Longdrink and longing in Helsinki — Part II
By: Moya Lothian-Mclean
Tags: Finland, Relationships, Travel, Dating

The second time life deposited me in Helsinki, it was the beginning of August. Both I and the city had undergone radical change. In the eight months since I’d last walked Helsinki’s phenomenally clean streets, I’d jettisoned my comfy staff job at a magazine for an uncertain freelance career. In the wake of my last relationship, I’d decided to go full early 20s, embracing casual sex and romantic nihilism. I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing, either professionally or personally, but it didn’t really matter. Hot Girl Summer was, apparently, in full swing.

I’d also got highlights.

I did not miss my ex, and hadn’t for a long time. He was ultimately a footnote. Yet there were scars there, left primarily by what I perceived as my own failure to recognise the relationship for what it really was. These had penetrated far deeper than any actual feelings had managed to. A poisonous, mistrustful disdain for men had developed as a result, one not helped by the faceless nature of modern dating, where ghosting is the norm and everyone seemed to be horribly replaceable, including myself. I wanted what everyone does: someone to select me specifically, to recognise my special sauce, to sweep me up and tell me they really, truly saw me and did not want to ever let me go.

Yet anyone who indicated feelings of that ilk got short shrift. Sooner or later I knew they would change their minds, the moment I opened up and stepped down from my pedestal, becoming terribly real to them, warts and all. All men became liars, I concluded, even if they meant what they said at the time.

“I think you have trust issues,” said one of my friends. I thought so too. But who didn’t in 2019? Besides, my brittle emotional state was being held up by cynicism-fuelled, reckless self-confidence and to probe too deeply would cause a collapse I was not sure I could bear. So I didn’t.

Hot Girl Summer, apparently

Helsinki had fared somewhat better. The onset of warmer weather had removed the city’s coating of snow, revealing it to be leafy and green. The sun now glittered on a bright blue sea instead of ice and wandering down by the harbour I noticed how the buildings lining the seafront were varying pastel shades. Offshore, the looming outlines of several islands were clearly visible (part of an 330-strong archipelago surrounding the city, Google informed me). I looked at the city anew and found glaringly obvious details I’d missed when I’d first visited in January, wrapped in a cocoon of sadness. But now my eyes were open and I was ready to have fun.

I was in Helsinki to cover Flow Festival (read about it here), having been lucky enough to both be in the mind of a kindly editor when the call arose, and free to fly out with a week’s notice. The trip was one of the dreams; headlining the fest were the likes of Robyn, Tame Impala, Solange and James Blake. We were being put up in a hotel even more central than the St George of my previous sojourn, the recently refurbished Marski by Scandic.

Before arriving, a contact in Helsinki warned me the Marski was “dated,” which told me just how new the revamp was — the hotel I arrived to was anything but. Instead, I was greeted by a cosmopolitan millennial dream, all pink and rose-gold decor, lit by what I call ‘influencer low lighting’. It was luxury incarnate. It felt enormously in-keeping with my supposed Hot Girl Summer, like the universe was on my side.

Once more, I’d been allocated an all-expenses paid plus one, the flight being the only cost they’d have to cough up for. This time however, I could not bring my mother. I had no inclination to either; I had been sent to Helsinki to literally party for work. My mother — who had once written me a two-page letter expressing her concern at the fact that I went out one night a week — was not the target market here.

Instead, I invited a man who I’d been seeing for a month. I tried not to think about that too much. I’d not met anybody for more than two dates since my ex-boyfriend — I didn’t want to fall into the trap of placing undue significance on whatever this was. I also tried not to think about how my heart leapt in my chest when his number flashed up on my phone screen and when I spoke to him, my tongue felt slow and heavy in my mouth because I was so nervous. Or that I had never met a straight man like him, one who seemed to truly respect women, not merely as performance, but actually meant it. I wanted to weep sometimes because he was so kind and good and patient, there must have been a mistake and soon he would realise he was not supposed to be mixed up with someone like me who was hard and compressed like coal and could not seem to let her barriers drop, even in the face of such warmth.

The longest, and best, drink

“Are you serious?” he texted me, from a music festival in Germany when I dropped the news of my good fortune into conversation. I also did not want to think about what it could mean that he was in constant contact while on holiday, sending me videos of moments from the festival and pictures of his friends being high and happy, instead of picking up beautiful German girls. Which was well within his right — we were not exclusive. A few weeks earlier, he had told me he wasn’t seeing anyone else but I chose not to read too much into it. I thought he meant he wasn’t seeing anyone else — for now. That could change.

‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘Up for it?’

He said he was in. I didn’t really believe him. We’d known each other less than 60 days. I’d given him a week’s notice. He’d have to get time off work. There were flight costs. And behind those practicalities was the persistent whisper at the back of my mind, reminding me of the first Helsinki trip and the broken promise that had preceded it.

“Are you sure?” I said. “You can pull out any time.”

“Moya,” he wrote. “If I say I’m going to do something, I do it.”

And he did.

Before he arrived, on a late night Friday flight straight from work, I had a day to sort out unfinished business in the city. The Amos Rex, Helsinki’s subterranean modern art Mecca, was open this time around and two minutes from our hotel. Serendipitously, it was on the trip itinerary anyway, so I had the thrill of heading underground into its bowels before the rest of the public were allowed entry.

The Amos Rex exterior

Inside the Rex is relatively small — three galleries only — but the displays are engrossing. A particular video installation stood out, depicting a series of idyllic scenes: a beautiful woman, reclining in a rowboat, a romantic landscape as her backdrop. A man strides forward, extending a hand and pulling her into a passionate embrace. The placard beside it said the artist intended the work as a tongue-in-cheek pastiche of an idealised pastoral scene. It looked pretty good to me.

I also wanted to see Uspenski Cathedral, my other white whale from January’s visit to Helsinki. As it turns out, Uspenski is fine as religious buildings go; a pit stop but not an essential visit. Solid dome, some pretty ornate altars. Then again, I was distracted when I finally got inside, after waiting essentially eight months to enter. The man had just texted me a picture of his boarding pass. My stomach churned with excitement.

He arrived at 1am, coming straight to Kaiku, one of Helsinki’s famed electronic boltholes, where I was doing some post-festival partying. Kaiku is poky and smoky, which makes it utterly perfect for late-night antics and the venue attracts world-class DJ talent. That night, the legendary Honey Dijon was playing, a scheduling that felt strangely coincidental, given the man and I had been on a crucial date to see her play the Southbank Centre just three weeks prior.

“Here,” he texted me. I found him at the bar and when he clocked me and grinned, I felt my stomach lurch, like I was falling from a very steep height.

We left the club at 4am, which meant we didn’t get up the next day until 11am, missing an optional scheduled group activity of a boat trip to the islands. “It’s fine,” I said, meaning it. I wanted him all to myself. But later, walking lazily down to the harbour after breakfast, we spotted the ferry schedule for the round-island trip. 6€ apiece for a return ticket.

“Shall we?” he said.

On a boat

The ferry operation from Market Square is a jump on, jump off deal that services three islands close to Helsinki — Suomenlinna, Vallisaari and Lonna. Simply pick your favourite, hop off and spend a few hours there, before jumping on the ferry back to Helsinki when it next comes round.

If you’re only planning to do one island in a day, Suomenlinna or Vallisaari are the best options; Suomenlinna houses a sprawling 18th Century fortress that’s been awarded UNESCO status, so tends to be the most popular choice. Vallisaari however is a natural paradise. Ironic, as it used to be former military base, with the nickname ‘Death Island’ — half the land is still impassable due to unexploded mines. But the rest is a nature reserve and appealed to our alcohol-battered brains so, to Death Island we went.

When I think of the defining experience on my second trip to Helsinki and also, the moment I knew I could not pull out of this entanglement, that, despite intense resistance I had fallen for this man and there was no going back, it is Vallisaari that comes instantly to mind. The festival was wonderful, the people we met, brilliant, the partying hectic in the best way. But it was strolling through the lush fauna of Death Island, cracking jokes about how everyone in Helsinki seemed to own a Marimekko tote bag, and eating Longdrink (an iconic Finnish tinned premix of gin and grapefruit soda) flavoured ice cream that I became aware of a great happiness swelling within me. I felt I would burst with it.

Finnish pastoral

As the afternoon wore on, we scaled a giant rock and lay down in the sunshine, looking out across the gentle sea. A sailboat floated near the shore. I could not help but think of the Amos Rex and the pastoral pastiche I had seen there. It seemed I had climbed inside it. I never wanted to leave the island, or the beautiful boy beside me who really seemed to think I was funny but never made me feel like I had to be. He demanded nothing more from me than to lie silently together on a large rock and bask in how comfortable the quiet felt. No man had ever made it so easy just to be.

On the train back to the airport, I told him I wanted only to see him from now on, full exclusivity please. I hadn’t been dating anyone else, but it felt important to spell it out. “Of course,” he said. “I was already doing that.”

Two weeks after we returned to the UK, I was in his room. He told me he had a present for me. “Open it,” he said softly. Out of the grey packaging, I slid a crumbled paper bag.

Inside was a Mariemekko tote. Right then, I resolved to stop making it so difficult, to try my best to let go of my cynicism and mistrust. Because if this ended of its own accord, I could survive but if I sabotaged it from within, I would never be able to get over the fact. I looked at the Mariemekko tote in my lap again and mentally cut my parachute chord.