Wild Song (12 page)

The next morning, early, I was on the boat with Sam and Matti, the ferryman. It was August now, and apart from my four days’ escape I had been on the Wild School island nearly four months. My insides were in knots thinking about going to Helsinki. Matti cracked a few jokes as we set off. Maybe he saw how nervous I was? ‘Hey, Niilo, want to dive overboard and swim alongside the ferryboat?’ But I didn’t laugh. I had gone quiet again and said nothing. Sam suggested he give me some peace, so Matti’s jokes quickly dried up and we crossed the sea to Helsinki in silence, apart from the screaming gulls above and the throb of the engine.

After half an hour or so, the skyline of Helsinki with the huge copper dome of the cathedral came into view. It wasn’t long after that Matti moored the boat at the market square and bade farewell to me and Sam. ‘Have a good holiday, Niilo,’ he said.

It was still tourist season and crowds were milling around
the market stalls. The market was in full swing, so everything felt busy and noisy. I recognised the stall holders, even the stuff they were selling – I knew it all so well. I looked around in a daze, feeling Sam’s hand gently gripping my forearm. What did he think? That I would take off and pilfer a few tourist pockets?

Sam steered me through the crowd and on up towards the bus station. Music from a raw saxophone echoed down the street and I pulled back to listen and Sam let me. The aching sadness of the music cut right through me and I heard it like I’d never heard it before. It seemed another lifetime when I had been king of this market square, zipping up and down these streets, listening to street performers, doing a bit of business, and going to see a horror film if I felt like it.

‘Seponkatu?’ Sam asked when the tune faded. ‘That’s the name of your street, isn’t it?’

I nodded, but it seemed like a foreign country. Seponkatu! It wasn’t my street – it had never been my street. Maybe I slept there, that was all.

‘We better get on.’ Sam steered me up the busy esplanade and over the road to the number six bus stop. He had done his homework – the metro would have been quicker, but it would be easier to escape on the metro. And now I was famed as an escape artist. But he had no idea … escaping was the last thing on my mind. As we stood at the bus stop Sam said, just to make small talk, ‘So, Niilo, what number on Seponkatu?’

I didn’t bother to reply. Sam knew perfectly well it was Seponkatu, number 39. Just then the bus pulled up. Sam paid the bus fares. ‘One adult,’ he said to the driver, ‘and one child.’ Still with his hand on my arm he steered me down the bus aisle and into two free seats. I flashed my eyes around the bus, scared I might see someone I knew. But then I felt this strange empty feeling inside. I knew no one, not in Helsinki anyway. I knew a few people in the Wild School. I had a best friend in the Wild School, but here I knew no one.

The bus took off and I pressed my face to the glass, smudging my nose down flat and peering out. Helsinki rolled past – the busy centre, the high stone buildings, the park, the lake, the statues. Happy people, walking or cycling. People who had their story. They carried it around inside them, knowing who they were, where they were from. I swallowed hard, thinking of my mum, and what would I say to her? How would I come out with it? As we journeyed through the suburbs there were more trees and fewer big buildings, fewer people.

We were nearly at our stop when Sam rummaged in his jacket pocket. ‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ he said, pulling out a white envelope. ‘This is for you.’ He thrust the envelope into my hands. ‘It’s a wedding invitation,’ he said, ‘from Hannu.’

I stuffed the envelope into my jeans pocket.

The bus drew to a halt, the brakes hissed and the doors opened. ‘Our stop,’ Sam said, attaching himself to me like
glue and manoeuvring me off the bus. It felt like for ever as we walked up leafy Seponkatu. Twenty-seven, twenty-nine, thirty-one … ‘Your mum’s at the door, waiting,’ Sam said, though he didn’t need to. I could see her, standing in the doorway, her blond hair lifted up from her face. Sam paused for a moment and tightened his grip on my arm. ‘We’ll keep checks on how it’s going, Niilo. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll come and get you. But hopefully it’ll be fine.’ He turned to face me, nodded and smiled. ‘Have a good holiday, okay?’

I nodded. Already my mum had started to wave. Then I glimpsed my dad, hovering in the hallway behind, like Security. I felt secretly pleased that my own mother looked nervous of me. It was pretty clear she didn’t know what to expect – how I was going to be. Neither did I, but I knew I had changed. And I also knew that the man there with the blond hair who I had always thought was my dad
wasn’t
my dad. Suddenly the image of the black seal flashed into my mind, and for some reason I felt better. My heart stopped kicking as I stepped towards the house. I took a deep breath.

‘Wave to her,’ Sam whispered in my ear. I lifted a hand and moved it mechanically through the air. We were halfway up the path that led to the front door. Like the time I had overturned the table in the canteen, time shifted into slow motion. Each step lasted an hour. I saw my mum falter in her step towards me; I saw the lines at the corners of her eyes. She seemed older. I saw the red dots on her
white dress, the dark roots in the yellow-blond of her dyed hair …

I felt my mother’s hand clasp my shoulder. ‘Welcome home, Niilo.’ She reached out to give me a hug, but I tensed my shoulders and she must have felt that. She stepped back. Then a shadow darkened the path and my father was there next to her. Except it wasn’t my father.

‘Welcome home, Niilo,’ he said. ‘Thank heavens you’re safe and well. That was quite an adventure you had.’

I said nothing and Sam cut through the awkwardness. ‘Now then, a few formalities. It won’t take long,’ he said. ‘Just a few papers to sign. And I’ll be off. Nice place you’ve got here.’ And the attention shifted away from me. Dad was eager to talk to Sam about the garden, the squirrels and the hares that were frequent visitors, and how his youngest son loved leaving titbits out for the animals.

Meanwhile Mum was talking twenty to the dozen, like she did when she was nervous, and in company. The four of us moved up the garden path and into the house, like a babbling river. ‘We didn’t change your room. Left up your posters. All these funny bands you like. Tuomas can’t wait to see you. They’re letting him away from school early. Then I thought we could go to the swimming pool later. Fancy that, you turning into a swimmer. Of course, I won’t go in, to the pool, I mean, but Dad said he would go in with you. Course, it won’t be the same. Same as in the sea, I mean …’

I still hadn’t spoken, not since leaving the Wild School.
I didn’t think Mum noticed though – she couldn’t stop speaking, or gazing at me, half laughing, half crying, shaking her head like she couldn’t believe I was in the house, standing in front of her. I hardly heard what she was saying – her words just washed over me. It was
my
words I wanted to get out, but I didn’t know what to say, how to start. I sat down by the kitchen table and still she was chattering on. ‘You suit a suntan, Niilo, you really do. You’ve only been gone four months but I swear you’ve grown. You’re almost as tall as …’ I looked up at her. She hesitated and looked down at her hands that she was wringing together. ‘A man.’ She looked up and forced a smile. ‘Something to drink, Niilo? I made some fresh lemonade.’

Sam had gone. Dad was in the garden, but assured her he was close in case he was needed. Mum seemed glad to have a task, even if it was just pouring glasses of lemonade. She fussed around the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards as though she wasn’t sure where things were. ‘Nice man, that Sam,’ she wittered. ‘I knew … you’d be in good hands. Oh, Niilo, I was at my wits’ end. Thank God they found you. Thank God you came back.’

I still hadn’t spoken, and I knew that made her nervous. I scanned the kitchen, noting that the hole in the wall, where I had punched it, had been filled in. I stared at my mother as she stirred sugar into the glasses of lemonade and carried them over to the table.

She put the glasses on the table, then hurried over to
the fridge. ‘As this is a special occasion …’ She opened the fridge door and bent down, obviously trying to manoeuvre something out of the fridge. ‘Da-da!’ she sang as she stood up and swung round, stretching her arms forward to show the enormous cake she had baked. ‘It’s your favourite.’ Her voice was breaking. ‘Chocolate cake, with strawberries and cream.’

I looked at her, expecting her to burst into ‘Happy Birthday’ and me, a little boy of two years old, with my whole life ahead of me, would bounce up and blow out the candles. But there would have been two cakes then, wouldn’t there? Because once upon a time I had a twin, didn’t I? And she didn’t tell me, did she? For a second I felt a stab of emptiness.

She lowered the cake onto the table, letting a nervous smile pull at her face. I didn’t smile back. I coughed and continued to stare at her. It’s called intimidation, and I do it well. She coughed too, as if it was catching, then swung round to the drawer, tugged it open and fumbled about. The noise of metal clanging against metal rang out. I stared at her back, then watched her take up a large cake knife. She turned round and faced me, a flash of fear across her face, and I saw her eyes flit for a moment to the garden, as if she needed to know she had protection from me, her own son. She coughed again and lifted the knife in the air, letting it hover above the uncut cake.

‘Mum?’

She paused, the knife a few centimetres from a dome of
cream. She smiled and this time it didn’t looked forced. When had I last called her ‘Mum’? Tears smarted her eyes. She slid the knife into the cake. ‘Yes, son?’

‘Who drowned?’

‘What?’ She didn’t look at me, but at the handle of the knife. ‘What?’

So I said it again. ‘Who drowned?’

‘What are you talking about, Niilo?’ She cut the cake. Shakily she put a large slice of cake on a plate and pushed it over towards me. Fat strawberries rolled off the top of the slice. I saw a mask sit over her. I knew that mask so well.
Don’t rock the boat
: that’s what it was called. ‘I don’t think anyone in the neighbourhood drowned,’ the mask said. ‘Not that I know of.’ Her voice had taken on a cold hard edge. Impatient. ‘I mean, we thought
you
had. I was so worried I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. I hope you enjoy the cake, Niilo. I wasn’t sure whether you would get cake in your new school.’

‘I’m not talking about me. I’m not talking about the neighbourhood. I’ve got this weird feeling – like you’re hiding stuff.’ My voice was quiet and my throat hurt. Back on the bus I had pictured myself yelling and shouting and
demanding the truth. Now all I felt was sadness. ‘I mean, something happened to us a long time ago. What happened? People drowned. Who?’

I saw how she turned nervously to check on her husband’s whereabouts. Earlier she had needed to know he was right next to her. This time, I guessed, she needed to know he was out of hearing. ‘What brought this on?’ She tugged at the band holding her hair up and her dyed blond hair fell down around her shoulders. It made her look wilder.

‘Maybe I’m crazy,’ I said, then the words broke like a burst dam, not shouting, but fast, feeling if I didn’t say it now I never would. ‘I have this feeling and it won’t go away. Hannu says I’ve lost my story. I need to know who drowned. Things happened to my head when I was away. Like, memories coming back to me. Drowning memories. Someone drowned. A long time ago. I have this memory, sometimes it’s a nightmare. I was in a boat a long time ago and people drowned. Maybe you think I’m mad. Maybe I
am
.’ I rose to my feet and I saw her flinch. ‘But it keeps coming to me. It won’t leave me alone. Who was it?’ I was scared I might scream or burst into tears. ‘Who drowned? I need to know the truth.’ I looked at her, slumped in the chair and anxiously pulling at her hair. Why doesn’t she tell me the truth?

She got to her feet and I saw her sway, like she might faint. She held the edge of the table and I heard her breathing hard. Then she pushed out across the kitchen towards the back door.

I saw the knife lying next to the cake. She clocked it too and glanced at me, like she was afraid I might grab it and fling it at the wall. But I just stared at it, knowing I wouldn’t do that again. Something had happened to me on that island – something to do with the seal, something to do with swimming, maybe something to do with Hannu and his magic stories – but I knew there were a lot of things I wouldn’t do again. I sat back in the chair. She stopped and turned round to face me, and she looked so shaken. I spoke again, slower this time. ‘I learnt some things after I learnt to swim. There was a boat, and an accident. There’s a story you never told me.’

She came towards me hesitantly, still eyeing the knife.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said. She stared at me warily. ‘I’m not a monster.’ She was still breathing loudly and holding her hand to her chest. I looked at her, at her dark eyes.

‘I’ll tell you everything,’ she cried, pressing her hands now over her cheeks. ‘I tried to, Niilo. So many times I wanted to. You didn’t want –’

‘Who drowned?’ I cut over her. ‘Just tell me. Who
am
I? I’m probably not even Niilo.
Who am I?
’ I was taking a chance, going on a dream and the thoughts that had flashed into my head when the seal upturned the boat. I half believed I really was mad. I half believed the whole drowning story was made up in my screwed-up brain. Never mind the Wild School. Next thing, I could be carted off to hospital. But the other half believed it was true. It was that half I listened to. ‘Tell me my story,’ I said.
I sounded calm. I sounded strong. I remembered my face reflected in the black pool.

‘You are
Niilo
.’ My mother took her hands away from her face and I saw fingermarks pressed into her flushed cheeks. ‘I’ll tell you everything,’ she said again.

My whole body was trembling. And though my heart was pounding I was going to listen. I’d taken a risk. Nightmares. A seal. And a feeling deep in my gut. I sat back and stared at her.

She twisted the silver ring on her finger. ‘After it happened, I told you.’ She was whispering so low I could hardly hear. ‘I thought that was the right way, but whenever I mentioned them, you screamed. You clamped your hands over your ears. You couldn’t bear it and I felt so cruel.’

‘Mentioned who?’

She looked at me, her eyes wet dark pools. ‘Them,’ she whispered. ‘But … you were so young, I thought you could start again. And me. So I brought you to Helsinki. It was a long time ago, Niilo. People said how you wouldn’t remember. That it was kinder that way. Kinder to forget.’

‘Who’s
them
?’

‘Oh, Niilo. Don’t. When I met Kalle you clung to him. You called him Dad. We had a new family and I thought we could start again, here, in Helsinki. You and me. You cried constantly – you nearly drove me mad – and it was Kalle who calmed you down.’

I felt a jabbing pain below my chest, more painful than
the emptiness. Hannu was right, I had lost my story, and here it was, after so many secrets and lies, coming back to me. I felt like houses were falling around me. Pillars crumbling. Windows smashing. Ceilings falling in. ‘He’s not my father, is he?’ I felt my throat close up. I nodded to the garden.

‘Not in the blood sense, Niilo. But in every other sense he is. Kalle took me in. He took us in. We were poor souls from up north. We had lost everything. I needed to give us another chance, Niilo. I needed help. He loved us.’

‘So my father drowned?’

She groaned, like someone was ripping that groan out of her throat. ‘Trying to save your twin brother.’

So the visions were right. The buried memories and dreams and  nightmares were real. I stared at her. I imagined the seal, remembered how I felt swimming with the seal. I imagined the hands of the seal. And other hands, the ones I always dreamt of. Small hands, drenched with water.

‘You should have told me …’ I felt like I was melting. I wasn’t thirteen. I was three.

She was holding me now, holding my hands. ‘It happened when you were two years old. We don’t remember things that far back. We lived in the far north of Finland, up by the Arctic Circle. Your father often took us fishing – he was half-Sami – and you loved going fishing with him. We had a small boat. The weather was calm. The Baltic was still. You asked to hold an oar. Your father laughed and
said you would grow up to be a great fisherman like your grandfather. You held an oar with me, and your brother held an oar with Papa.’

‘What was his name?’

‘Your father’s name was Nilse.’

‘And my brother? My twin? What was his name?’

‘Isku. You loved him so much, Niilo, and I thought I was the luckiest woman in the world – I had two wonderful children, my beautiful boys. By the end of that day I was the unluckiest.’ She was sobbing softly now, but kept speaking through the flow of tears. ‘It was a freak wave, Niilo. It came from nowhere. It came over their side of the boat, snatched at their oar. One moment Nilse and Isku were there, laughing and rowing together. The next moment they were gone.’

‘My father drowned?’

‘Yes.’

‘And my twin brother drowned?’

She nodded. I had so many questions. ‘Lapland. We … we’re Lapps?’

‘Your father had Lappish blood. I went north as a young woman to work in a hotel. That’s where I met your father. So, yes, the north is in your blood, Niilo. But listen to me – I did what was best for us. Please understand. Helsinki gave us a home.

‘You took me away. You made us different.’ I let go of her hand and took a step back. ‘Why did you not tell me? Why did you not tell me I had a twin?’

‘Believe me, I did try and tell you – but you couldn’t bear it. So I blotted it out. I tried to start over.’

I was thumping my chest like my twin was right inside me. ‘Why?’

‘Stop it, Niilo. Do you have any idea how painful this is for me? I wanted us to start again. I thought it was for the best and maybe I was wrong. Not a day goes by when I don’t remember.’ Tears coursed down her face.

The story filled the room, like a reindeer: strong, northern. And the feeling of smashed glass inside me wasn’t there any more. In a bizarre way I felt strong. It was better to have a story, even a terrible story, than to have no story at all.

We were quiet for a while, then she reached out and touched my arm. ‘Who has been talking to you? Was it someone from the village up north? Word got around, of course, though there wasn’t even a funeral – the bodies were lost at sea. There was some bad talk. Some cruel people saying it was my fault. Saying I shouldn’t have allowed young children out in the boat. Who told you, Niilo?
Who?
’ Hysteria rose in her voice.

I didn’t know what to say. A seal? The sea? My dreams? Hannu’s stories? Or that empty feeling inside? I looked at my mother twisting her fingers together, sobbing silently. I could say I had found my birth certificate that she always said was locked away safely. I could, but I was done with lies. I was done with pretending. ‘A seal told me,’ I said, ‘and bad dreams.’

And she nodded, like it wasn’t completely weird, like she remembered her first husband and how he would surely say such things. He would tell her about a time when wild animals and wild dreams could tell us things. A faraway look had come into her tear-stained eyes.

‘You should have told me,’ I said. ‘When I was a bit older. I would have been proud.’

‘I thought the truth would have killed you. I fled to the south, Niilo, with you in my arms. I gave you a new story. Kalle was good and kind to us, and agreed it was for the best. He adopted you as his own, Niilo. Don’t you understand? We had a new family. And for a long while you seemed content. It was only these past two or three years when you … you …’ Her voice trailed off. She took a deep breath and then stretched her arms out towards me. ‘But you’re right, Niilo. You can be proud. Your father was a strong man. He loved you both.’ Then she hugged me and I let her.

I felt a deep wild peace flood through me. I hugged her back. I was proud.

And I had my story.