The Gilded Cage

by Camilla Lackberg

‘Did you ask John Descentis to play at my party?’ he said.

  ‘I thought—’

  ‘He’s a drunk, Faye. This isn’t my graduation party you’re organizing. There are going to be clients there. Investors. Relatives who have looked down on me as a loser all my life because of my father. This is the night when they’re finally going to see how far I’ve come. See that I’m nothing like my useless father!’

  He was breathing hard, and his voice had risen to a falsetto.

  ‘And you go and invite John Descentis to provide the entertainment. Like we were some sort of fucking white trash.’

  Faye backed away a few steps.

  ‘You’re always listening to him. You’ve got all his albums. I thought you’d—’

  ‘How would it look if John Descentis played at my party? We don’t want to be associated with people like him. He’s a drunk. Just like my father.’

  He sank onto the sofa and let out a loud sigh.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ he said. ‘I should never have allowed you to take charge of the party. For God’s sake, you let Julienne have her party at McDonald’s!’

  Faye wanted to say that that was what Julienne had wanted, and that all the children had loved it, but her eyes were pricking with tears as Jack snorted.

  ‘How could I ever have thought you were capable of organizing a party for three hundred people at Hasselbacken?’

  ‘I can do it, Jack, you know that. Let’s not bother with John Descentis. I haven’t called him yet. Let me do this for you. I want you to have a really great evening, the sort of evening you’ve always dreamed of having.’

  ‘It’s too late.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve contacted an events company, they’re going to organize everything. You can go back to your … your exercising.’

  He gestured towards her clothes. The knot in her stomach grew.

  Jack went over to the stereo, pulled out some CDs, went out to the kitchen and threw them in the bin.

  She didn’t need to guess what the CDs were.

  Faye ran her hands over her face. How could she have been so stupid? Why hadn’t she realized that this could damage Jack? She should have thought it through. After all, she knew him better than anyone.

  She rolled the yoga-mat up and turned the light out. Jack was already asleep as she washed her face and brushed her teeth. He was lying with his back to her, on the far side of the bed, facing the window. She crept as close to him as she dared without risking waking him. Breathing in his scent.

  It was a long time before she managed to get to sleep.

  The atmosphere between them was still frosty the next day. Jack sat and worked in the kitchen while Faye lay on the sofa watching a reality show.

  The phone in the hall started to ring shrilly, but for once Faye chose to ignore it. She heard a sigh from the kitchen followed by irritated footsteps, and the ringing stopped.

  A few minutes later Jack was standing in front of her with a sullen look on his face.

  ‘It’s for you,’ he said.

  Faye held out her hand, but Jack ignored it and put the phone on the table, then went back to the kitchen. She raised the phone to her ear, feeling like a fifteen-year-old again.

  ‘You never got back to me about our trip,’ Chris said. ‘Have you talked to Jack?’

  ‘Oh, hi. Hang on.’

  Faye got up from the sofa and went into the bathroom. Locked the door.

  ‘Hello?’

  She sat down on the closed toilet lid.

  ‘Now isn’t a good time,’ she said. ‘I’ve got my hands full with everything here at home, and I’ve got to organize Jack’s party. Maybe we could do it next summer?’

  Chris sighed.

  ‘Faye, I … I heard from someone I know who works in PR that they’ve been asked to arrange Jack’s party.’

  Faye nudged the scales out from under the basin with her foot. Got on. No change. She was doomed to be fat forever.

  ‘Well, I felt I didn’t have time to do it properly. You’ll have to excuse me, but I can’t talk now, I’ve got loads to be getting on with.’

  ‘Faye …?’ Chris’s voice, warm at the other end of the line.

  Faye remembered how loudly she had laughed that evening they were out with Jack and Henrik, and Chris suddenly got it into her head that they should dance on the table. Jack had held Faye’s hand. Squeezed it tight.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can’t we go away anyway, to help you get a bit of perspective on everything? Never mind about Jack’s party. I know there isn’t an events organizer in the world that could do a better job than you.’

  Faye pushed the scales back under the basin again and promised herself that she wouldn’t look again for a week. So that things had time to change.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about something,’ Chris went on. ‘I could do with someone like you in my company. Someone smart, who understands business and knows what women want. Wouldn’t it be fun to get out and start working again? Now that Julienne’s at nursery?’

  Faye closed her eyes. Couldn’t bear to see her own reflection in the mirror.

  ‘Preschool, Chris.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s called preschool, not nursery. And no, I neither want nor need a job with you. If I wanted a job, don’t you think I would have sorted it out for myself?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Do you know what your problem is, Chris? You think you’re better than me. You think everyone wants to live your pointless life, but I can’t help thinking it doesn’t look that much fun to spend your evenings fucking a twenty-four-year-old personal trainer and getting so drunk that you can’t remember anything the next day. It’s vulgar and it’s embarrassing. Instead of lecturing me you should try to grow up. I love my husband, I love my daughter, I’ve got a family! I want to be with them. And I think you’re jealous of me and my life. I think that’s what this is all about. And I can see why no man would want to live with you! And—’

  Chris had hung up. Faye stared at her own face in the mirror. She no longer knew who the woman looking back at her was.

  Stockholm, August 2001

  The cabin where the party was going to take place lay in a deserted industrial estate. A provisional bar had been set up in one corner. Cheesy pop-music was blaring out over the yard. It wasn’t long before people were making out or creeping off in pairs to the small rooms upstairs.

  I had sobered up and raised my eyebrows towards Chris, who seemed thoroughly bored. I sent Viktor a text, asking what he was up to. I smiled as I wrote it. The other day we had talked about me moving into his new flat in Gärdet, seeing as I never spent any time in the sublet one-room flat on Villagatan that I’d just got hold of.

  ‘I can’t handle another wasted hangover. I’m going into the city to have some fun instead,’ Chris said.

  I looked round at the student version of Sodom and Gomorrah in front of me.

  ‘Can I come?’

  ‘Sure, I’ll call a taxi. We can stop off at mine on the way and sort ourselves out. We stink.’

  Chris was subletting a single-room flat at St Eriksplan. There were clothes scattered across every one of its thirty-five square metres. The bed was unmade, the walls bare apart from a shelf from which her course-books gazed out at the room. If I had been wondering how she had got into the School of Economics, the answer was on the table. Tossed nonchalantly among the bills and adverts lay the results of her high school exams. She’d got 2.0. The highest possible grade. I wasn’t surprised.

  We showered quickly.

  ‘You’ve got nice tits,’ Chris said admiringly when I emerged wearing a pair of her pants. ‘And a fucking good body. Nice to see someone who hasn’t fallen for that whole anorexic aesthetic.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said lamely.

  It was the first time I had ever received a compliment about my breasts or the rest of my body from another girl.

  ‘Have you got a bra I could borrow? Mine stinks o
f herring …’

  I held up my disgusting bra.

  ‘What do you want one for? That’s like driving around in a Ferrari with the cover on. Do all the dykes and straight men a favour and set those beauties free.’

  ‘Burn my bra?’ I grinned.

  ‘Yeah, sister!’ Chris cried, picking up her own rancid bra and swinging it above her head.

  I laughed and looked at myself in the little mirror leaning against the wall in the hall and shrugged my shoulders. When I looked at myself through Chris’s eyes I suddenly liked myself a lot more.

  ‘So where are we going, then?’

  ‘One of the cheap bars near college. That’s where the real finds are. Well, maybe not the trust-fund kids and bankers’ sons – they’re far too inbred now – but the genuinely interesting ones. Here, try this!’

  Chris threw me a scrap of grey cloth.

  ‘What is it, a tea-towel?’ I said sceptically, tentatively holding up the dress, which would barely cover my buttocks.

  ‘Less is more, baby,’ Chris said as she set about applying a huge quantity of mascara to her eyelashes.

  I pulled the dress on. It didn’t leave much to the imagination. To say the neckline was low would be an understatement. I turned round. The back was open as well.

  ‘Hot, hot, hot,’ Chris exclaimed as I posed in front of her. ‘If you don’t get a fuck wearing that, you never will.’

  ‘I’ve got a boyfriend,’ I said.

  ‘Details,’ Chris said dismissively. ‘Now come over here and sit down, and I’ll fix your hair. You look like you’ve just got off the bus from Skara.’

  She waved a pair of scissors and a set of curling tongs in the air.

  I was sceptical, but did as she said. You didn’t contradict Chris.

  An hour later we pushed through the door of the N’See Bar and stepped in. As Chris had predicted, the place was full of older students. I recognized a few faces.

  ‘Find somewhere to sit and I’ll get the beers,’ Chris said, and pushed her way towards the bar.

  I felt embarrassed that she had already paid for the taxi as well as the beer, but I couldn’t afford to repay the favour. My student grant was barely enough to cover food and rent, with nothing to spare, and I was desperately trying to find part-time work.

  I found a table towards the back of the room. ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ by Oasis was blaring from a speaker that was too close for comfort.

  The door to the street was open. The outdoor bar had stopped serving and a few customers were standing out there, apparently hesitating over whether to come inside or not. I checked my phone. No message from Viktor.

  Chris put two glasses of foaming beer on the table, dripping with condensation. My head was throbbing with the beginnings of a hangover from all the alcohol I’d drunk that day, but the beer soon remedied that. Chris drew something in the condensation on my glass with her finger. I turned the glass to see what it was. A heart.

  ‘Why do you do that?’

  ‘Good luck,’ Chris said with a shrug.

  I wiped it off. Luck hadn’t played much of a role in my previous life.

  I raised the glass and gulped down most of the cold beer. Drank myself into forgetfulness. Matilda was gone. Now I was Faye, no one else. Maybe she’d have more luck? I drew another heart on my glass.

  Chris was busy ranting about how childish the guys at the initiation had been when two people walked through the door.

  ‘Are you listening?’ Chris said, poking me in the arm.

  I nodded distractedly. The heart on my glass was still there, just about. Chris rolled her eyes and turned to see what had caught my attention.

  ‘Oh!’ she muttered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You don’t know who that is?’ Chris said, gesturing towards the door with her thumb.

  ‘No – should I?’

  I was longing for another beer, but would have to wait until it was offered.

  ‘Jack Adelheim,’ Chris whispered.

  The name meant nothing to me. With my finger I wiped away the heart I had drawn.

  The doorbell rang at half past six. It was Johanna, the child-minder Julienne liked best. While Jack was working Faye had put on her best La Perla underwear, changed into the black Dolce & Gabbana dress he loved and had made herself up carefully.

  ‘You look wonderful,’ Johanna said as she bent down to take her shoes off.

  ‘Thanks!’ Faye said, and did a twirl, which made Julienne giggle happily from the sofa in the living room.

  ‘Date-nights are fun,’ Johanna said. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Teatergrillen.’

  Faye had booked a table the night before. She loved hearing the change of tone of the maître d’ and other staff when she gave her name and said that she and her husband Jack Adelheim were planning to pay a visit.

  Julienne was watching Lotta on Troublemaker Street. Faye sat down beside her, gave her a hug and explained that Johanna would be putting her to bed and that they’d probably be late home.

  Johanna sat down on the other side of Julienne, put her arm round her and asked how her day had been and what she’d been doing. Julienne leaned back against Johanna and cheerfully started to tell her.

  Faye smiled gratefully at Johanna. She and Jack needed this evening.

  Faye was looking forward to Jack seeing her outfit, hoping his face would light up the way it had done when they were first together. She went into her walk-in closet and put on her Yves Saint Laurent heels, then walked to the drinks trolley and poured a whisky. With the glass in her hand she knocked on the door of the study. She breathed in the smell before she opened the door. She liked the smell of whisky far more than the taste, which was pretty disgusting.

  Jack was sitting at his desk, immersed in his computer. The tower room was as quiet and calm as always. The darkness outside the windows looked almost solid.

  ‘What?’ he muttered without looking up.

  His hair was tousled. As usual, he had been running his hands through it as he worked. Faye put the whisky down in front of him. Nudged it towards him with two fingers. He looked up in surprise. Bloodshot, tired eyes.

  ‘What is it?’

  She backed away and spun round. For the first time in a long time she felt properly attractive.

  ‘I’ve put on the dress you like. The one you bought me in Milan.’

  ‘Faye—’

  ‘Hang on, I haven’t showed you the best bit yet,’ she said, pulling her dress up to show him her black lace underwear.

  It had cost over two thousand kronor, and had an incredibly delicate fringe of French lace around the black silk. Medium size. With a bit of hard work she’d soon be able to buy a pair of small ones. Maybe extra small.

  ‘You look lovely.’

  Jack didn’t even look up.

  ‘I’ve picked out a suit for you. Drink your whisky, then you can get changed. Drinks at the Grand first, then we’ve got a table at Teatergrillen. The taxi will be here in half an hour. It would have been nice to walk, but that would be a bit tricky in these shoes …’

  She showed him her black high-heels.

  A shadow passed across Jack’s face. Faye saw her reflection in the tower room’s window. A pathetic figure bound up in black Dolce, high-heels and even higher expectations. He had forgotten this was the night they were going out. Drinking, talking, laughing. To remind him how much he loved spending time with her. Remind him of the nights they had spent in Barcelona, Paris, Madrid and Rome. During those first months in Stockholm they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other.

  She bit her lip to stop herself bursting into tears. The walls started to close in on her, suffocating her. The darkness beyond the glass was a black hole, sucking the life out of her. The look on Jack’s face was growing more and more concerned. She hated it when he felt sorry for her. In his eyes she must look like some panting dog, desperate for affection.

  ‘I’d forgotten all about it. There’s so m
uch going on at the moment. You wouldn’t believe what Henrik …’

  She forced herself to smile. Not be a nuisance, not be demanding. To be pleasant, amenable. Not get in the way. But she could see how stiff her smile was in the reflection of the window. A contorted mask.

  ‘I understand, darling. You carry on working. We can do it some other time. It’s really not a problem. We’ve got our whole lives ahead of us.’

  Jack’s face twitched. Tiny spasms, a tic he always got when he was stressed.

  ‘Sorry, I’ll make it up to you. I promise.’

  ‘I know. Don’t worry.’

  Faye swallowed and turned away before he could see her eyes shimmering. She closed the door to the tower room carefully behind her.

  On the sofa Julienne was trying to plait Johanna’s red hair.

  ‘You’re very good at this,’ Johanna murmured.

  Faye usually enjoyed chatting to her. But right now she just wanted Johanna gone. She wasn’t far from tears, the lump in her throat was growing.

  ‘Mummy taught me,’ Julienne said.

  ‘That’s lovely. What book shall we read tonight?’

  ‘Maddy, I think. Or Pippi.’

  After her conversation with Jack the previous week, Faye had bought a copy of every Astrid Lindgren book she could find in Akademibokhandeln.

  Faye cleared her throat. Johanna’s freckled face peered up above the side of the sofa.

  ‘Are you about to go?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Change of plan. We’re doing it another time. Work crisis.’

  Faye tried to laugh, but the darkness inside her was threatening to well up, it kept rising and falling.

  Johanna tilted her head.

  ‘That’s a shame. When you look so lovely. Would you like me to put Julienne to bed anyway?’

  ‘No, it’s fine.’

  Faye swallowed the lump in her throat as Julienne clung to Johanna’s arm. She pulled two five-hundred-kronor notes from her handbag and handed them over. Johanna held her free hand up to stop her.

  ‘There’s no need, honestly, I’ve only been here fifteen minutes or so.’

  ‘You’ve still given up your evening. Take it, and I’ll get you a taxi.’

  Julienne was sniffing and tugging at Johanna’s arm.