How I came to be in England - Part 28

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 of Economics 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. We didn’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 from Stockholm.

‘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-Pankki on 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 at Stockmann’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.

How I came to be in England – Part 21

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.

How I came to be in England - Part 13

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!'

How I came to be in England - Part 11

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.

How I came to be in England - Part 10

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.