Siiri’s great-granddaughter’s boyfriend Tuukka had noticed on his computer that a private ambulance company had billed Siiri eighty-seven euros thirty cents for urgent transport. He sounded very worried on the phone, which wasn’t like him. He was usually so businesslike.
‘I just had a fainting spell while I was out,’ Siiri said, not daring to tell him about being questioned by the police, or about her crime. ‘The silly ambulance men kept the siren on for no reason at all and, of course, with the siren on it costs more. The whole thing was unnecessary, for heaven’s sake.’
Tuukka had some experience with ambulance charges and explained that the more unnecessary the trip, the more it cost.
‘The patient pays. If you don’t need treatment, as apparently happened in this case, it costs more than taking a taxi. It’s big business nowadays, transporting the sick.’
Siiri was astonished, but she believed him, because he was a very conscientious boy and always got to the bottom of things. It seemed that city ambulances took care of the most urgent cases and the rest were left for private firms who could charge whatever they liked.
‘But I didn’t order the ambulance! I was lying unconscious and somebody else called emergency services. Why should I be punished for that? Is somebody trying to get rich off picking up sick people?’
‘Of course they are,’ Tuukka said calmly. But there was another reason he had called. He had found out that Mika Korhonen was now Siiri’s advocate.
‘Do you understand what that means?’ he asked, as if Siiri were a child, or slow-witted. Tuukka thought that appointing an advocate was practically the same thing as putting yourself under guardianship, like voluntarily signing yourself up for the poorhouse.
‘You said it. This retirement home is a poorhouse.’
‘No, that’s not what I meant. If you have an advocate, it means you’re not capable of handling your own affairs.’
‘I’m not capable of it. That’s why you’re taking care of my bank account and making sure Virpi Hiukkanen doesn’t bleed it dry.’
‘Right, and now you want Mika Korhonen to take care of all your affairs. I know his type, and if I were you, I wouldn’t trust him. But it’s your decision, of course. And I also called to ask if you want me to transfer your Internet banking rights to him. You seem to be getting along without my help now that you’ve found your own Hell’s Angel.’
This hadn’t occurred to Siiri. The whole advocate issue had come as a sort of surprise to her and she herself hadn’t been that thrilled with the idea. She should have told Tuukka about it and asked his advice. He was almost a relative, after all, and a university man, and he had good reason to be hurt by Siiri thoughtlessly acting behind his back. She didn’t really know Mika at all. What did she know about him? That he was a cook and a taxi driver and was born a couple of years before she retired. But did he have a family? Where was he born, who were his relatives, where did he live? He never talked about himself or his own life.
Tuukka said that Mika had filed a report at the magistrate’s office, and now Siiri was so frightened that she almost felt faint. She couldn’t bear any more dealings with the police. What was she being dragged into?
‘Don’t worry. He’s just filed as your advocate. Otherwise it wouldn’t be official. There’s a guardianship office there where they keep track of these things.’
‘A guardianship office? That sounded like exactly what Tuukka was talking about, as though Siiri had been declared fit for the poorhouse. A guardianship used to be a horribly shameful thing, like being a halfwit. That’s what Irma had said, too – the village idiot. But nowadays they positively recommended that old people appoint an advocate. They’d had even had a presentation on it at Sunset Grove. There were so many old people in Finland whose relatives had forgotten them, people who needed a trusted person to make decisions in case they fell down and hit their head and had a cerebral haemorrhage and couldn’t remember their blood type. If you didn’t appoint an advocate yourself, you might end up having some unknown city official as your advocate. Virpi Hiukkanen had made an announcement, volunteering to be the advocate for residents at Sunset Grove. Siiri hadn’t gone to that lecture, but Anna-Liisa had sat through the whole thing and taken notes so it was one more thing she knew all about. And Mika was, after all, Anna-Liisa’s advocate, too.
‘So should I give Mika your bank information?’ Tuukka asked again. There was a sound of clicking computer keys in the background. He was, it seemed, beginning to worry about Siiri, an old woman who didn’t understand her own affairs and had to have everything explained to her twice.
‘I’m sorry, Tuukka. I didn’t mean to offend you,’ Siiri said, and asked if he would continue to be her personal bank-business person as long as she was still alive. Tuukka agreed, the wonderful boy, no longer sounding annoyed, and ended the call by wishing her well.