Laura Helanto looked at me, now somewhat tense and expectant. At least, that’s how I read her expression. I heard the clatter of dishes from the café. A child cried out for its mother. And didn’t stop.
‘How does this feel?’
‘How does what feel?’ I asked. It was a genuine question.
‘YouMeFun,’ said Laura. There was almost a hint of pride in her voice.
I quickly looked around. What could I say? That every single detail I had seen and heard here was each perhaps the most grotesque thing I had ever encountered? Pygmies dashing here and there, an unbearable lack of organisation, staggering maintenance bills, unproductive use of man hours, economical recklessness, promises nobody could keep, carts that quite literally moved at tortoise speed? I raised my fingers to my throat and checked the position of my tie. It was impeccable.
‘Okay,’ said Laura. ‘This must be a lot to take in, bringing so much happiness to so many people. Let’s go and meet the others, shall we?’
Samppa was a thirty-something former nursery teacher. He had earrings in both ears, an eclectic collection of tattoos across his arms and a thick red scarf round his neck. A group of children was beating a set of jungle drums as Laura told Samppa who I was and why I’d come. Samppa raised a hand across his mouth, perhaps to smother the gasp the news had elicited. He spoke for a moment about the healing, holistic impact of play. We left him and moved on to the café.
Johanna was in charge of the Curly Cake Café: red hair, slightly older than me, and she was extremely thin – she looked like she was preparing for an Ironman competition or had recently completed one. There was something steely about her face, something endlessly resilient. She offered to mix me a smoothie that would boost my ferritin levels, because apparently I looked exhausted. I told her I’d just lost my job and my brother, and inherited an adventure park. The explanation didn’t seem to convince her.
We headed towards a metallic door between the Trombone Cannons and the Ghost Tunnel. On the door was a plastic yellow sticker bearing the text CONTROL ROOM. Laura opened the door with her master key, and at the end of a short corridor we arrived at a small room with two more doors. The first room looked like it contained the electrical switchboard. In the second room, a broad-shouldered man in his fifties sat in an office chair with an adjustable head rest. In front of him was a wall full of monitors, which revealed that the adventure park had many more security cameras than I’d noticed during our walk around. The man’s name was Esa. He was the park’s head of security. His college sweater bore the text US Marine – and Proud. I found it hard to believe that he really was a trained soldier in the US army. Still, if I was now the owner of an adventure park, who knows what Esa had done before ending up in the control room. Around his mouth was a thin, black square of beard, trimmed with millimetre precision. He had a broad, short nose and blue eyes, red round the edges. We introduced ourselves. That was the extent of our conversation.
The last person I was due to meet was located – yet again – at the other side of the complex. Minttu K was sitting in her office, the Venetian blinds on the windows tightly shut. She was the marketing and sales manager. At least, that’s how she introduced herself.
Minttu K was slightly younger than me, she had cropped fair hair, a heavy tan, and she was wearing a dark-blue blazer at least one or two sizes too small for her. She gave me a very friendly smile and boasted that she could sell anything to anybody. By the end of our fifteen-second acquaintance, I believed this was highly probable. I was also almost certain I caught a faint hint of grapefruit and alcohol in the air. Minttu K made her apologies and said she had to make a phone call. She winked at me, pulled a cigarette from the pack of menthol Pall Malls on the table and placed it between her fingers. ‘Just some little prick that needs his arse handed to him,’ she said, then in a gentler voice: ‘Hey, sorry about your bruv.’
We walked back into the corridor, turned right and arrived at Juhani’s office. On the door was a plaque bearing his name. Seeing it elicited the same sense of confusion I’d experienced during the lawyer’s visit. The name was left hanging in the air, as if waiting for someone to appear and bring it to life.
The office looked like it belonged to a man with more than simply running an adventure park on his mind: the desk sagged under piles of papers, the coffee table was covered in illustrated leaflets and a colourful miniature model showing some kind of play castle complete with towers. From one of the towers, a springboard extended into the air. Without a swimming pool underneath, I thought, the design might soon run into problems.
‘I just realised I haven’t asked what you do for a living.’
Laura’s words brought me back to the office.
‘I am an actuary,’ I said. ‘Well, I gave my notice two weeks ago.’
‘Because of YouMeFun?’
I shook my head. ‘I didn’t know about this park at the time. I resigned because I couldn’t stand watching my workplace turn into a playground. Then I inherited one.’
Was Laura Helanto smiling? I didn’t think I’d said anything amusing. She had raised a hand in front of her mouth. When she lowered it again, her expression was neutral.
‘You probably want to take your time to explore everything.’
I certainly did not. But again I heard Juhani’s words in my ears: my only wish. I looked at the desk, the towering piles of papers.
Just then, the phone in Laura’s hand started to ring. I noted that the ringtone was that of a normal telephone, not an inane jingle or the sound of a flushing toilet that was supposed to titillate everyone around her. An eminently sensible choice, I thought. She looked at the phone.
‘Esa,’ she said before answering.
Then she turned, and after saying her name into the phone she disappeared round the corner. Her scent lingered in the air.
Herbs and meadow flowers.
5
Minus sixty-three thousand, five hundred and forty-one euros and eighty cents.
The sun had set. I’d only waded through a fraction of the papers, but already there was a pile of unpaid bills and final demands as thick as my forefinger. It was a considerable sum of money.
At some point I’d switched on Juhani’s computer, but without the password I hadn’t got very far. The machine was nothing but a gently humming box of light metallic components and a plastic shell. I’d switched it off and continued clearing the desk.
I was sitting in the office chair Juhani had left me, trying to decide whether to set everything alight or sink with the park like the captain on the Titanic.
At first I’d thought this would be the last time I would ever be in this room, this chair. I had done my duty. I had assessed the situation, accepted the facts, and been forced to draw a painful but unavoidable decision. At least, that’s what I tried to think. But I couldn’t keep my thoughts in check. They were restlessly ricocheting from one place and time to another.
At times I was engaged in renewed discussion with Perttilä over my resignation, at others trying to talk sense to Juhani. The former was an idiot, the latter dead.
Juhani – did you really know what you were doing when you decided to adjust the car radio? Was the road you took, at least to some extent, your own choice? The intense greenery of the park boulevard in August, perhaps some Brahms coming from the speakers? It was certainly a more appealing proposition than trying to make sense of the wholesale orders for the Curly Cake Café or sourcing a new, even bendier replacement for the broken Banana Mirror.