The Gilded Cage

by Camilla Lackberg

  Julienne nodded, gave her a kiss on the cheek, then ran back inside the house.

  Jack smiled nonchalantly at Faye. She looked in vain for some sign of guilt, but couldn’t find anything. Part of her wanted to claw at his face. Another part wanted to fall into his arms and bury her face in his pullover.

  ‘What do you think?’ he said, with a broad gesture towards the building behind him.

  It was utterly bizarre. He was behaving as if nothing had happened.

  ‘We need to talk,’ she said curtly.

  Adrenalin was coursing through her body, making her rock back and forth on the soles of her feet.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About what’s happened. About … well, this.’

  ‘You must have seen it coming, though? Dear God, it can hardly have come as a surprise.’ He sighed. ‘OK, you’d better come in, then.’

  He walked ahead of her into the house. Removal boxes stood stacked in the hall. Two men were carrying a sofa up the stairs.

  ‘Let’s go and sit over here,’ he said, leading her through a sitting room and out onto a glazed veranda looking out over the water.

  Faye sat down in a chair she didn’t recognize. Ylva must have brought it from her own home. Unless they’d bought everything new. Out with the old. In with the new. Whether it was wives or furniture.

  ‘I need money, Jack. Not much. Just enough until I get back on my feet.’

  He looked down at his hands and nodded.

  ‘Of course. I’ll transfer a few thousand.’

  Faye shivered and Jack raised his eyebrows in surprise.

  Behind him she saw the water, the ice starting to melt and break up. Julienne would love being able to run down there to swim in the summer.

  ‘I need to buy a flat. Surely you want Julienne to be comfortable when she’s with me?’

  ‘I can’t see that it’s my responsibility to provide accommodation for you. That’s up to you to sort out. But sure, I understand that my daughter needs to have a certain standard, even if her mother hasn’t prioritized having an income of her own. I’ll transfer enough money for you to find somewhere to rent. But I recommend that you get yourself a job.’

  Faye clenched her teeth so hard that they squeaked. It went against the grain to come to him, cap in hand. But all their assets were in Jack’s name. She had no savings, no job. And she had to think of Julienne. Motherhood before pride. She needed to sort out cheap temporary accommodation until she got her money from the divorce. She had no idea how much she might get, but surely she ought to get a decent share of Jack’s wealth? She had played a large role in its acquisition, after all. He had said that everything he had was hers, that his success was thanks to the two of them. How could Jack suddenly have forgotten that?

  She looked at him. His hair was a little shorter than usual. She thought back to when they had first met and she used to cut his hair in the kitchen out in Bergshamra. No matter how rich I get, you’ll always cut my hair, the way you touch me feels so great, he had said. Yet another promise he had broken. For the past three years he had been going to Marre, the hottest celebrity salon in Stockholm.

  ‘What are we going to do about Julienne?’ she asked.

  ‘She’ll live here until you’ve sorted out a proper home, anything else is out of the question. She and Ylva are getting on really well, so you don’t have to worry about that.’

  Jack smiled contentedly. Outside the window some geese were wandering along the shore. Hope they shit a lot, Faye thought.

  She tore her eyes from the birds.

  ‘Have you made your mind up?’ she asked in a low voice.

  ‘Made my mind up?’

  ‘About her. That this is what you want?’

  Jack scratched his forehead. Stared at her as if he hardly understood the question.

  ‘Isn’t that pretty obvious?’ he said. ‘I wasn’t happy with you, Faye.’

  Faye felt a jolt in her chest, as if he’d stuck a knife between her ribs. She wanted to ask how long he’d been having an affair with Ylva Lehndorf, but managed to stop herself. She could only handle one dagger to the heart at a time.

  She stood up abruptly and called for Julienne.

  ‘So you’ll bring her back at six o’clock this evening?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Julienne came running in. Faye took her by the hand and led her out of the house. As they drove off Julienne babbled excitedly about her new room. Apparently it was ‘even nicer than the Barbie Princess’s room’.

  Faye put her foot down on the accelerator.

  The weeks passed. Merged into a stagnant fog. Each evening Faye borrowed Chris’s car, drove out to Lidingö and parked a short distance away from the magnificent villa. In the big picture windows she could see her life from outside, like a film, but the difference now was that Faye was no longer playing the central role. And it was no longer her life. Jack and Ylva unpacked their boxes, drank wine, kissed, ate dinner, laughed. Candles flickered in their room, no doubt accompanied by scented candles from Bibliothèque. ‘Never anything reduced, only the most expensive’, as Jack often used to joke, even though he actually meant it. Sometimes she caught a glimpse of Julienne. Always on her own. Or with the fulltime au pair Jack had employed.

  She told Chris she was driving round the city, but her friend knew her too well to be fooled. Her grief still overwhelmed her at times, but Faye told herself that it would pass. Jack was her heroin, and once she had got through the withdrawal she would get back on her feet, and the pain would fade with time. Just as it had done before.

  She had a vague memory of once being the strong person in her family. That strength must be hiding in there somewhere. Jack couldn’t have stolen that from her as well.

  Faye was sitting at Chris’s kitchen table when Jack called. She’d convinced herself that he was going to say it had all been a big mistake and that he wanted her to come home. Or that the past few weeks had been nothing more than a drawn-out nightmare. She would take him back without a moment’s hesitation. She would be as happy as a puppy. Yapping and jumping around him with her tail wagging.

  Instead Jack informed her that she wasn’t going to be getting any money at all.

  ‘The prenuptial agreement applies,’ he said at the end of his long explanation. ‘And you signed that yourself. I thought it was watertight, but I wanted to check with my solicitors first. And sure enough, it is a valid agreement.’

  Faye stifled her anger as well as she could, but could hear the tension in her voice.

  ‘I gave up my course at the School of Economics to support you while you and Henrik were getting Compare off the ground. Do you remember? Then when I said I wanted to get a job you told me there was no need and that I shouldn’t worry about it. You promised that the prenuptial agreement was merely a formality. For the board. That of course I’d get my share. The whole idea for the structure of the company came from me!’

  Jack didn’t answer.

  ‘This is her idea, isn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘It’s her, Ylva, she doesn’t want me to get any money. Don’t you think you’ve humiliated me enough? I’ve got nothing, Jack. My life is ruined.’

  ‘Don’t bring Ylva into this. The money’s mine, it’s what I’ve earned while you were at home having a nice time. Those long lunches at Riche with the girls didn’t exactly bring in any money, did they?’ Jack snorted. ‘You’ll just have to go out and get a damn job like everyone else. Try living in the real world for a change. Most people don’t get the chance to live life as one long holiday the way you have the past few years. While I’ve been working hard to support my family.’

  Faye forced herself to stay calm. Breathed in. Breathed out. Refused to believe that he could simply draw a line under their years together. Under everything they had experienced.

  Jack interrupted her thoughts.

  ‘If you carry on fighting, I’ll crush you. Leave me and Ylva in peace.’
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  After he hung up Faye sat for a long time with the phone in her hand. Then, to her own surprise, she let out a roar. A primal scream that she hadn’t heard for many, many years, in another life. Now it bounced off the walls like a violent echo.

  Faye was panting by the time she finally stopped. She threw herself back in her chair. Enjoyed the pain of the hard back of the chair. Welcomed the anger that surged through her.

  She felt the familiar darkness seep through every pore of her body, the darkness she had managed to forget. She had been pretending it had never existed, that it had never been part of her. But now, very slowly, she started to remember who she was, who she had been.

  The hatred was familiar, comforting. It embraced her in its warm cocoon, giving her a purpose, giving her a firm footing again. She would show Jack. She was going to get back on her feet.

  Faye used the underground for the first time in many years. She got on at Östermalmstorg, travelled out to Norsborg, then came back again. She got off at T-centralen and wandered across Sergels torg, where the drug trade was still in full swing, just as it had been when she first arrived in Stockholm thirteen years ago.

  But Stockholm felt like a different place. There was so much to see and explore now that she no longer had to worry about what Jack thought was ‘inappropriate’. Faye was thirty-two years old, but felt like she had been born again.

  She crossed Sveavägen close to the plaque marking the site where Olof Palme was shot.

  A few hardy souls were hunched over their beers smoking in the spring wind at the outdoor tables beside the church. The poor, the unemployed, the outcasts. Scum, as Jack called them.

  Faye opened the door and walked in. The barman raised his eyebrows as he looked at her obviously expensive coat. At least Jack had let her keep her clothes when he cleared their apartment.

  She ordered a beer and sat down in a corner. It tasted bland. Thoughts were swirling through her head. How humiliated had she been? Had everything Jack said been a lie? Was Ylva the only one, or had there been more? Things she hadn’t wanted to think about before now. But now she needed to wallow in those thoughts, feed her anger. Of course there had been others. She knew Jack. The way he really was.

  She got her mobile out of her bag and brought up Alice’s number.

  ‘Have you got a few minutes?’ Faye said when Alice eventually answered.

  She heard her hesitate.

  ‘I’d like to ask you a few questions. And I want you to answer honestly.’

  ‘Hold on …’

  The sound of a child crying grew louder behind her. Alice called for the au pair, then closed a door and the noise of the crying became more distant.

  ‘OK, I’m listening,’ she said.

  ‘You know all about Ylva. I assume it had been going on for a while. I want to know how long, and if there were others.’

  ‘Faye, I …’

  ‘Skip the bullshit, Alice. I get that you knew all along. That’s OK. I’m not looking for a fight. I just want to know the truth.’

  Alice didn’t say anything for a long time. Faye waited patiently. Eventually Alice took a deep breath.

  ‘Jack has been unfaithful to you for as long as I’ve known Henrik. With everyone, Faye. Jack would fuck anything with a pulse. Sometimes I felt like rubbing your face in it, to pull you down from your high horse where you used to sit and judge Henrik. And me. But I never did. I know how it feels, after all.’

  Alice fell silent. Presumably aware that she had given the lie to the ambivalence that she had been so keen to convey up until then. The ambivalence that Faye had never believed, not deep down.

  Faye let her words sink in. It didn’t hurt as much as she had imagined it would. She almost felt relieved. On some level she had always known.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Alice said hesitantly.

  ‘It’s OK. I had a feeling.’

  ‘You won’t mention this conversation to Jack?’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You should leave Henrik,’ Faye went on in a dry, factual voice. ‘We’re too good for this shit, to be trampled on and exploited like this. No doubt you’ll realize that one day. It wasn’t my choice, but I’ve got there now. And once you emerge on the other side, it’s rather a liberating place to be.’

  ‘But I’m happy.’

  ‘So was I. Or so I thought. But time catches up with us, Alice. Sooner or later you’ll end up where I am now, and you know that.’

  Faye hung up without waiting for Alice to answer. She knew her friend didn’t actually have an answer. That nothing she had said came as news to Alice, who probably wrestled with the same thoughts a thousand times each day. That was Alice’s problem. Not hers.

  She was ready for war now.

  Faye knew she had the best weapon in her arsenal – her femininity. It made men underestimate and objectify her, assume she was stupid. There was no way Jack could ever win this fight. She was smarter than him. Always had been. She had just allowed him, and herself, to forget that.

  But now she was going to remind him. Remind them both.

  To start with, she had to let him go on believing that things were the same as they used to be – that she was the same old, cowed Faye, hopelessly naïve and in love. That was the easy bit. She had played that role for so long that she knew it inside out.

  But in the meantime she would secretly build up a business of her own, become rich and finally crush Jack. She’d didn’t yet know exactly how that was going to happen, and there were a number of practical difficulties to deal with before then. First and foremost, she needed somewhere to live. She couldn’t go on relying on Chris. She was too poor to live in the centre of the city, but she couldn’t be too far away from Julienne’s preschool. And she also needed to be able to save up a bit of capital, get back in shape, update her knowledge of the financial world and build up her own network. There were a thousand things to do. A thousand goals to achieve before Jack was ruined. She felt exhilarated.

  ‘Have you got something I could write on?’ she asked the barman. ‘And a pen.’

  He put a pen on the bar and pointed to a pile of napkins. Faye wrote a list of things she needed to sort out. When she was finished, she called Jack to negotiate peace. She didn’t have a problem with that, it was just an act. An opening move in a game of chess. She needed a ceasefire in order to be able to gather her forces and regroup.

  She softened her voice and made sure it sounded rather fragile. The way he remembered it.

  ‘I’ve been so sad,’ she said. ‘That’s why I’ve been behaving so badly towards you. But I’m better now, I realize that you’re right about a lot of things. Can you forgive me?’

  She took a sip of her beer. It was almost finished and she gestured to the bartender that she’d like another.

  ‘Well, I understand that it’s been difficult for you,’ Jack said with a mixture of surprise and pompous magnanimity.

  Faye drank the last of her beer as the fresh glass was placed in front of her. She drew circles in its foamy head. Thought back to the time when Chris had drawn a heart in the condensation on the glass.

  ‘It has been. But that’s no excuse. I’m going to pull myself together. For Julienne’s sake. And for yours. Your daughter’s mother shouldn’t behave in an unworthy fashion and keep nagging about money. I don’t know what got into me. I … I haven’t been myself lately.’

  She fell silent, wondering if she might be overdoing it a bit. But Jack had merely heard her confirm what he had thought all along: that he was right, and she was wrong.

  Jack wanted to see himself as the hero, the noble victor. She was offering him a chance to reaffirm that image of himself. The way everyone around him always did.

  ‘That’s OK. But try not to be so … difficult in future, that’s all,’ Jack said.

  When they had hung up Faye quickly finished her second glass and asked for a third. There was no longer anyone to raise any objections. She started to giggle, and
couldn’t stop. Intoxicated by alcohol and freedom.

  The red, two-storey house dated back to the 1920s, and lay in an idyllic residential area in Enskede. Faye opened the green-painted gate, walked through the neatly tended garden and rang the doorbell.

  The woman who answered had high cheekbones, white hair pulled into a bun on top of her head, and was wearing a black polo-neck top. Her posture was upright, almost militaristic. She held out a bony hand.

  ‘Kerstin Tellermark. Come in,’ she said, stepping aside.

  Faye followed her through a hall lined with black-and-white photographs into a comfortably furnished living room. Old paintings of landscapes and maritime subjects adorned the brown wallpaper, there were a couple of rather saggy armchairs and a sofa by one wall, and an old piano in the corner.

  ‘What a lovely room,’ Faye said. And meant it.

  ‘It’s a bit old-fashioned,’ Kerstin replied apologetically, but Faye could see she was flattered. ‘Would you like some coffee?’

  Faye shook her head.

  ‘In that case … so it would be you and your daughter living here?’

  ‘Yes, Julienne. She’s four.’

  ‘Divorce?’

  Faye nodded.

  ‘The good sort?’

  ‘No.’

  Kerstin raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Do you have a job?’

  ‘Not yet. But I’m working on it. I … I studied at the School of Economics. I just need to get back on my feet first.’

  Kerstin stood up and showed Faye up the stairs. The upper floor contained a smaller living room and two bedrooms. It was perfect, exactly what she was looking for.

  ‘Five thousand kronor per month.’

  ‘I’ll take it.’

  Two days later Chris helped her to move in. Kerstin stood on the steps with her arms folded, looking on as they carried in the three boxes that contained everything Faye owned. She had sold most of the clothes from the apartment in one of the smarter second-hand boutiques on Karlavägen. All to get a bit of money.