The Gilded Cage

by Camilla Lackberg

  She no longer wanted Jack to give her anything. She wanted to take it instead. It was more fun that way.

  When Chris had gone, Kerstin knocked on the door. Faye was unpacking her clothes as she asked her to come in, but Kerstin stopped in the doorway.

  ‘The daughter you mentioned, where is she?’

  ‘With her dad. She’ll be coming later this week,’ Faye said, holding a blouse up in front of her.

  ‘He left you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Whose fault was it?’

  ‘Whose fault?’

  ‘It’s always someone’s fault.’

  ‘In that case, it was his. He was sticking his cock into anything that moved, and I was too stupid to notice.’

  Faye flinched when she realized what she’d said, but Kerstin merely nodded.

  Faye hung her clothes in the wardrobe, hoovered, made the bed and lay down on it with her hands behind her head. She needed to find a way to support herself. Quickly. To start with, just to survive. To pay Kerstin her rent, to buy food, things that Julienne might need. But the work had to be flexible enough for her to be able to work on her business plan at the same time. She couldn’t work for someone who was constantly breathing down her neck.

  Faye went over to the window. A blond man in his fifties was walking past with a large Rhodesian ridgeback, which seemed to respond to the name ‘Hasse’. The dog started, then strained at the leash, leaving the man struggling to keep his balance.

  Faye looked on thoughtfully as they passed.

  Kerstin had made beef patties with potatoes and gravy. There were dishes of lingonberry jam and pickled gherkins laid out on the circular dining-table.

  ‘This is lovely,’ Faye said.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Kerstin served Faye another helping.

  On the windowsill there was a photograph of Kerstin as a young woman. Her hair was brown, cut in a bob, and she was wearing a short white dress.

  She saw that Faye was looking at it.

  ‘London in the late sixties. I was an au pair for a family there, and was in love with an Englishman, Lord Kensington. They were good times.’

  ‘Why didn’t you stay?’

  ‘Because Lord Kensington’s mother, Lady Ursula, didn’t think it suitable for her only son to live with a Swedish au pair. A few years later he married a society girl called Mary.’

  ‘How sad,’ Faye said.

  ‘It is what it is. I’m not complaining.’

  ‘Have you been married?’

  ‘Oh, yes. To Ragnar.’

  Kerstin turned her head away. Tugged unconsciously at her polo-neck.

  Faye watched her, then looked round the room. She couldn’t see any pictures of Ragnar. Or of Ragnar and Kerstin together.

  There was a clink of cutlery as Kerstin put her knife and fork down. She stood up and left the room, then returned with a photograph. She put it down on the table in front of Faye. It showed a bare-chested man in a pair of white shorts sitting on a sun-bed.

  ‘Ragnar,’ she said. ‘Palma, 1981.’

  ‘Nice,’ Faye said. ‘It must be hard to lose someone you’ve lived with for so long. How long has it been since he passed away?’

  ‘Passed away?’ Kerstin opened her eyes wide and looked at her uncomprehendingly. ‘No, no. Ragnar’s alive. The bastard’s in an old people’s home on Södermalm, slowly rotting away.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘He had a stroke three years ago.’

  ‘So you live alone?’

  Kerstin nodded.

  ‘Yes. But I’m happy,’ she said, popping a potato in her mouth. ‘It’s nice and quiet. The only thing that disturbs my peace of mind is the fact that he’s still breathing.’

  She looked at the picture. Then she turned it upside down and said:

  ‘Help yourself to another patty. Good food’s balm to the soul.’

  Faye nodded and took the dish from her. It was the first time in ages that food actually tasted of anything.

  Faye woke up early the next morning. She was met by the smell of freshly brewed coffee as she went down the creaking stairs.

  Kerstin was already up. She was reading Dagens Nyheter, and beside her on the table was a folded copy of Dagens Industri. The photograph of Ragnar that had been on the kitchen table was gone.

  ‘Good morning,’ Kerstin said. ‘Help yourself to coffee.’

  It was still dark outside, though spring had started its slow advance. Faye sat down at the table and reached for the copy of Dagens Industri. She read the editorial, then one of the comment pieces. She turned the page and found herself staring straight into Jack’s blue eyes. She started, and briefly considered moving on, but her eyes were automatically drawn to the headline. Fuel. She needed fuel.

  Adelheim denies rumours of stock market flotation, it read.

  Kerstin must have noticed the change in her breathing, because she glanced up from her paper to look at Faye.

  ‘Bad news?’ she asked.

  ‘No, it’s nothing. Just someone I used to know.’

  In the article Jack said they weren’t planning to float Compare on the stock market. But he confirmed that the company’s head of finance, Ylva Lehndorf, would be leaving the business to work for the music giant Musify instead. Jack said it had been a mutual decision, and wished Ylva well in her career. Not a word about the fact that he was living with her. Presumably they knew that, but Dagens Industri were too polite to mix personal gossip with business.

  He’s already started to change Ylva, Faye thought. The next step would probably be for her to stop working. Faye wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Should she enjoy the schadenfreude? Or feel sorry for her? In a way it would have been easier if she could have believed that Ylva was simply better than her. Smarter, stronger. But now Ylva had begun to subordinate herself. Which made her seem even more like Jack’s little whore. Bought off by his money and charm.

  Faye scanned through the article a second time before moving on. She didn’t yet know what was going to come in useful, she had no clear plan. For the time being she was simply gathering information.

  ‘What are you going to do today?’ Kerstin asked.

  ‘I thought I might take a walk. Do you happen to know if there’s anywhere nearby where I could get some leaflets printed?’

  ‘Leaflets?’

  ‘I was thinking of setting up a small business.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Kerstin put the newspaper down and looked at Faye.

  ‘Yes, a dog-sitting service. Everyone around here seems to have a dog. I thought I could walk them during the day while I’m figuring out what I’m going to do. To earn a bit of money quickly and easily. Then we’ll just have to see what I do after that. It would buy me a bit of time, though.’

  Kerstin looked at her intently. Then she went back to her paper.

  ‘Try the library in Dalen,’ she said.

  Faye printed twenty posters and pinned them up in strategic places around Enskede. She imagined what Alice and her friends would have said if they could see her. To her great joy she realized that she didn’t care. She couldn’t afford gym membership, and spending her days walking dogs would give her exercise that would help her to lose weight. And at the same time she would earn money, something she desperately needed if she was to make any progress.

  Chris would have given her a loan without a moment’s hesitation if she had asked. But Chris had done enough. Faye had to fend for herself now, to prove both to herself and everyone else that she could do it. And for the first time in many years she felt ready to fight. Her past had finally turned out to be an advantage, not just something that woke her in a cold sweat with Sebastian’s image fixed in her mind. She refused to think about her father. She still had that much power over herself.

  She quickened her pace, stopped at a lamppost in front of a yellow villa and pulled out the roll of tape she had bought at ICA.

  Two girls of about the same age as Julienne were bou
ncing on a trampoline in the garden. They were laughing and yelping.

  Faye stood and watched them for a while.

  How many times would they be betrayed? Have their dreams crushed? Ahead of them lay a long string of beaded insults doled out by men. The experience of being sidelined, judged on their looks, the struggle to fit in, to please everyone – all the things that had humiliated women of all ages, in all countries, over the years.

  And then it hit her like a flash of lightning. There was an army out there, waiting to be set loose. Most women – no matter how rich and successful they might be – had been betrayed by a man. Most of them had that one ex, that unfaithful bastard, that liar, deceiver, the one who broke their heart and stamped on it. That male boss who gave the promotion to a male colleague with worse qualifications and less competence. The comments, the wandering hands at the company’s Christmas party. Most women had their own war wounds. One way or another.

  But they kept quiet. Gritted their teeth. Responded magnanimously, showing understanding and forgiveness. Comforted the children when he didn’t show up like he promised. Smoothed things over when he made patronizing remarks. Carried on inviting his parents to the children’s birthday parties even though they took his side in the divorce and kept singing the praises of his new partner. Because that’s what women did. They internalized their rage. Turned it against themselves. God forbid they should ever make a fuss or demand justice. Nice girls don’t fight. Nice girls don’t raise their voices. That’s something women were taught from an early age. Women soaked things up, smoothed things over, bore the responsibility for all relationships, swallowed their pride and subordinated themselves until they all but vanished.

  Faye was hardly the first woman in the world to be humiliated by her husband, to be treated like an idiot, to be replaced by a younger model.

  Enough of that now, she thought. Together we’re strong, and we’re not going to stay silent any longer.

  Faye barely had time to get back inside the house before her mobile started to ring. That evening she heard from another four dog-owners asking if she had time to take their dogs on. Her gut-feeling had been right, there was a definite need for this service.

  She could hear clattering from the kitchen downstairs. Faye had offered to cook dinner, but Kerstin insisted on doing it. But she had at least agreed to let Faye pay two thousand kronor into a shared grocery pot. That was a solution they were both happy with.

  Faye opened her laptop, clicked to bring up Excel and made a simple schedule for her future activities. The very next day she had two walks booked. She was charging one hundred and twenty kronor per hour. When the spreadsheet was finished she registered a private company in her name. She had already decided on the name in readiness for the day when she turned the business into a limited company.

  The rain was pouring down, creeping under her raincoat, getting in everywhere. Faye couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this wet. Zorro and Alfred were tugging at their leashes, the rain didn’t seem to bother them.

  If anyone had told her a month ago that she’d be celebrating her birthday in the pouring rain with two golden retrievers she’d have thought they were mad.

  But life was full of surprises. Faye of all people had learned that lesson.

  Her routines had changed entirely over the past few weeks. She got up at five thirty every morning, showered, ate a breakfast consisting of a boiled egg with smoked fish roe, then headed out. The two dog-walks per day had quickly become eight, and some of the dog-owners were booking her for two walks a day. Kerstin had no objection to her volunteering to dog-sit some evenings as well.

  Faye sneezed. She was looking forward to getting home and sinking into a warm bath, like she did every evening after the last walk.

  ‘OK, that’ll have to do, boys,’ she said as the skies opened up.

  After handing the dogs back to their owner, Mrs Lönnberg, Faye hurried home. Her feet hadn’t felt this tired in years.

  She opened the door gently so as not to disturb Kerstin, who usually sat and read at this time of day, and went carefully up the stairs. When she reached the bathroom she discovered that the bath had already been run. There was a vase of handpicked flowers from the garden on the wash-basin.

  Kerstin appeared behind her.

  ‘Thank you,’ Faye whispered.

  ‘I thought you might need it,’ she said. ‘There’s … I got you a little something. A present. It’s on the kitchen table.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘That it’s your birthday? It’s in the tenancy agreement. I may be old, but I’m not blind. Now get yourself in that bath.’

  When Faye got out of the bath her stomach was howling with hunger. She crept down the stairs, opened the fridge and took out some boiled eggs, sliced them and spread fish roe over them. She sat down at the kitchen table with her crispbread sandwiches on a side plate and opened the green parcel.

  It was a pair of black Nikes.

  Tears welled up in Faye’s eyes.

  She put the shoes on and walked around the living room. They felt soft, perfectly moulded to her feet. She stopped outside Kerstin’s bedroom door. There was a crack of light beneath it, so she knocked.

  Kerstin was lying in bed with a book. Faye sat down on the edge of the bed and lifted her feet so Kerstin could see the shoes.

  ‘They’re perfect – thank you!’

  Kerstin closed her book and rested it on her stomach.

  ‘Have I told you how I met Ragnar?’

  Faye shook her head.

  ‘I was his secretary. He was married. Ten years older than me, a company director, a millionaire, with a smile that made me feel faint. He took me out for fancy lunches, gave me flowers, deluged me with compliments.’

  She paused. Ran one hand over the covers.

  ‘I fell in love. So did he. In the end he left his wife, she took the children and moved out of their house. And I moved in. I gave up my job. Spent my days playing tennis, running the household, looking after Ragnar. We went travelling each summer, Spain, Greece. One year we went to the USA. Four years passed. Five. Six. I didn’t even have the sense to feel ashamed of what I’d done to his ex-wife. I didn’t have the courage to protest when I saw the way he treated her and their children. On the contrary, I was happy not to have to share his attention with them. I persuaded myself that they deserved it. That they had never loved him like I did.’

  She ran her tongue across her bottom lip.

  ‘All the rest of it … that sort of crept up on me. The darkness. The violence. The first few times I thought they were isolated incidents. He came up with excuses. Explanations. And I was only too happy to accept them. But gradually it increased. And I couldn’t get out. Don’t ask me why – I can’t explain it to myself, let alone anyone else.’

  Kerstin coughed behind a clenched hand.

  ‘I didn’t have the courage to walk out,’ she went on. Her voice was simultaneously weak and strong. ‘Even though I grew to hate him with every fibre of my body. I could live with the affairs. That was nothing compared to the beatings my body was taking. To what he took from me. We … I was expecting a child. But he beat me up and I miscarried. Since then I’ve wished him dead. Every waking second I dream about him dying. Stopping breathing. When he had the stroke at first I wasn’t going to call an ambulance. I sat and looked at him lying there on the floor rolling about. His eyes were pleading for help. I enjoyed seeing him so weak, in need of my help. I was thinking of letting him lie there, but one of the neighbours had seen we were home and rang on the door. I had to go and answer, and in the end I had to call an ambulance. I played the role of shocked wife well, but when they were lifting Ragnar into the ambulance I could see in his eyes that he understood. And that he’d kill me if he ever got well again.’

  Faye didn’t know if Kerstin was expecting her to be shocked, but nothing about male brutality surprised her any more.

  Kerstin adjusted a stray lock of white hair.
/>   ‘I know who you are,’ she said. ‘And I understand what’s happened. You were married to Jack Adelheim.’

  Faye nodded.

  Kerstin picked at the bedspread. Then she looked up at Faye.

  ‘I’ve figured out that you’re up to something. I’ve seen you with your notebooks, your lists and sketches for the future. Let me know what I can do, and I’ll help you any way I can.’

  Faye made herself more comfortable on the bed. Leaned back against the headboard and looked at her new landlady. What Kerstin had told her was terrible, but it came as no surprise; Faye had already guessed as much. The fact that Kerstin was a fellow sufferer was beyond doubt, but could she trust her? Faye knew she was going to have to rely on other people’s help, and she had made up her mind to trust the sisterhood. Though she wasn’t so naïve as to believe she could trust every woman, in the older woman’s voice she recognized the same darkness as her own. So she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then explained how she was thinking of crushing Jack.

  The plan had taken shape during all those hours of dog-walking, where she was able to plot her strategy calmly and methodically.

  Kerstin listened and nodded, occasionally smiling.

  ‘I’m good at organization. I could be quite useful,’ she said.

  Calm. Matter-of-fact. Then she picked up her book and carried on reading. Faye took that as a signal to leave the room.

  Things had started to move. There was no way back. And she was no longer alone.

  Faye developed her activities with Kerstin’s help. The months flew by and the business grew. They brought in two women as part-time employees, expanded the area they operated in, and rearranged the basement so they could have dogs to stay overnight.

  Kerstin helped Faye with the administrative side of things, and anything she didn’t know after so many years as a housewife she looked up on the internet. She was a marvel of efficiency, and with her help the figures were soon in the black. It took time to build up the capital that Faye needed, she had set herself a target of two hundred thousand, but forced herself to be patient. It would just have to take as long as it took.