Page 15

1998

Kaya’s mother places the plate of joulutorttu Kaya has brought with her on to the counter and smiles her thanks. Kaya knows the Christmas cakes will stay there and that Karla will offer guests her own version. She taught Kaya well, but not well enough; Kaya’s attempts will never match the sugary concoctions her mother bakes.

‘You must remind me to give you my new glogi recipe,’ Karla says. ‘You’ll enjoy your glass even more on Christmas Eve, trust me. I take it you’ll be coming with us to the cemetery, after? We can put fresh candles on Mummo’s grave.’

Kaya nods, half-heartedly. She plans to honour the tradition with Miika this year and go to his parents’ graves with him so he doesn’t have to go alone. She’s already planned their special dinner. Roast pork, scalloped potatoes, carrot casserole and mashed rutabaga. She won’t be with her parents this Christmas Eve but she doesn’t want to let them know yet.

‘So, my darling,’ her mother says. ‘Tell me all your news. How are things at the bar?’

She pours Kaya some coffee and pulls up a chair at the kitchen table. There’s a plate of biscuits beside Kaya but she can’t bring herself to eat one. Her appetite is veering wildly between needing to consume everything and being absolutely unable to stomach the thought of food, let alone the real thing.

Karla pushes the plate closer to Kaya and Kaya reluctantly picks up a biscuit. She nibbles on the side of it, so her mother is pleased, and tries not to vomit when the taste hits her tongue.

‘No real news,’ Kaya says, determined to keep talking so she won’t have to eat. ‘It’s busy with Christmas coming. It feels like there are more tourists this year.’

‘There are more every year,’ Karla says. ‘Have they given you a pay rise? If you’re busier, you should get more money, no?’

‘I get paid plenty, Mom.’

‘Pfft.’

Karla leans over and brushes Kaya’s hair from her face. Kaya knows, because she’s been told all her life, that she and her mother look alike. Older relatives pretend to do a double-take every time they see Kaya; then they make a production of saying, Oh, is that you, I thought it was your mom! Sometimes, Kaya worries her mom forgets that Kaya is indeed a separate person. She fusses over her too much, is always telling her what she should be doing, what she should be saying. She’s never trusted Kaya to live her own life properly. Not ever.

‘Tell me your news’ is always the opening gambit for ‘tell me what I have to correct you on, now’.

‘You need more money so you can start saving,’ Karla says.

Kaya sighs.

‘Why do I need to save, Mom? Miika has sold a lot of meat this year.’

Her mother looks into the distance.

‘You know, I always hated reindeer,’ she says.

‘What?’ Kaya almost chokes on a laugh.

‘Their stupid big eyes and those silly antlers. I never understood why our lot didn’t just leave them to the Sami. We don’t need them now. We can buy beef in the supermarket and the last pair of good winter boots I bought were from the sports shop.’

‘Mom!’

Kaya shakes her head in amazement. She’s not surprised at her mother’s latent racism. Ever since she could comprehend, Kaya has known there’s an us and them when it comes to Sami and non-Sami. Miika has Sami blood in him. His grandfather. It’s part of the reason her parents never liked him. Kaya thinks her mother’s outburst might have more to do with that than reindeer. To hate reindeer, to be honest, borders on blasphemy round these parts.

‘I think their eyes are nice,’ Kaya says, but her mother is already shaking her head dismissively.

‘Anyway,’ Karla says, ‘you need to think about money for when you leave.’

Kaya stares blankly at her mother.

‘Oh, come now,’ Karla says. ‘You must be planning to, eventually? Nobody is going to judge you, Kaya. We’ve all seen the marks you think you’re hiding so well.’

‘Mom,’ Kaya whispers. ‘I don’t want to talk like this.’

‘I can’t even talk about my own daughter’s husband?’ Her -mother’s nose wrinkles in distaste. ‘If you can’t discuss this with me, who can you talk to, Kaya? I know you’ve no friends. You never really did and it’s not like he lets you mix with anybody. As soon as he could, he had you up that mountain—’

‘His father died. We had to take over.’

Karla opens her mouth to speak but Kaya places a hand on her mother’s arm.

‘It’s got better,’ Kaya says. ‘Really. He’s been treating me very well. He just lost his temper a few times. He was working hard and—’

‘If a man hits you once, he’ll hit you again, Kaya.’

‘You would know.’

Kaya instantly regrets it. She stares down at the table. She and her mother never speak about Papa’s tempers. They’re so rare these days, anyway. He doesn’t have the same pressure on him now he’s close to retirement. Kaya doesn’t think Papa has hit her mother in years.

Does she blame her mother for her own warped sense of what a marriage should be? Would any of Kaya’s friends have stayed after their husband hit them a first time?

But it’s never as straightforward as you think, is it? That’s what Kaya tells herself. She might have grown up in the nineties, listened to pop music and watched American films, but is still a small place. A lonely place. It’s not like there’s a huge selection of men.

As though her mother is reading her mind, Karla reaches over and takes Kaya’s hand.

‘Do as I say, not as I do, child,’ she says. ‘You don’t need to live my life.’

‘I’m not,’ Kaya says, softly. ‘It’s different.’

‘Then why do you look like death? Look at your cheeks. Not an ounce of colour. I know your head is usually in the clouds, Kaya, but you have to come down and deal with reality sometimes.’

Kaya swallows. She does look peaky. She’s barely eaten today and last night, for some reason, she couldn’t sleep. Insomnia on top of morning sickness. It’s draining. But she can’t tell her mother yet. In Kaya’s new arrangement of dates, it’s too early to have morning sickness.

‘I have a cold, Mom,’ she says. ‘I swear, Miika hasn’t laid a hand on me in months.’

Karla doesn’t believe her.

But she nods and smiles.

Because, Karla, like Kaya, knows that when a woman has made her mind up, there’s no changing it.

Even if it means the death of her.