week’s time I’d be on the aeroplane on my way to London. In only fourteen days’ time I’d be in the arms of my Englishman.
TWENTY-NINE
I arrived at Helsinki airport only twenty minutes before the flight to London was due to leave. I’d missed the bus from Espoo, where it stopped outside my Father’s house, by a whisker. The nasty old bus driver had, I was sure, seen me running towards it dragging my heavy suitcase, but nonetheless had driven off, leaving me breathlessly cursing the bloody man. He had something against me, even though I’d barely exchanged one word with him during the two years I’d been living with my Father. Then I’d just missed a tram and had to wait for twenty minutes for a Finnair bus at the terminal in Töölö.
‘The flight is full,’ the heavily tanned, red-haired woman at the check-in said. Her bright pink lipstick clashed with her colouring, and with the sky blue Finnair uniform.
‘Oh,’ I said, not really comprehending how I could be booked onto a flight and not have a seat reserved for me. An awful sensation came into my stomach: did this mean I’d miss the flight?
The woman revealed a set of white teeth, ‘You’ve been upgraded to Business Class.’
I looked at her. I was still feeling dizzy.
‘Have a good flight, Miss.’ She handed me the boarding pass, and nodded politely, as if I’d suddenly become a more important person.
I was wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt under a pale blue jumper. Everyone else in business class wore a suit, and I was the only woman in the whole compartment. Apart from the air hostesses of course, who I felt sure knew I didn’t belong there.
The plane was absolutely full. I had a window seat next to an older Finnish man, who started talking to me as soon as we took off. ‘Going to London for work?’
‘No, I’m a student, going to see a friend.’
‘Do you study at Helsinki University?’ The man smiled to me in a kindly way, like a father to a daughter. I guessed his children were my age.
‘No, at Hanken, The Swedish School of Economics.’
This really seemed to impress the man, ‘Oh!’ he said.
I turned towards the window. We were hovering above white clouds. The air hostess brought us a meal and I asked for orange juice. I looked at my watch: only 2 hours fifteen minutes until we’d land at Heathrow and see my Englishman.
‘You must be excited about the elections then?’ the man said. He was chewing a piece of chicken and I wasn’t sure I’d heard correctly.
‘The elections?’
‘Yes, Margaret Thatcher! You must like her radical views on the Economy?’
I looked at the man. His thin hair was going grey at the temples. I had no idea of the politics of the newly re-elected British Prime Minister, only that she was right-wing. I agreed with everything the man said, trying to avoid further questions. Eventually he gave up when I dug the latest Graham Greene novel I’d borrowed from the British Council out of my handbag.
The Englishman was waiting for me with a dark red rose in his hand. He kissed me for a long, long time. I’d forgotten how he smelled of cigarettes and aftershave. His mouth tasted minty. I felt breathless, my heart beat so hard I felt sure everyone around us must have heard it.
The new car was on the second level of a concrete parking lot. It was a grey and black Ford Fiesta and looked dull compared to his old yellow Spitfire, but the Englishman told me the sports car was always breaking down. We headed down to Portsmouth and I was struck by the bright colour of the fields we passed. It was a hot June day. Some farmers were already cutting their crops of hay. In Finland we didn’t start doing that until at least a month later. Summer was so much further ahead here, I thought, and wished I could stay in England forever.
‘You didn’t forget your dress, did you?’ The Englishman said.
‘Sorry?’
‘For the Dolphin Summer Ball?’
‘Yes, I remembered.’
‘Great. It’ll be good fun!’
The Englishman had told me about the ball which was held each summer at the submarine base inPortsmouth. I was nervous about meeting a new set of friends. I’d brought the same dress, (the only ball gown I owned) that I’d worn to the University Ball in Helsinki year and a half ago. I was afraid it’d be far too ordinary-looking. I was sure the other girls would be wearing designer gowns, not one that was made by a friend from cheap material.
We were the only ones out of the old group of navy friends who that summer stayed in the terraced house in Southsea. It belonged to the Englishman’s best mate who was in Northern Ireland. Another friend, who’d lived there two years ago when I’d been to stay for the first time, was working for NATO in Brussels and another was in Faslane, where my Englishman had just ‘escaped’ from.
Each morning after the Englishman left for work, looking handsome in his uniform, I walked down to the shops at the end of our street. I cooked Finnish dishes, searching for the right ingredients at the small butchers and greengrocers.
I made Karelian stew out of diced beef, pork and lamb’s kidneys, pea soup from a hock of ham and dried peas, fish chowder from cod and new potatoes. I struggled to work the gas oven and hob in the little kitchen at the back of the house, often burning my fingers with matches. It seemed so old-fashioned and dangerous to cook with gas, but the Englishman told me it was much better and cheaper than electric.
The Summer Ball was two days before I was due to return to Helsinki. I’d been dreading it, trying not to think about it. The Englishman wore his summer dress jacket, white with the gold lapels. When he was ready and I was still getting dressed, he kissed me on the cheek and said, ‘No rush, darling. I’ll go and fix us G & T’s’
I took a deep breath and looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t want to wear too much make-up but I looked so pale, I added more blush to my cheeks. It was another hot summer’s evening. It had only rained once during the whole two weeks I’d spent in the house in Southsea. But tonight I felt cold. I couldn’t understand why I was so nervous about this evening. Was it the fear of perhaps seeing the girl, the Englishman’s ‘accident’? We hadn’t discussed the past, or the future. But still, she had to be somewhere. She had to be someone. The two weeks had gone by in blissful haze of domesticity. It was only now, when I knew we had to go out together, it occurred to me that I still didn’t know if we really were a proper couple. I’d again not been brave enough to talk about anything important with the Englishman and I certainly couldn’t do it now.
The Englishman drove us to the jetty in HMS Vernon, where we boarded a pass-boat over to Gosporton the other side of the harbour. The Englishman went in first, then gave me his hand to guide me onto the small vessel. I felt as if I’d entered the last century when we sat down next two other couples. The ladies in their evening gowns, made out of luxurious velvet and silk, wearing long satin gloves, smiled. The men took of their caps and nodded to me.
‘Good evening,’ one said.
‘Good evening,’ I replied. It was still warm, but I was shivering.
The Englishman sat next to me and put his arm around my shoulders. ‘You OK?’
‘Are Lucinda and Richard going to be there?’
The Englishman laughed. ‘No, I don’t think you’ll know anyone, but don’t worry I’ll look after you,’ he whispered into my ear as the loud engine of the boat started and we headed towards the other shore.
The Dolphin submarine school knew how to organise a party. There were different areas for food, dancing or just socialising. There was a disco, a Caribbean steel band, and a live group called ‘The Smugglers’, who played old-fashioned music from the Seventies.
The Englishman led me to a vast balcony overlooking Old Portsmouth and Southsea. He handed me a drink and introduced me to a string of his friends and their wives or girlfriends. As soon as they told me their names, I forgot them. I couldn’t follow the conversation over the music which flowed from the different rooms inside. Everyone was happy, the men were making jokes and the women laughed out loud. I smiled too, trying to pretend I’d understood the punch lines.
‘You stay here, I’m going to check where we’re sitting for supper,’ The Englishman said and left.
A slightly older man, who seemed to be on his own, came to stand next to me. He had watery eyes and thinning pale hair. His jacket had several gold rings on it so I guessed he must be more senior than the Englishman.
‘He’s not given you a set of Dolphins yet then?’ he said, bending down to look at the top of my dress.
I placed a hand over the low-cut cleavage. I felt very exposed, and cursed my decision not to buy a proper ball gown after all. Mine was made of very thin fabric. It had narrow straps, making it impossible to wear a bra. I’d told the Englishman I thought it too revealing but he’d just laughed and said I looked very good in it.
‘Sorry, I don’t understand?’ I said. The man pointed at a small brooch-like pin on his uniform jacket.
‘Oh. No, he hasn’t.’
The Englishman had told me about the Dolphins, the emblem of the submarine service. Once you passed your exams and had done the sea time in a boat, you had to earn your Dolphins by catching the pin between your teeth from a glass of rum. I remembered how proud he’d sounded when he told me about the ceremony. But I didn’t realise the ladies could have them too.
The man laughed at my confusion and said, ‘I don’t suppose he’s told you he can’t marry you either?’
I looked at the man’s red, flushed face.
Just then the Englishman reappeared by my side. ‘C’mon darling, there’s some-one I want you to meet.’
I was still staring at the man.
‘Excuse us, Sir,’ the Englishman said to him and led me away.
My ears were ringing. The Englishman took me to the end of the long balcony. I saw how the lights from the other side of the harbour reflected against the dark water. The floor beneath me felt uneven, as if I was still on the boat. Or floating in the water. Noises around me seemed muffled. Had I gone deaf? The Englishman rested one hand on my waist, drinking a pint of beer with the other. He was half-leaning over the low balcony wall, talking to three other officers, who’d appeared from no-where. I wondered if I’d met them before. Their laughter seemed to come from somewhere far, far away.
I shook my head and slowly regained my hearing.
THIRTY
I finished my drink in a few large gulps and asked the Englishman to get me another. We were leaning against the low balcony wall at the Dolphin mess. Music was flowing in from the rooms beyond, and people were moving in and out of the long, wide outdoor space overlooking the harbour mouth. Lights from Old Portsmouth opposite flickered against the dark water. Men were handsome in their pressed uniforms and polished boots, women glamorous in their long ball gowns.
‘Alright darling, what would you like?’ the Englishman asked with a puzzled look on his face. Ladies weren’t supposed to ask for a drink, they were supposed to wait to be asked, I thought. But I didn’t care. I saw the large beer glass in his hand and nodded towards it.
‘A pint? Are you sure?’
I said nothing, just looked at the Englishman.
‘I’ll get these, it’s my round,’ one of the other guys the Englishman had been talking to said and walked inside the noisy mess. He too was on the OPS course and the Englishman had also been to DartmouthNaval College with him. ‘He’s really, really rich,’ the Englishman now whispered into my ear.
I should have been impressed, but all I could think about was what the old guy had said to me.
‘Who was that man I was talking to before,’ I said, trying to sound nonchalant. Or as if I was just making conversation.
‘Oh, he’s Commander SM. He sort of runs this place. Why, what did he say?’
But the Englishman didn’t really want to know. He wasn’t even looking at me. He was surveying the crowd. He waved his hand to some-one. The buzzing sound returned to my ears. A pretty girl wearing a salmon-coloured silk satin gown, clinched around her tiny waist with a huge bow at the back, was walking towards us. She was flanked by three men in uniform.
‘Hello, handsome,’ she said to the Englishman and kissed him on the cheek.
The Englishman introduced her. ‘This is the lovely Tash. The girl we were all in love with at Dartmouth.’
I managed a smile, although my ears were buzzing ever louder and my face seemed to have frozen into an unmoveable stare.
‘Nonsense,’ Tash said. She dipped her chin and looked up from under her thin eyebrows at the Englishman, feigning shyness.
The drinks arrived. As I was handed the pint, there was a silence. All eyes seemed to follow the glass of beer as it travelled from the tray to my hand.
‘Well, cheers,’ the Englishman said.
‘Cheers!’ all said in unison.
‘You know, I once knew an Australian girl who drank pints.’ One of Tash’s entourage said, nodding kindly to me.
‘Yes, and I’ve heard all the girls down under do!’ said the other.
‘I bet in Norway girls drink pints too?’ asked the Englishman’s friend who’d brought me the drink.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘I’m from Finland.’
Another silence.
The Englishman took hold of my waist and said, ‘She can drink any of you under the table, though she hasn’t grown a beard yet.’
Laughter.
As usual, I thought, I’m the butt of a joke. I drank my beer quickly and when asked if I wanted another, I nodded.
By the time we sat down to our meal I was drunk, but all I wanted was to drink more. Occasionally the Englishman took my hand under the table, and asked if I was alright, but for the most part he laughed and talked loudly with the other people at our table. One of whom was the infamously lovely Tash, or Natasha, as the Englishman told me she was really called. ‘But everyone calls her Tash,’ he’d added.
She was sitting at the other side of the round table, attended to by a handsome naval officer either side of her. I felt sorry for a dark-haired girl who sat next to one of Tash’s adoring fans. Her purple dress had a deep cleavage, showing off her plump breasts. Occasionally I’d catch a guy around the table staring at her assets, but for the most part she was ignored, leaning across her partner to catch what Tash was saying.
As soon as the Englishman left my side, or I went to find the ladies’, other uniformed men approached me as if I was fair game. I thought somehow they’d guessed I was foreign. And that I was inferior, even desperate. Just like nurses. The Englishman had said there was a joke amongst young naval officers: ‘There are only two certainties in life: death and nurses.’
We weren’t home in the little house in Southsea until gone two o’clock. I was sick in the bathroom all night. Even after I’d brought up everything I’d eaten and drunk that night, I couldn’t sleep and sat at the edge of the bed. I felt like crying. The alarm clock on the side table said 5.30. Sleepily the Englishman put his head on my lap and said, ‘You got room spin?’
I looked at his dark eyes. ‘No.’
The Englishman closed his eyes and lay back against the pillow, ‘Come to bed then.’
I knew I should have done as the Englishman said. I should have lain beside him and slept. I should have waited until the morning to talk. It was a Saturday and we’d have the whole day together. Our last whole day before I was going back home to Helsinki. But, still drunk, I couldn’t help myself.
‘You’re never going to marry me, are you?’
There was no response. I turned around to see if he had gone back to sleep. If he’d dared…Anger surged inside me.
But the Englishman was lying on his back, eyes wide open, looking at the ceiling. I turned away from him again. I felt such rage at the Englishman for putting me through the night. He must have known what the people would be like, looking down their noses at me, a foreign girl daring to dream that an Englishman, a British Naval Officer, would ever marry her. Introducing me to a girl like Natasha, who I’d learned later in the evening was the daughter of an Admiral. Who’d be the perfect wife for my Englishman. She’d know how to behave at cocktail parties and naval dances. She’d not wear a dress that was obviously cheap and too revealing, or drink pints.
‘Well?’ I said.
‘Come here.’
Oh, how I wanted to go and lie next to the Englishman. To feel his strong arms around me, to put my head against his warm chest, to cry about everything in his embrace. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t going to be charmed by his empty words, by his warm kisses, or by sex. I had to be strong, and not be seduced. I had to know if we had a future.
‘No.’
I heard the Englishman sit up. He yawned loudly. I waited, with my back to him. I heard him breathe heavily, deliberately, in and out. ‘You know how much I love you.’
I turned around, ‘You don’t even mean that any more!’
‘But I do, darling, please, I’m so tired…you’ve been sick all night and…’
‘Oh yeah, it’s because I’m so uncivilised, foreign girls do that you know. Especially we Finns, we’re barely human, so we can’t really be trusted to attend fancy balls like tonight. Unladylike freaks, we drink pints of beer, not tiny glasses of wine like your lovely Tashes of this world.’
The Englishman got up. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ He looked angry, standing there in his boxers, his arms by his side, his fists tightly bunched.
Tears started to run down my face. I wiped them away with the back of my hand, swallowed hard and said, ‘That man, the Commander, he told me you knew you’d never be able to marry me.’
Silence.
The Englishman sat at the edge of the bed next to me. He put his arm around my shoulders, but I shook it off. I didn’t want his pity. I was shivering, thinking he’d soon tell me it wasn’t true. That he loved me and would marry me as soon as I wanted, that he’d never been in love with that pretty Tash, that he would die rather than lose me forever.
‘Look, I wasn’t going to tell you…’
‘Tell me what?’
The Englishman was looking down at his hands. I couldn’t see his face when he spoke. ‘I wrote to my Appointer and asked him if there was a problem with marrying some-one from a near-Communist country.’
I could hardly breathe. I stood up and shouted, ‘Finland is not a Communist country!’
‘I know that, but as far as the Navy is concerned…’
I was speechless.
The Englishman came up to me and took me into his arms. I was stiff in his embrace while he spoke.
‘I was told by some-one that marrying a girl….from…you know.’ The Englishman took a deep breath. ‘You’ve got to admit Finland is a bit different, so close to Soviet Union…anyway they told me my career in the Navy might be affected.’
I wriggled out of the Englishman’s grip, but he took hold of my arm and held onto it. ‘So I thought I’d ask directly, you know from the one person, my Appointer, who makes the decisions on my career.’
He stopped there.
I looked at his face. ‘So what did he tell you?’
‘I’m still waiting for his reply.’
THIRTY-ONE
It was raining when the plane landed at Helsinki airport. The goodbye at Heathrow with the Englishman had been even more difficult than usual. I lost count of how many times we said 'I love you.'

On the last day together we didn't get out of bed until the afternoon. We talked about how we met all that time ago. Two and a half years seemed like an eternity to us.

I'd been sitting on the double bed, trying to pack. Sheets were strewn everywhere, my clothes mingled with the Englishman's. He came out of the shower, with a towel around his angular hips. His hair was wet and he smelled of the special coconut aftershave his relatives in America sent him. He sat next to me and took my hands into his. 'I wanted you so much that evening we spent wandering in the cold park in Helsinki. But you kept saying, “It's impossible”'

I remembered the passionate kisses, the way the Englishman had looked deep into my eyes. And here we were still. Still in love, still longing for the day we could be together for ever.

'I thought I was going to die if I couldn't make love to you,' he said.

Tears ran down my face. The Englishman took my face into his hands and kissed me, 'Don't cry.'

We didn't talk much about the future. It seemed there wasn't much to say. The Englishman promised to phone as soon as he heard from the Appointer.

After a brief silence he said, 'I heard there is an engineer who married a Czech girl, but I think he's a skimmer.'

I looked at him, 'A skimmer?'

'A Lieutenant in surface ships. They skim on top of the sea, not under it, like us submariners.'

Sitting in the posh Finnair bus I now wished I'd asked him if being a submariner meant you had a higher security clearance. But I could see he didn't want to talk about it. Instead during those last 48 hours while he held me close he said he couldn't imagine life without me. He kept taking my face between his hands and kissing me, telling me I was beautiful.

But was that just because he felt bad about putting his career before me?

I remember him telling me sometime in the beginning, perhaps it was at the Embassy Cocktail Party, how he loved the Navy even if it meant being away at sea for long periods. Even if it meant being away from loved ones. 'It's what I've always wanted to do,' he said. In his eyes I saw loving what he did, being good at his job, meant a lot to him. It was what he lived for. The Royal Navy was his life.

So what if the Navy said he couldn't marry me?

If we didn't get married I wouldn't get a work permit in the UK. And I couldn't just move to England and not work. I needed to be good at my job too. One of the many things we had in common: We were both ambitious.

The rain ran down the windows of the Finnair bus. There was a lightening strike. I wished I could be back in 'Sunny Southsea' as my Englishman called the part of Portsmouth where his friend's little house was. When I said I agreed, the Englishman laughed at me and said, 'It rains here too!'

'But you call it “Sunny”' I protested.

'It's called sarcasm, or British humour. You'll get the hang of it,' he'd said and pulled me close to him.

The bus driver had a sports programme on the radio. Barbra Streisand came on singing 'A Woman in Love'. The way the Finnish announcer pronounced both the artist and the song in his heavily accented English made me smile. I thought how it would make the Englishman laugh. I allowed myself to listen to the soppy song and dream of life in England, together with my Englishman. How could I bear being without him? When once again I had no idea when I'd see him.

I looked at the wet Helsinki streets, through the sodden bus window. People were walking fast, with their heads hidden underneath black, sombre umbrellas. No-one was smiling, no-one holding someone else's hand, everyone just on their miserable own. I couldn't believe I was back here again. This city oppressed me, with its tall bulky buildings, it's unhappy people. None of them can have known love like we have, I was sure of it. The Barbra Streisand song was cut off half way through when some sports results were announced. I looked at the front of the bus and noticed the luggage tag dangling from my suitcase in the rack at the front of the bus said 'Hel'.

I was back in Helsinki, 'Hell' for short.

THIRTY-TWO
The rest of the summer of 1983 in Helsinki was glorious. But the weather didn’t suit my mood. If it hadn’t been for my good friend at the Swedish School of Economics, I don’t know how I would have survived the latter part of that year. By the end of July she’d finished her finals and submitted her thesis, which she’d written in record time. Now she was ready to party. So party we did. During the day I worked at the bank and at night we were out in the university disco, or in the Helsinki Club, or a favourite summer place called the Pikku Parlamentti. It was near the Finnish Parliament and only open in the summer. With some tables outside and sliding glass doors facing the park which sloped into the sea, it was a perfect place to celebrate a graduation. There, and elsewhere, we often bumped into the old gang of year four boys, and sometimes even exchanged a few words. Who spoke with whom didn’t seem to matter so much anymore, although, unlike my friend I’d still have to see everybody at the University in the autumn. I had a few exams to take as I’d lost time with the change of subjects in my second year, and hadn’t even decided what the title of my thesis would be.
As usual it all depended on the Englishman.
The ‘If we can marry I can have a work permit move to England, but if we can’t what then?’-question was always on my mind. When the Englishman phoned, which he did at least twice a week, we skirted around the issue. First when I’d returned from England, I’d asked him every time if he’d heard from the Appointer. But when after a few times the reply was a short ‘No’ I didn’t ask anymore. The Englishman was in the middle of a tough course and he too had exams to study for. He told me it was very important for his career to do well in the course. So I let him be.
Still he kept telling me how much he missed me and loved me. How much he longed for the day I moved to England. We speculated whether I might get a work permit through a job in the bank I’d been a summer intern for in Helsinki. My bank manager had told me they were opening a Commercial branch in London. He’d even organised an interview for me with the man heading the new venture. But there seemed to be no word from the Navy. Whether they’d allow the marriage to a girl from a country so near the Eastern Block, or whether it would prove too much of a security risk to an English Naval Officer. It was as if my life was hanging in the balance. I couldn’t even decide which subject to write about for my thesis. I had three choices. The one I wanted to do was about British party politics. But for this I needed to do the research in England. Handy if I was living there, impossible if it all fell through.
As the nights drew in and Helsinki descended into its annual depressive winter hibernation, I returned to lectures at the School of Economics. By September there was still no word from the Navy.
My professor was pressing me on a decision on my thesis, but I stalled.
In November the Englishman called, ‘I have Christmas and New Year off!’
‘Oh.’
‘Can I come over to see you?’
I spoke to my Father the next day. ‘Christmas? Here?’
‘Yes, I thought we’d…’
‘No, I’m not having any guests here. Christmas is a commercial invention anyway, for shops to sell more stuff.’
He’d been in an unusually bad mood for weeks. I guessed he’d had a fight with his girlfriend because he spent all his evenings and nights at home, monopolising the TV and complaining if I watched anything after he’d gone to bed.
I looked at him. I wanted to say, ‘What about me?’ or ‘Please can we have a family Christmas here, just like we did when I was little?’ but I didn’t. What if he sneered at me or worse, started to complain about my mother. Tell me some story or other how awful Christmas was with her. I wanted to hold onto my childhood memories.
I spoke to my mother instead. She was delighted and said it’d be a special Christmas with the Englishman there.
There was no snow in Helsinki when the Englishman’s plane landed on the Saturday before Christmas. The city looked grey with the lights over Alexi reflecting on the black pavements instead of the sparkly whiteness of snow. I took the bus to the airport and prayed the weather would turn colder. The Englishman had two weeks off and flew to see me first in Helsinki. The plan was then to fly together over to Stockholm for the holidays and back again to spend New Year with my friends in Helsinki. When I saw him through the glass at the arrivals hall, giving me a shy wave and rushing towards me with a bag over his shoulder, I didn’t give a thought to the distant future. The next fourteen days were all that mattered.
My father was waiting in the kitchen when we arrived. In front of him was half-full bottle of Koskenkorva and an empty tumbler. He shook the Englishman’s hand and took another glass out of the drying cupboard. With a nod to the Englishman he filled the two glasses up to the brim and lifted one to his lips. The Englishman looked at me, winked and emptied his glass. He made only a slight sound as the strong vodka flowed down his throat.
‘We’re going out tonight,’ I lied and took the Englishman’s hand. The Englishman coughed.
‘Even more reason to start the evening off with style,’ my father said and poured another round. I looked at the clock on the wall. It was just past four o’clock in the afternoon.
‘It’s alright,’ the Englishman said and lifted the second glassful to his lips.
‘C’mon we have to go,’ I said.
My father looked up. ‘It’s alright, you don’t have to go. I’m off to Lapland today.’
‘What?’
‘I won’t see you until next year,’ he said and took a wad of 100 mark notes out of his wallet. Have a few drinks on me, or even a meal.’ He laughed, hugged me and shook the Englishman’s hand.
When the door shut behind my father I shook my head. ‘He didn’t tell me he was away for Christmas. They must have made up and are going up to see the girlfriend’s family in Northern Finland.’
The Englishman came to sit next to me at the kitchen table. His eyes looked cloudy. He kissed me and said, ‘Can we go to bed now?’
We woke late the next morning, the 21st of December 1983.
'What do you want to do today?' the Englishman asked.

'Go into Helsinki for some Christmas shopping?

It was drizzling with cold rain, almost sleet. We spent an hour walking around Stockmann's, holding hands. The Englishman kept stopping to kiss me. He didn't seem to mind how people everywhere stared when he did that. He didn't speak much. Suddenly as we were queuing up to pay for some Fazer chocolates I was getting for my sister, he said, 'So your Father, am I going to see him again?'

I looked at the Englishman. He was wearing a thick puffa jacket, jeans and a thick jumper. Even when he wasn't kissing me, with his dark hair he looked foreign and attracted sideways glances from other shoppers. 'Again?' I asked.

'Yes, before I go back.' He looked uncomfortable. A man in front of us in the queue turned around when he heard English was spoken. His eyes wandered from the Englishman's dark features to my blonde head. There was strong disapproval in his gaze. I stared at him and eventually he turned back to face the till.

The Englishman widened his eyes and moved them towards the man's back in front of us. I shrugged. 'No, don't think so, my Father's away for the whole of the holidays. Why?'

'Nothing,' he said and pulled me towards him for another kiss.

'Can we go for lunch somewhere?' the Englishman said when we were walking out of the store.

The sleet/rain was still falling and even though it was only twelve o'clock and in spite of the Christmas lights above, the street looked dark. I saw the bright sign of the new American hamburger bar opposite and started running towards it, dragging the Englishman behind me.

'It's not McDonald's but they do a rye burger.' I said.

Inside the Englishman looked around the small space. 'You sure this is OK?' he said.

The place was called Hesburger and being new, it was fairly full. As usual people stared when we entered. I looked at the Englishman. 'Yes, we just want a quick bite, yeah? And it's raining.'

After some translation of the menu, we got our bags of food .

'Let's sit by the window,' I said and nodded to one of the red plastic tables and chairs.

The Englishman looked at me across the table. He hadn't touched his burger.

'Aren't you hungry?'

He reached across the shiny tabletop and took my hand. His fingers felt cold against my skin.

'You know I love you.'

The Englishman's mouth was a straight line. His eyes were wide. He looked almost scared. My heart sank. 'I know.' Had he heard from the Navy Appointer? Was this bad news?

The Englishman pulled something out of his pocket. It was a small black box. 'This isn't quite the kind of place I imagined I'd do this, but...'He looked me deep into the eyes and opened the box to show me the contents.

I saw gold and glittery stones. I looked up at the Englishman.

'And I really wanted to ask your Father first.'

My mouth was dry, I couldn't speak. I wanted to throw myself at the Englishman. Kiss him, hug him, feel him close to me. But the people around us, munching at their burgers, loudly sucking at their straws at their near empty paper cups of Coca Cola, with the smell of French fries everywhere, made me stop myself.

'So, what I'm asking, is...'

Still I couldn't speak. And the Englishman was struggling to say the words. I wanted to help him and say, 'Yes, yes, a hundred times yes,' and very nearly did, but then realised he hadn't actually asked me yet. What if by some strange miracle I'd completely misunderstood? I looked down at the ring in front of me, then at his straight mouth. How I wanted to kiss those narrow lips, taste the cigarettes and mint, feel the roughness of his always unshaven-looking face.

'Would you please marry me?'

I smiled and said simply, 'Yes.'

THIRTY-THREE

The Englishman and I took our first ever flight together from Helsinki to Stockholm on the day before Christmas Eve in 1983. Though there was no snow on the ground, and the landscape looked dark and miserable, it was magical. To be standing together in the passport queue, rather than saying goodbye on the other side, seemed unreal. Then walking through the airport terminal holding hands, looking at the tax free shops, selling furs, china or wooden goods to tourists, felt so wonderful that I wanted to pinch myself. Surely I was dreaming? The Englishman bought a bottle of Gin, although he said it would have been half the price in England. He’d fretted about not having any presents for my Mother and Sister but I gladly put both of our names on the little cards to go with my gifts. These were our first Christmas present given together.
As soon as we arrived in my Mother’s small flat in Lidingö, she announced there was going to be an engagement party on Boxing Day. I blushed, thinking what the Englishman would make of my Mother’s friends, some of whom were a little eccentric. There’d be the Polish dentist, who called herself my aunt, and who kept telling me to sit up straight about ten times during a visit, and to beware of Communists twice as many times. My Mother’s childhood friend whom she’d lost contact with only to renew the friendship after a chance meeting on the ferry 20 years later. I must have heard the story a hundred times of how they’d found out that they both now lived in Stockholm only a few miles apart. She was lovely but her husband was a self-proclaimed alcoholic who couldn’t stop drinking in spite of loud protests from my Mother’s friend. He always ended up passing out during any get-together, sparking a loud marital row.
Then there was the dog.
Having nagged her for years, my Mother had eventually succumbed and got Jerry for my sister and I right after the divorce. Now 12 years later the cocker spaniel was old and frail. He could no longer control his bladder and often ended up peeing in the hallway of my Mother’s smart block of flats. Once outside, the dog wanted immediately to come inside again, having done its business. So whoever was unlucky enough to take him for a walk would have to drag the stubborn animal around the streets, appearing ridiculous at best and at worst cruel to any bystanders. With all the cooking to be done my Mother felt the Englishman would be perfect for this task, especially as he kept offering to ‘do whatever to help’. I tried to warn him but to no avail. He just smiled, kissed me on the lips and said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.’
‘He’s stronger than he looks,’ the Englishman said when he returned with Jerry. The Englishman told me how the dog had decided to do a ‘number two’ in the middle of the zebra crossing, in front of a bus full of people. He said he’d never seen so much angry glaring and head shaking as he tried to drag the squatting animal across the road.
On Christmas Eve, after the long meal had been consumed and the presents distributed, I joined the Englishman and Jerry on their nightly walk. I’d wanted him to experience a true Nordic snowy Christmas, but the weather was still mild and only rain so far had fallen from the sky. At least it was now dry and when we reached the dark end of the road, where there was a narrow path down to the sea, stars twinkled in the night sky. I lifted the shivering dog up and the Englishman traced the galaxies with his gloved hand. ‘There’s Venus, look, and that’s ‘The Plough’. I looked up into the black sky and wondered how some-one could ever be this happy.
‘And that's the ‘North Star’.
The Englishman was quiet for a moment. Then he put his arms around me and I placed the dog gently onto the ground. ‘I’m very happy,’ he said and kissed me. Then, looking into my eyes, in his faltering Finnish, he said, ‘Minä rakastan sinua’.
I had tears in my eyes when I replied, ‘I love you too.’
Because my sister had kindly lent me her flat, which was one floor below in the same block as my Mother’s, the Englishman and I had lots of time alone at night and in the mornings. Had it not been for my Mother’s strict time table and all the cooking that needed to be done, we would never have left the warm bedroom.
On Boxing Day the Engagement Party was due to start at 2 pm. My Mother’s school friend and her small bearded husband arrived half an hour early. She was twice his size and wore a large paisley-patterned poncho. The Englishman and I were lost in her warm embrace. She’d brought along her daughter who was the same age as my sister and already friends with her. I looked at her with relief, even though I’d only me her once before. At least there’d be one more person of our age at the party.
My Polish aunt arrived half an hour late and my Mother had already been worried she’d not come at all. But through the door she flowed, wearing a tight black satin skirt and a cream frilly blouse. ‘Ah, stand up straight, girl!’ she said in her strongly accented Swedish, as she hugged me. Turning to the Englishman she said, ‘Let me see…’ There was an awkward moment when she started to rummage around in her handbag with one hand, while holding onto the Englishman with the other. He gave me a look of panic, but finally my aunt found her glasses, put them on and started to examine my Englishman more closely. I looked at my Mother, but she just shook her head. There was nothing we could do but wait for the verdict, hoping it’d be an agreeable one.
After what seemed like an eternity, she exclaimed, ‘Dobry!’
‘Good?’ My mother said in Swedish. ‘Tak!’ She smiled broadly at me and the Englishman. ‘See, your Mother speak Polish fluently!’
I translated her Swedish words to the Englishman. He looked a little pale, so I took his hand and led him to the lounge where the small bearded man was already drinking vodka and coke. He lifted his glass and smiled. He very rarely said more than two words. During the past twenty years while the couple and their daughter had lived in Sweden only my Mother’s childhood friend had learned a little Swedish. My Mother disapproved of this. ‘All their friends are Finns,’ she’d said to me. ‘So they don’t learn the language. I’m not going to be like that. Besides, I already speak it very well.’
As we sat around the small coffee table and ate the Princess Tårta, my favourite Swedish cake, which Mother had somehow hidden from me during Christmas, the conversation ran more of less smoothly in three languages. I did most of the translating, while sitting close to the Englishman holding onto his hand.
The Finnish man got drunk as usual, and as usual they had to leave early to avoid a huge argument. ‘See what I have to put up with!’ my Mother’s friend said as she led her family into a waiting taxi.
My Polish aunt spent most of the time gazing at us, sometimes wiping the corners of her eyes. When she left, she held onto our hands and said, ‘Ah, you both so young!’
I was surprised by her words. I felt terribly old and experienced. Certainly old enough to be engaged and soon married.
We hadn’t decided on a date for the wedding yet. The Englishman’s course in Portsmouth had ended before Christmas and he didn’t know what his next job in the Navy would be. ‘The Appointer is aware I’m getting married in the summer and won’t send me to a submarine due to sail before then.’
‘Getting married in the summer,’ rang in my ears as I waved goodbye to the Englishman at Helsinkiairport a week later, clutching the red rose he’d again bought me.
'This will be the last time we have to do this,’ the Englishman said before he went through the passport control. He stroked my hair. I tried not to cry. Knowing we’d soon be together didn’t make saying goodbye any easier. I felt the ring on my finger and prayed that the few last months I’d have to spend in Helsinki would pass quickly. As I watched him disappear from my view, it suddenly occurred to me I’d have to organise a wedding too. I ran out of the airport terminal and into the waiting bus. There was so much to do!

THIRTY-FOUR

My Father was due home from his travels on the evening of the same day, 3rd of January 1984, I'd said goodbye to the Englishman at Helsinki airport.

I planned to cook his favourite meal: meatballs in a creamy sauce and peeled potatoes. I made a salad too, but knew he wouldn't want any. He called it 'rabbit food'.

'Did you have a nice Christmas?' I asked.

We were sitting opposite each other on the small kitchen table. I wondered if he'd spotted the ring on my left finger.

My Father lifted his head up from the food and looked at me from under his light-coloured, unruly eyebrows, 'In Oulu?'

'Yes.'

He put his knife and fork down, 'In Lapland they don't even know how to bake a ham properly. They're not really Finns, too close to the North Pole.' He paused, then a smile flitted across his untidy face. He looked tired. 'But the Christmas tree didn't cost anything. We felled it from one of the forests her family have. They're big landowners up there.'

'Oh,' I said and rested my chin on my left hand. But my Father went back to eating, ladling the food into his mouth as if he'd never been fed. I sighed. 'I got this,' I said, stretching my arm across, shoving the hand with the sparking diamond ring under his nose.

It took him a little while to comment. He looked at the ring as if it was on fire. Or infectious. His eyes moved slowly from my hand up to my face. I smiled. He went back to the food and cleared his plate in silence.

I sat and waited. I couldn't eat.

'You're getting married and moving to England then?' he said finally.

'Yes.'

'Getting married in England?'

'I...I don't know. We haven't decided yet. It all depends...'

'I'll pay for it if you get married in Finland,' my Father interrupted me.

'Oh.'

My Father's eyes were squarely on me. He coughed and said, 'Anyway...are you happy?'

I was so surprised by his words, I didn't reply for a while. He'd never asked me such a thing. I didn't think 'being happy' entered his consciousness. He scoffed at the modern disease of stress, thought any psychiatrist was a conman, worse if they happened to be female. He called anyone who belonged to a cult, religion, or had any beliefs, 'One of the Happy People'. In short, he didn't seem to possess a soul, or at least didn't admit to having one.

My eyes filled with tears. 'Yes, very.'

'And has your mother met the young man?'

'Yes.' I realised my mouth was still open. I closed it and tried to remember the last time my Father had called my Mother anything other than 'That Woman', or worse, 'That Bitch'. Had he undergone some kind of personality change?

'Good, good,' he said, nodding vigorously.

There was a long silence. I looked out of the window. It had started snowing at last. Large flakes hung in the air, slowly falling onto the ground. The single lamppost gave an orange glow to the small patch of dead grass outside the house.

'I think this calls for a celebration!' My Father got up and took a bottle of Koskenkorva out of the fridge. He poured two tumblers full and lifted his glass.

'Kippis!'

I nodded and lifted my glass. I couldn't speak. We sat in silence drinking the neat vodka. It burned my throat as it always did. I took small sips and tried not to grimace.

'There's a lovely church in Espoo, you know,' my Father said.

I didn't know what to say. 'Yes?'

'Have a look and tell me how much it's all going to cost. I've got the funds, so don't worry about that.' My Father downed the rest of his drink and walked into the living room. I heard him put on the TV, sit down in one of the velour covered comfy chairs and fart loudly.

THIRTY-FIVE

Espoo Old Church stood at the end of a country lane, set aside from a newly built shopping centre. In the distance lay high rise blocks to one side and a wide motorway to the other. Father and I went to see it for the first time on a Saturday in January 1984. It seemed odd to plan a wedding in a church I'd never been to, but The Old Church was the prettiest in the parish I belonged to since moving in with my Father.

The stone clad church was empty as we wandered down the narrow aisle. I shivered, the air inside seemed colder than outside. It was strange to think I'd stand here in a few month's time, arm in arm with my Englishman. There was so much to do before I could get away, and be together with him for forever and ever. I moved my gaze from the simple altar with its two silver candle sticks to my Father. He stood perfectly still, with his hands in the pockets of his light grey overcoat. His shoes were unpolished. Instead of his smarter work clothes, he wore the same shabby jogging pants and cardigan he did when lazing around in front of the TV at home. His eyes met mine. 'What?'

'Nothing,' I said.

My Father had been in a funny mood all morning. In the car he'd asked me how long we'd be away, as if he had some other, more important, appointment to go to. Had he changed his mind about paying for the wedding? But I wasn't sure he had any idea of how much it would all be, and neither did I.

I walked out. I was afraid some-one, a Pastor or a Warden would come out of the recesses of the church and start asking questions. I wasn't ready for that; I didn't even know the date of the wedding yet.

'We have to be in Bastvik in 15 minutes,' I said to my Father over my shoulder.

The Bastvik Manor House faced a central courtyard, with two converted barns either side. There were bedrooms in each of the outbuildings for the use of overnight guests. The ceilings were low and the furniture antique. It all looked perfect, even if there was just one bathroom in each corridor for the guests to share. Surely the Englishman's family wouldn't mind? The woman who showed us around the rooms smiled. Back at the Manor House she checked in a large book and said there were still dates available for a function in the summer. 'How many wedding guests are there going to be?' she asked my Father.

'Not too many, I hope,' he said and sneered.

The woman's smile froze.

I looked down at my hands. 'How many can you accommodate?' I asked.

'The maximum number is 75 .'

'That many!' my Father said.

'That should be more than enough,' I quickly added.

'Good, good,' the woman tried to smile at my Father again, but she ended up smirking in a futile effort to lift everyone's spirits.

My Father and I didn't speak in the car on the way home. As we got closer to his house, my anger rose. He'd embarrassed me in front of the woman in Bastvik. What must she think of us? How was I now going to arrange the wedding with her? I looked at the leaflet she'd given me. The rates seemed reasonable. After Father's comment about the number of guests, she'd suggested a domestic sparkling wine for the toasts and a cheaper meal option. No fish course and chicken instead of veal as a main.

I sighed.

That evening the Englishman called. I feigned excitement when he told me the news. 'I've got the whole of my programme set out for next twelve months. First at the NATO base in Naples until the last week of May. Then two weeks off and the rest of the year I'll be based in Pompey. So, our date will be Saturday 2nd of June!'

'The 2nd of June.' I tasted the date on my lips. Could this be true? Would it really happen?

'So when can you finally come over to England for good?' the Englishman asked.

'My Professor says I can take the final exams at the Finnish Embassy in London, so I can come as soon as I have arranged everything here. I think perhaps middle of February.'

'Great! I'm going to Italy in March, but you can stay in the house in Southsea. I'll be home every other weekend at least.'

The words 'I'll be home' rang in my ears for the rest of the evening. How would it be to wait for the Englishman to come home? Would I be as lonely in England as I was here in Espoo in my Father's cold house? Though I was glad that he left me alone tonight after our disastrous outing.

At least it would be warmer in Southsea, I thought. And I'd be working just like the Englishman's sister-in-law and sister. Taking the bus or the train to an office, where I'd do some important work. As yet I had no idea what that job would be. First I needed to marry the man, I thought and pulled out the Yellow Pages. I ran my finger down the names of printers. Now I knew the date I could have the invitations made. And I needed to let everyone know. I lifted the receiver and dialled my Mother's number in Stockholm.

THIRTY-SIX

The Englishman and I set the date for my move to England for 25th February 1984.

I'd take the train through Europe, and then cross the Channel over to Harwich. This way I could send all my worldly possessions separately to my new home country, rather than be limited to carrying it all in suitcases onto a flight.

I bought the train ticket at Helsinki railway station on a cold windy day. Afterwards I picked up two large cardboard boxes from Valintatalo, the cheap food and clothes store opposite my bus stop. I struggled onto the bus, and occupied two seats, getting disapproving looks from the other commuters. The last thing they needed was to abandon a seat to a cardboard box. I ignored the other passengers and looked out of the window. It was just past three but already dark. The little snow that had fallen after the New Year had quickly disappeared, leaving Helsinki dull and rainy.

As I watched more passengers board the bus at the next stop, I thought about the items I'd take with me to England. The two large coffee cups and saucers my Mother had left me when she moved to Stockholm, the pestle and mortar my Grandfather made during the war when he worked at the ammunition factory in Tampere. All my books including the heavy, thick ones for the exams I was going to take at the Finnish Embassy in London, and all my LP's. The Englishman and I had discussed on the phone whether I'd need to take the ones we both owned by Earth Wind & Fire, Haircut One Hundred, Billy Joel or The Police. The Englishman thought I'd be crazy to pack them, but I wasn't sure. These LP's were like my friends, they'd kept me sane at night when lonely and desperately missing my Englishman in my Father's little house in Espoo.

The next day I went to pick up the wedding invitations. The Englishman and I had spent a long time on the telephone drawing up a list of guests. He'd come up with only ten, including his parents, Godmother, sister and brother with their spouses, and the friends who he shared the house in Southsea with. He said the flights were so expensive many of his friends couldn't afford to make the trip to Helsinki. The same conversation with my Father was fruitless. 'Oh, you must decide, how am I supposed to know who wants to come to your wedding?'

Then, after he'd been sitting in front of the TV for half an hour, he shouted, 'Oh my Mother and my step sisters. I guess they'll want to come now that old bastard is dead.'

I sighed. He would always have to put some-one down. Even if my Father was referring to his step-father who'd refused to feed and cloth him when his own Mother re-married. I'd heard the story so many times: how the man had promised my Grandmother that her son would be educated and even get his own room in the new home he'd built for his new bride. And then after only one week he said he would throw the new wife out too if the boy stayed. I'd often wondered what my Father had done during that week after his Mother's wedding to receive such treatment. Or was the new husband just as evil as my Father said he was. I'd never met him; my Father was reunited with his Mother only after the evil step father had died.

The conversation about guests was more enjoyable with my Mother. We made a list of over thirty people, including Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, my friends from school and university. As usual when I spoke on the phone with my Mother I'd made sure my Father was out. I couldn't bear the nasty things he would say about her afterwards, when he'd heard who was at the other end of the line. I had a long talk with my Mother about the wording of the invitations too. The Englishman had given me the words, but I wasn't sure whether the Finnish text should reflect the official tone of, 'Mrs and Mrs so-and-so have the pleasure in inviting you to the wedding of their daughter and Sub-Lieutenant Englishman, RN.' There was nothing similar in Finnish that wouldn't sound pompous and old-fashioned. Eventually we settled on a simple wording, in slightly more formal Finnish.

The printers were in Lauttasaari, in a small industrial park at the far end of the island. As I passed the street where my old flat stood, I felt a little sad. Life with my old boyfriend, fiance, was dull but it was safe. I wondered as I saw a light in my old window, and a new set of dark curtains, whether I was making a grave mistake. What if England turned out to be a difficult country to live in? What if people were unfriendly - even discriminating - against foreigners like me? What if I didn't get a job and ended up being a Navy house-wife like Lucinda in Scotland? What if the Englishman turned out to be equally possessive and jealous as my former fiance?

The man with ink-stained fingers pulled out a copy of the invitations for me to see. He left two dirty fingermarks in a corner of the card, embossed with the heavy, beautiful gold lettering. I re-read the text and blushed. Was this really for me? If only my family lived up to the fine wording and look of the invitation. Especially the 'Mr and Mrs have the pleasure in inviting you to the wedding of their daughter' struck me as false. I wasn't even sure my parents would be able to physically sit in the same room, and here they were portrayed as the most wholesome of happy couples inviting family and friends to their daughter's wedding. I turned the card over and put it down on the counter.

'They're good,' I said to the man. He handed me a plastic bag filled with the fifty heavy cards I'd ordered. I handed the money over and he wrote out a receipt.

When my Father came home from work that evening, I showed him the invitations. I knew he'd be glad the number of guests wouldn't exceed 50, that was at least 25 less than the maximum he was expecting. He sat heavily in one of the plush comfy chairs and perched his reading glasses at an angle on the end of his nose.

'What's this?' he said holding the card and looking at me over his glasses.

I was standing next to him, but now sat down. For some reason my heart started to beat a little faster, 'The wedding invitations.'

He looked down at the at the single card I'd handed him. Frozen to a spot, saying nothing.

'It's in English as well as in Finnish, because...' I started. I wondered if he was offended by the bi-lingual text. 'We speak Finnish in Finland,' he'd often say when my Swedish-speaking friends came to visit the house.

'What's this?' he said, pointing his fine long finger at the sentence, 'Mrs and Mrs X have the pleasure in inviting...'

'It's the English text. I thought since half, or in fact it's much less than a half, but all the same, they don't understand Finnish, so I thought, being that it is...'

'Not that!' he said, loudly. 'It's me who's inviting these people, not your Mother.'

'Yes, I know that...' I was puzzled, what did he mean 'not your Mother'?

'It's me who's paying for it.' His pale blue eyes, over the wonky glasses, were on me. His lips turned downwards. His hand, holding the card was trembling.

'What?' A chill ran down my spine. Even before I heard him say it, I had a premonition about what he was going to say.

'I don't want that Bitch on the invitation.'

I said nothing. My throat felt dry, I felt faint.

'And I don't want her anywhere near the wedding.'

There was a long silence. I struggled to find any words. I felt tears well up in my eyes. 'You mean my own Mother can't come to my wedding?' I said with a trembling voice. I willed it to sound normal, or firm, but I had no breath left in me.

He said nothing for a while. Then there was a dry final comment, 'I'm paying for everything. Not your Mother. Me. And I don't want to see that Bitch there.'

I ran out of the room, clutching the plastic bag of invitations, tears running down my face. The hate I felt for my Father at that moment was even greater than the love I felt for the Englishman.

I thought I might kill him.

THIRTY-SEVEN

I was lying face down on my bed, with my head spinning, trying to make sense of what had just happened, when I heard the front door slam shut. Had my Father left the house? I waited for a few minutes. It was quiet. I crept out of my room and walked into the darkened kitchen. The parking space where my Father's Saab was usually parked was empty. I took a deep breath and wiped my face with the threadbare tissue I had in my hand.

I went to the telephone in the hall and lifted the heavy receiver.

'Mum?'

'What's the matter?'

Hearing my Mother's concerned voice brought up the tears again, but I tried to stop the flow. 'Dad, he...' Holding back the tears took such an effort I couldn't finish the sentence.

'What's he done now?'

I hesitated. How much of what my Father had said could I tell her? I didn't want to upset her, but then I needed to speak with someone. 'He said you wouldn't be allowed to come...' now I couldn't hold back. Tears were running down my face. The cream coloured receiver stuck to my chin. 'He said because he's paying, you are not welcome at the wedding. He said I'm not to invite you.'

'What!'

'Oh Mum!' I was crying now, there was no stopping me. What would I do? Get married in England? But how could we pay for the wedding? We had no money and I couldn't ask the Englishman's parents. Without my Father there was no way I'd be able to marry the Englishman.

There was a short, shocked silence at the other end of the phone. I heard my Mother's quick intake of breath. 'I cannot believe it.'

'I know.' It was such a relief to hear that my Mother felt equally strongly about what my Father had said. And she hadn't even heard the awful words he'd used. Perhaps she guessed.

But very soon she recovered, 'Don't worry, I will pay for your wedding.'

'But you don't have the money!'

'I do. It's not a problem.'

I leant my weary body against the wall and sat down on the floor.

My Mother continued, 'I knew he was going to be trouble. Always the same, he just doesn't change.'

Half an hour later I got a call from my sister.

'Bastard!' she said. 'But don't worry, Mum and I have discussed everything. We'll organise the wedding in Tampere, it's where you were born after all. You can stay at Grandmother's place and the English guests can be in a hotel. I'm thinking of the Cathedral for the wedding. I can't imagine the date is a problem, we have nearly six months to organise things. I also think that we should have the reception at Rosendahl Hotel by Lake Pyhäjärvi, it's perfect for foreign visitors.'

My sister went on, she had ideas about the menu, the wines and champagne we were going to serve. I listened and relaxed. She'd recently qualified as Maitre d'. I smiled as I thought my big sister liked nothing more than to organise things. Why hadn't I thought of that before? She now said all I needed to do was turn up, she'd take care everything.

My mind started to wander and my thoughts turned to the gown. A school friend was a good dress maker and had promised to do mine. I couldn't wait to consider designs with her. I'd saved several magazines and patterns. At Stockmann's, dress patterns were sold next to the fabrics department, where I'd worked at the weekends for over four years . I only had two Saturdays left there. The lady in charge of the patterns concession gave me several pictures from the ones she sold. They included a Vogue pattern of a simple silk tulle dress. That was my favourite, but I had no idea if it was possible to make it and where I'd find the correct fabric. We had nothing even close at Stockmann's. There must be places in London where that sort of fluffy, soft silk is sold, I thought.

'You still there?' My sister's voice was concerned.

'I'm just tired.'

'I'll call you tomorrow with more details,' she said and hung up.

I went off to bed and slept soundly for over nine hours.

The next day there was no sign of my Father. I had to be at my friend's place at nine, so I hurried out of the house. I hoped my Father would stay away at his girlfriend's, where I presumed he was hiding, as long as possible. I didn't think I could endure even an evening with him. I couldn't wait to leave his house and Finland for good.

There was little snow left on the ground, just a few dirty patches on the side of the road. But there was a harsh Northerly wind as I walked along the streets of Lauttasaari, where my friend lived. For the second time in the same week I was back on the island, and walking past my old flat. Was this some kind of torture designed to make me consider the consequence of my actions? I shrugged off this fatalistic thinking, although sometimes I wondered how many obstacles were going to be put in the way of me and my Englishman.

Would we ever walk down the aisle together?

THIRTY-EIGHT

I spent the last few days I had left in Helsinki in February 1984 arranging the practical details of a move to another country.

On the Thursday I had an oral examination in Methodology with my Professor at the Swedish School of Economics. I was ill-prepared for the exam. The old man with his untidy grey hair and small round glasses had to prompt me several times to extract the correct answer. At the end of the session, I was surprised when he told me I'd passed. He shook my hand warmly as I left his stuffy office on the uppermost floor of the School of Economics building. 'Don't be a stranger,' he said and smiled.

Closing the door behind me, I stood for a moment in the wide, empty hall. It was suddenly flooded with bright sunshine through the large windows to one side of the Sixties' style building. There was a lump in my throat when I realised this could be the last time I'd stand here. Four years ago when I first stepped inside this building, I was proud to have got a place to study here, but scared I'd not be accepted by the other students. I knew nothing about the Swedish-speaking community in Finland and was full of prejudices. That my life would be turned upside down during my time here never occurred to me, nor that it was the start of the end of my life in Finland. How much older and wiser I felt now, yet as I stood there in the empty space, listening to the familiar echoing sounds from the stairwell of students milling about on the floors below me, I was more unsure of my future than I'd ever been in my life.

I glanced at my watch and saw I was running late. For old times' sake my friend and I were going to go to the University Disco that evening, even though we rarely went there these days. I was due to be at her flat in five minutes' time. When my friend had suggested that I stay the night I hadn't hesitated. I didn't want to spend any more nights in my Father's house than I had to.

I ran down the stairs, taking two at the time and headed out of the glazed double doors of the School of Economics building. I just made the tram approaching the stop on the other side of the street. The yellow and green vehicle screeched as it took the sharp corner of from Arkadiankatu to Runeberginkatu and headed downhill towards Töölö.

My friend and I both laughed and cried that evening.

'This is not goodbye. I'll see you in June before the wedding!' I said. I'd be back for at least two weeks, to allow for the fitting of the wedding gown and a hen party, which my old school friends had already started planning.

'Of course,' my friend said and put her arm around my shoulders. 'But you promise to write, yes?' she said and turned to face me. She'd stopped walking. We were on our way up the windy Arkadiankatu from the tram stop to the disco. I was freezing in my tight-fitting winter white velvet jeans and satin blouse. My suede coat had never been the same after enduring six weeks of rainy weather in Edinburgh. I looked at my friend's serious face.

'I promise.' I took her arm and we hurried to the warmth of the disco.

When I entered the haberdashery department at Stockmann's on Friday evening, my last day working day, and saw the familiar faces, I again felt a lump in my throat. I'd been wishing for so long to be away from Helsinki and Finland, but to finally do it, was harder than I'd imagined. The doubts hovering in my mind about the seriousness of my decision didn't help. All the older ladies' questions about what I was going to do in England, when I was going to get married, or where we were going to live exhausted me and I wished the evening would speed along. Half an hour before closing time, the floor manager gave me a card and a present of a pinnie made out of blue and white checked fabric. The colours of the Finnish flag. I cried and hugged them all in turn before returning my name badge, uniform and discount card to the personnel department on the top floor.

When I returned home later that evening my legs ached. The house was dark and quiet. I was relieved, my Father would not be home tonight either. I sat in front of the TV and put my feet up on the settee. The phone rang.

'What's up?' the Englishman said when he heard my voice.

I couldn't explain how I felt to him. We'd been talking about this day, the day I'd finally move to England for so long, I wasn't able to explain to him that I felt sad now that much-awaited day was here. Instead I talked about the wedding arrangements. My sister telephoned me daily with updates and questions on guest lists or table placements.

'Oh,' the Englishman said absent-mindedly. 'Where did you say this was again?'

I was silent. I'd told him on several occasions about the changed venue, why it had happened and how upset I was with my Father.

'You there?'

'Yes. Look, I'll call you from Stockholm on Sunday, OK?'

I put the receiver down with tears running down my face. I felt stupid for getting upset over such a small thing and was glad I hadn't actually had a fight with the Englishman. What was the matter with me?

Later the same night, I heard the front door go and my Father walk into the house. He kicked off his boots, rattled the clothes hangers in the hall and used the lavatory. Then all went quiet. I looked at the time, it was well past twelve o'clock. I wondered if he was drunk. His movements had seemed controlled, perhaps he was sober and had come by car from his girlfriend's place. I tossed and turned in my bed for hours. I didn't want to see my Father ever again. I'd managed to avoid him since he refused to invite my Mother to the wedding. On the Monday before, rather than ask for his help with the car, I'd taken a taxi to transport the two cardboard boxes of my belongings to the railway station. They would take a month or so to arrive in Portsmouth, but the cost was included in my train ticket through Europe to Harwich. The taxi journey to Helsinki station cost more than the transport to England, but it was worth it if I didn't have to see my Father. But here he was now, at home. And tomorrow would be Saturday and he'd be free from work. How in this small house was I going to avoid saying goodbye to him?

Suddenly I remembered the stolen books. While living in his house, I'd occasionally referred to two expensive volumes of Finnish/English dictionaries my Father had. In my fury at his betrayal I'd packed both volumes in one of my cardboard boxes. They were in a container ship somewhere in the middle of the Baltic now. What if he noticed the large gap in his book shelf where the dictionaries normally stood and asked me where they were?

I finally fell asleep around two o'clock in the morning. I dreamt I hit my Father with a large ice-hockey stick and drew blood. He'd been trying to lead me into a darkened room. I woke with a start and heard movements in the kitchen. My alarm clock showed it was five to seven in the morning. There was a strip of light under the door to my bedroom.

THIRTY-NINE

On the morning of February 25th 1984, I found my Father in the kitchen, sitting at the table looking out of the window. It was the day I was due to board the train to Stockholm and onwards through Europe to Harwich and leave my country of birth, Finland, for good. I saw my Father was in his nightwear: a pair of long johns and an under shirt. He had a cup of coffee without a saucer in front of him. It was still dark outside and I wondered what he was looking at when he spotted my reflection in the window. He gave me a sheepish smile which I didn't return.

'Coffee?' he asked.

I sat down in spite of myself. I was so angry at him I wanted to take his cup and pour the hot coffee over his head. That he tried to appease me with that boyish smirk of his, as if all he needed was to be nice to me after what he'd done. I briefly wondered if he had vodka in his coffee but didn't get any scent of alcohol from his breath when he poured me a cup. He sat heavily back in the wooden chair. Its faint creak was the only sound in the kitchen. My Father's eyes were still on me, but now he'd stopped smiling. I tried to avoid his glance.

'So you're off today then?' he said.

I nodded.

'I'll drive you.'

I opened my mouth to say there was no need, but hesitated. His blue eyes were red rimmed with dark circles around them. He was unshaven and his hands shook as his slender fingers fiddled with the ear of the coffee cup. But I wasn't going to fall into that trap again. This time I wasn't going to forgive him for the hurtful things he said about my Mother, or backing out of organising my wedding. My sister said he'd only done it to get out of paying for it and I was beginning to suspect this was true.

'No, I'll take a taxi.'

'Nonsense, you save your money. I'm taking you. No discussion.' His eyes were serious now.

I shook my head. I didn't know what to say so got up and left the kitchen. I trembled as I sat on my bed. What was he playing at?

'What time is your train?' he shouted after me.

'Three o'clock,' I said before I realised this was an acceptance of the lift he was offering. I put my head into my hands. I looked at my alarm clock: twenty-five minutes past seven. In eight hours' time I'd be on the train to Turku and in 24 hour's time I'd be with my Mother in Stockholm. I decided to get dressed quickly and go and say goodbye to a school friend who lived nearby. I could cycle to her house in ten minutes, then come back via the shopping centre in Tapiola where I needed to draw all of the money from my bank account. That would take a couple of hours from the day, the rest I could spend in my room finishing the packing.

When I returned from Tapiola the house was empty. I sighed and went to the telephone. I dialled my Mother's number.

'Calm down. If he wants to take you, let him.'

I was sobbing again. I was so tired. Wasn't this supposed to be a happy time? The time before marrying the man of my dreams, the love of my life? Why was everyone trying to make it as difficult as possible? Or just my Father. Why was he trying to make it so hellish for me?

I finished the conversation with my Mother and went to wash my face. I had to pull myself together.

My Father returned half an hour before we had to leave. I had no idea where he'd been but was glad he'd stayed away. Evidently he didn't want a long-winded goodbye either. I was ready, sitting in the kitchen eating a rye sandwich and drinking a cup of coffee, when he walked inside the house. My stomach churned when I saw him and didn't want to finish the sandwich. But I knew what my Father's opinions were on leaving food uneaten, and forced the last piece of the bread and cheese down.

'All ready?' he said. He stood in the doorway, and nodded at my suitcase in the hall.

'Yes'

'We'd better be off then.' My Father took hold of the suitcase and said, 'Ohoh!'

I couldn't help myself and let out a short laugh. It came out more like a snort. I knew the case was heavy. I'd bought some wheels in Stockholm with the Englishman. They made it easier to walk a long distance with a suitcase. Otherwise I knew I'd not manage the long walk between the railway station at Turku Harbour and the ferry. Briefly I felt relieved that my Father was driving me. He'd help me to lift the case onto the train at Helsinki, I hoped.

I soon regretted this.

It started in the car on the long bridge by Lauttasaari island. In the dim light of the car interior my Father said, 'So what about the wedding then?'

I couldn't believe my ears.

'We're getting married at Tampere Cathedral. Mother's paying for the wedding. So you needn't worry.' I hoped he detected the sarcasm.

'Oh, she can afford it can she?' he sneered.

I looked at his profile. His eyes were on the road and his mouth was in a straight line. He looked a little tidier than he had that morning; clean shaven and wearing his striped Marimekko shirt with dark blue cords. This was the outfit I'd chosen for him when he'd asked for my advice with clothes shopping a few years before. It had been a strange day. My Father behaved as if he was a normal, loving, funny man, taking his daughter out shopping and then to an expensive restaurant for lunch. I wondered how he could have changed so much.

It was as if he'd read my thoughts. 'It all went wrong with us when you moved in, you know.'

'Really!' My anger rose again.

'Yes. And I bet it was your Mother's idea?'

'What?'

'Yes, it's all her wicked plan I'm sure. You and I have always got along, unlike with your sister...' here he had the sense to stop. But he continued with his incredible thesis. 'Your Mother knew living together would cause a rift between us and that's exactly what she was after.'

I was silent for a long time. We were at the traffic lights at Hietaniemi. I looked at the red lights an counted to ten. But ten wasn't a high enough number.

'It's nothing to do with the fact that you're a selfish, nasty bastard who doesn't love anybody and will never be happy? You're mean and don't want anyone else to be happy either. You don't think of anyone else but yourself. You never have. You and I have never 'got on' as you put it. Have you forgotten how you tried to hit me? You weren't satisfied with hitting my Mother black and blue in Stockholm, you had to strike your sixteen-year-old daughter too. I guess I was just a little annoying wasn't I?'

My Father turned his face to me 'But I didn't hit you!'

'No,' I said quietly, 'But you came very close, raising your hand. That's enough.'

I heard my Father's breathing grow heavy. We passed Arkadiankatu and the University Disco.

'And another thing. Last year when I was really ill and phoned you from hospital, you didn't want to help me. You stayed away just so that you'd not catch the stomach bug. When I was so poorly you made me take the bus all the way into town to collect money from you. Who were you thinking about then? I had salmonella poisoning and frankly needed to be looked after. Where were you? Hiding at your girlfriend's place, that's where!'

There was a silence as we drove down Annankatu, past the bus station, crossed Mannerheimintie and parked outside the railways station. We both got out of the car. When my Father lifted my suitcase from the boot of the car he didn't make eye contact. I reached my hand towards the handle of the suitcase. But my Father nudged my hand away with his elbow, locked the car, and struggling with the heavy luggage, walked towards the station building. I stood still for a moment. Why wouldn't he just leave me? I'd told him what I thought of him now. I didn't regret one word, but I had nothing more to say to him.

Looking meek as a lamb, with his shoulders hunched, his eyes trying to search mine, my Father stood on the platform. There was a bitterly cold wind blowing through the station. I'd told him what carriage my pre-booked seat was in, but those were the only words that had passed between us.

'Go on,' he now said, motioning with his head towards the door of the train carriage. There were beads of sweat on his forehead, but I had no pity left for him. I was still angry, and jubilant with it. I couldn't wait to tell my Mother what I'd said to my Father, how at last after all these years of biting my tongue I'd been able to let rip and tell him exactly what I thought of him.

When I found my seat on the train, my Father went to lift the heavy bag onto the parcel shelf. 'No,' I said and motioned towards a space between the seats.

'Right,' my Father said and looked at me.

I returned his gaze. I felt strong. I was in the right. He was a mean bastard, just like my sister said.

My Father moved towards me and gave me a bear hug. I froze. While holding tightly onto me he said, 'I'm sorry.' He let go of me and hurried out of the door.

FORTY

The last leg of my train journey across Europe in February 1984, from Harwich to London Liverpool Street Station, seemed to take forever. I was dead tired from three days of travelling and I'd not slept a wink during the Channel crossing. By the time I'd got to the train at Harwich it was full, with the only free seat in the smoking compartment. Sitting there amongst people puffing at their cigarettes, I suddenly fancied one myself, even though I only smoked when I had a drink. It might perk me up a bit. But the unopened carton of Silk Cut I'd bought in the tax free shop, mainly for the Englishman, was inside my red Marimekko shoulder bag on the parcel shelf. I lifted my eyes to the bag, then looked at a gangly boy who had the seat next to me. He was fast asleep, with his head resting on his chest and his mouth open. His breath smelled of alcohol. His long body was blocking my way to the aisle, and I had no wish to wake him. Instead I looked out of the window and glanced at my watch. I couldn't close my eyes and snooze. We were moving through startlingly green landscape. There was no snow and the sun was shining brightly. I leant my head against the seat. Only two hours until I'd see the Englishman. Only two hours until I'd officially moved to England.

When the train at last pulled into Liverpool Street Station I waited until most people were out of the carriage. The gangly boy carried my heavy suitcase down the steps and onto the platform. I smiled a thanks to him and he gave me a nod. 'No problem Darling,' he said in a Scottish accent.

Once I'd fixed the wheels onto the suitcase, I quickly walked down the long platform towards a busy station concourse. I looked around and tried to spot the tall Englishman. But I couldn't see him. I waited for five minutes, then began to worry. People were looking at me and I became conscious of my appearance. I felt shabby in my dark blue jeans and tennis shoes amongst the smartly dressed businessmen in their pinstripe suits and dark overcoats.

There were several phone booths in the middle of the station, and I wondered if I should place myself in the queue. But who would I phone? I didn't want to talk to his mother in Wiltshire, and I guessed she wouldn't know where he was anyway. I didn't know if anyone was at home in the house in Southsea. Besides, I'd never used a phone booth in England. It was bound to be completely unlike the Finnish or Swedish ones. Everything; trains, the metro, buses, banks and shops worked differently here. They even drove on the wrong side of the road. I dreaded to think how impatient the people behind me in the queue would become when I tried to work out the telephone system. No, using one of the booths wasn't an option.

I decided to stay put and wait. Perhaps the train had been early, I'd not checked what time it was due to arrive, all I knew it was mid-morning on the Wednesday. Perhaps the Englishman had got the wrong day? I was sure I told him clearly the day when he'd phoned me in Stockholm the Monday before. He'd made me smile when he told me how much he was looking forward to staying in the house together, even if it was for only a couple of weeks. He was leaving for his NATO job in Naples two weeks on Monday. Perhaps something had happened and he had to go early? But surely he would have arranged for some word to be sent to me, or for some-one else to come and meet me instead?

I began to feel angry. Why of all the times, was he late this time? When I'd told him about the awful goodbye with my Father, and everything else I'd endured before leaving Finland. Surely he must have known how important this time was for me? I though briefly how my Father would, no doubt, be delighted to see me now. 'I told you, foreigners can't be trusted,' he'd say. Then I saw in front of my eyes the satisfied face of my ex-fiance, 'See, he's left you in the lurch, just as I told you he would.'

I took a deep breath.

I saw a row of plastic seats by the side of the stairs and made my way to them. I sat down opposite the station clock and looked up to it. I dug a packet of Silk Cut out of my bag and lit a cigarette. I decided to wait until two o'clock. That was over an hour from now. If the Englishman hadn't turned up by then I'd take a taxi to the nearest hotel and take a room for the night. I had just about enough money. I tried to convince myself that it wouldn't come to that. Any minute now The Englishman would appear in the centre of the station concourse, look around, spot me, run and fling his arms around me and apologise profusely.

But the Englishman was no-where to be seen.

How I Came to be in England

How I came to be in England