The Gilded Cage

by Camilla Lackberg

  She had asked her solicitor to look into the legal situation. He mustn’t be allowed to get out now. She knew how things were in Sweden; in reality there was no such thing as a life sentence. Not even for her dad. Sooner or later he would be released. But not now. Absolutely not now. First she had to finish what she had set out to do.

  She picked the letter up and held the cigarette against it. The relief when it started to burn was indescribable.

  Fjällbacka – then

  The roar of the sea outside my bedroom window couldn’t drown out the sounds from the kitchen. The voices getting louder and louder. Dad’s full of rage, Mum’s full of pleading. Still hoping that she might be able to fend off the inevitable. It was my fault they were rowing. I’d forgotten to clear up after the snack I made when I got home from school. How could I have done that? I knew Dad didn’t like anything to be left out. Except when he had got himself something to eat. He never cleared up after himself, but the rest of us had to make sure that everything was kept clean, tidy, clinical. Me, Mum and Sebastian.

  Mum always took the blame. I loved her for that. And more than anything, I wished that I could grow big and tall and strong, so she didn’t have to take the punishment for something I’d done. But as long as I was so small, he didn’t dare punish me. He might clench his fists when I did something wrong, but he was afraid he’d break my brittle bones, hit me so hard that no one could save me. So he had to make do with Mum. She could bear more.

  The first time I realized everyone was afraid of Dad was when I went to the supermarket with him when I was five years old. He had bought the usual things: a couple of packs of cigarettes, a large bar of chocolate and a copy of Expressen. Sebastian and I rarely got to taste any of the chocolate.

  As we approached the till a man jumped in front of Dad in the queue. Just as Dad was about to put his things on the belt the man threw his shopping onto it. It was obvious from his clothes that he was one of the summer visitors. I was struck by the look of horror on the cashier’s face. Her fear of Dad’s anger.

  Dad wasn’t about to accept some bastard tourist bastard, as he called them, pushing in front of him. I found out later that the man ended up in Uddevalla Hospital with two broken ribs. I was only five when it happened, but the story lived on and I heard it many times over the years, along with plenty of others.

  My maths books had been open at the same page in front of me ever since the first blows were dealt down in the kitchen. Division. Easy, really. I found maths perfectly straightforward. But when the blows started I dropped my pen and covered my ears with my hands.

  A hand on my shoulder made me start. I ignored Sebastian. Kept my hands over my ears. From the corner of my eye I saw him sit down on my bed. He leaned back against the wall with his eyes closed, trying, like me, to shut it all out.

  I stayed inside my bubble. There was no room for anyone else in there.

  Faye met up with Chris at the Grand Hôtel for dinner and a few drinks. She didn’t feel like it – all she wanted was for the weekend to be over so she could find out if Julienne had succeeded. But she realized that it was a better idea to spend time with Chris, get drunk, maybe flirt a bit, rather than stay at home climbing the walls. The maître d’ had prepared a table out on the veranda, with a view of the water and Royal Palace. The noise level was slowly rising. At the piano bar at the far side of the room a beautiful woman was singing ‘Heal the World’.

  Chris ordered a hamburger while Faye made do with a Caesar salad. Just as their mojitos arrived two young women in their mid-twenties came over and asked if they could have a selfie with her.

  ‘We love you!’ they squealed excitedly before they disappeared. ‘You’re such an awesome role model.’

  ‘Next time I’m going to have to book a private room so I can get a chance to talk to you,’ Chris said, highly amused, stirring her mojito.

  ‘It’s not like you’re exactly unknown either,’ Faye said.

  Chris gave her a wry smile.

  ‘How are your tits?’

  ‘Different,’ Faye said curtly.

  She had been perfectly happy with her old ones, but had done what needed doing. Her body was a tool, something to help her reach her goal.

  ‘Have you tried them out yet?’

  Faye raised her eyebrows.

  ‘With a guy, I mean.’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘You need a good seeing to. It’s food for the soul.’ Chris scanned the room. ‘That’s going to be tricky here, though. Most of the men in this place haven’t had an erection without pharmaceutical assistance since the fall of the Berlin Wall.’

  Faye laughed and looked at the clientele. Chris was right. Plenty of money, not much hair, and regular consumers of little blue pills – that pretty much summed things up.

  Chris leaned forward.

  ‘Where are we with Jack? It’s not long until the stock-market flotation.’

  ‘There was a temporary problem, but we should be back on course now,’ she said, and told Chris what a key-logger was. ‘Enough about me, though. What’s going on in your life?’

  Chris took a sip of her mojito, then smacked her lips softly.

  ‘A couple of months ago I was seriously considering retiring and moving somewhere sunny. The whole Queen organization runs itself, and I don’t exactly need any more money. But I’ve thought better of it now.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes,’ Chris said without meeting her gaze.

  ‘Are you going to tell me or am I going to have to shake it out of you?’

  ‘I am, embarrassingly enough, in love. Completely, hopelessly, fucking in love.’

  Faye almost choked on a mint-leaf. She started coughing.

  ‘In love?’ she repeated lamely. ‘Who with?’

  ‘You’re not going to believe this, but his name is Johan and he’s a high-school Swedish teacher.’

  ‘That sounds very … normal,’ Faye said, who had been expecting a tattooed participant in Paradise Hotel with bulging biceps who was eligible for a student discount on flights.

  ‘That’s what’s so weird about it,’ Chris said.

  ‘How did you meet?’

  ‘He came into our salon in Sturegallerian with his niece. He was wearing one of those ridiculous jackets with patches over the elbows. When his niece sat in the chair she said she wanted a Mohican. That made me curious. How was he going to react? But he just nodded and said: “I always wanted one of those, they’re pretty cool.”’

  Chris fell silent and looked out of the window.

  ‘Shame he’s already taken, I thought, because I assumed she was his daughter. But I stayed in the salon to talk to him. And when he was about to pay she asked when her dad was going to pick her up. My mood sank even lower then – I assumed he was gay.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘She got picked up outside the salon by a bald bloke whose face turned bright red when he saw his daughter’s hair. They parted and I … fuck it, I might as admit it: I cancelled all my meetings and started to follow him.’

  ‘You stalked him?’

  Faye was staring at her friend in amusement. This was crazy, even for Chris.

  ‘Yes, just a bit, I guess.’

  ‘How much is just a bit?’

  ‘To Farsta.’

  ‘You haven’t ventured outside the city centre since …’

  ‘Since the Year of Our Lord 2006. I know. So, when we got to Farsta he finally turned round. I’m not exactly James Bond, so he’d noticed I’d been following him all the way from Stureplan.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘That he was very flattered, then he said I must be thirsty after all that stalking. I said I was, so he asked if he could buy me coffee.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Chris! I’m so happy for you.’

  Chris couldn’t help smiling.

  ‘So am I.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘He got me a coffee and I fell hopelessly in love. We went back to his and I spent the ne
xt two days there.’

  She laughed and Faye felt a warm glow spread through her.

  ‘And now?’

  ‘He’s the one, Faye, the man I’ve been waiting for all my life.’

  For a fraction of a second her smile flickered into a grimace. Anyone who hadn’t known Chris as long as Faye had wouldn’t have noticed a thing.

  Something was wrong.

  ‘Chris, what is it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she said nonchalantly.

  ‘I know you. What is it?’

  Chris raised her glass and took a sip. Then she put it down.

  ‘I’ve got cancer,’ she said in a thick voice.

  Time stopped, the noises around them vanished, shapes blurred, sharp edges lost their focus.

  Chris’s voice sounded muffled and unfamiliar.

  Faye couldn’t take it in. Chris, so vital, so full of life, couldn’t possibly have cancer. But she did. A rare type of endometrial cancer. As Chris pointed out, that was rather ironic given how little she’d used her womb. Glasses chinked around them. The entrance to Stockholm harbour lay sunlit and smooth as a mirror before them, the Royal Palace loomed up on the other side of the water, looking as usual more like a municipal prison than a fairytale castle. It was an unusually beautiful autumn day, and it had drawn out the city’s inhabitants in their hordes. At the tables around them people were enjoying their afternoon tea with clinking gold jewellery, and Faye wondered how they could be laughing when her own world had imploded.

  ‘I wasn’t going to say anything until I’d got rid of it. But it is what it is.’

  Chris shrugged. If the doctors didn’t manage to stop it she’d be dead within twelve months. Faye kept looking for a sign that she was joking, kept waiting for Chris’s loud, disarming laugh. But it didn’t come.

  ‘We have to get out of here,’ she said. She could barely breathe. ‘I can’t sit here picking at a fucking Caesar salad while you tell me you’ve got cancer.’

  She regretted saying that at once. She realized Chris must be terrified, and was struggling to hold everything together. This wasn’t the right time for her to be saying what she wanted. And it wasn’t the time for her to be feeling sorry for herself.

  ‘Sorry. I’m just so incredibly sorry,’ she said.

  Chris smiled. Sadly this time. An expression Faye had rarely, if ever, seen on her beloved friend’s face. She forced herself to eat a piece of chicken. It felt like it was going to catch in her throat. She put her cutlery down, caught hold of a passing waiter and ordered two gin and tonics.

  ‘Doubles, please.’

  They sat in silence until the drinks appeared.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Faye asked when she’d taken a sip.

  ‘I don’t know. I think so. But I don’t know how to.’

  ‘Me neither. So you have to get better.’

  ‘Well, obviously I’m going to. The timing’s so fucking awful, though, with Johan and everything. At long last I’m in love, then a tumour pops up in my womb and wrecks everything. Someone up there has a sense of humour.’

  Chris’s laugh didn’t reach her eyes.

  Faye nodded. She put her lips round the straw and sucked up more alcohol. She felt it spreading out, warming her up, making it easier to breathe.

  ‘You mean you’re worried he’ll leave you?’

  ‘I’d be surprised if he didn’t. We’ve only been seeing each other a couple of weeks and if I’m going to beat this illness it’s going to take all my strength. It’s going to make me ugly, unattractive, I’ll lose any desire to have sex, I’ll be exhausted. Of … of course I’m worried. I really do love him, Faye, I love him so much.’

  ‘Are you worried about …’

  ‘… dying? Terrified. But I’m not going to die. I want to be with Johan, go travelling with him, get old. I’ve never wanted to live as much as I do right now.’

  Another grimace. Faye felt inadequate and uncertain. In the end she put her hand on Chris’s. The hand that had been her strength during the abortion. It was trembling and felt ice-cold.

  ‘Sooner or later you’re going to have to tell him. Regardless of whether he leaves you or not.’

  Chris nodded and drank her gin and tonic in one gulp. Faye kept her hand on Chris’s.

  When Faye picked Julienne up on Sunday her daughter looked at her expectantly. Faye had forgotten all about what she’d asked her to do – Chris’s illness had turned everything upside down.

  ‘Where is it?’ Julienne asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My mobile. I did what you said.’

  ‘That’s good, darling. You’ll get it tomorrow.’

  Julienne started to protest but Faye explained that she’d have to wait. Julienne went off to her room in a sulk, and Faye couldn’t summon the energy to call her back.

  Nor could she feel any enthusiasm at the fact that she would soon have Jack’s password.

  Chris had asked her not to tell anyone about the cancer. She didn’t want anyone’s sympathy, no stamp on her forehead announcing that she was being treated for cancer, as she put it. They had agreed that Faye would go with her for her first treatment session, and that they weren’t going to talk about it again until then.

  But it was impossible to think about anything else.

  Life without Chris? She had always been there, she had been strong when Faye had just wanted to hide. Now their roles were reversed. Now Chris was going to need her. All of her.

  Faye had money. She had a successful business. She had shown Jack and the rest of the world that she could stand on her own two feet. Maybe she should let the key-logger installed on his computer store his password, everything he wrote, and not do anything about it? Should she simply let go?

  That was impossible. She felt sick at the thought of not following through on her revenge. She couldn’t let go. Didn’t want to let go. What sort of person did that make her? Her best friend was ill. Possibly terminally ill. And she was still thinking about how to crush Jack.

  Fjällbacka – then

  I was twelve years old the first time Dad hit me. Mum had gone to the supermarket, she’d left only moments before. I was sitting at the kitchen table, and Dad was next to me, at the end of the table, immersed in a crossword. I went to turn round but managed to hit the cup. In slow motion I saw it tip over, could feel the impact of my hand.

  The hot chocolate spilled out across Dad’s paper and the almost solved crossword. It was if fate had stepped in, letting me know it was my turn now.

  Dad seemed almost nonchalant as his hand flew out and hit me above the ear. My eyes filled with tears. I heard Sebastian close the door to his room, he wouldn’t dare come out again until Mum was home.

  A second blow followed almost immediately. Dad stood up and this time his hand hit my right cheek. I closed my eyes and searched inside myself, making my way to the welcoming darkness. The way it welcomed me when I went to school and was able to shut out all the shouting and yelling.

  Dad’s palm hit my skin. I was almost shocked by how well I managed to withstand the pain.

  When I heard Mum’s footsteps in the hall I knew it was over. For the time being.

  Faye met Chris at the Karolinska University Hospital. The city was shrouded in low cloud. Stockholm was grey and damp in that way it so often is in autumn. The leaves had started to fall, forming drifts of brown mush on the ground.

  Chris was shivering outside the entrance.

  ‘The worst thing is that I haven’t been allowed to eat anything since yesterday, not even a cup of coffee,’ she muttered, glancing at Faye’s 7-Eleven cup of bad latte.

  Faye tossed it in a green bin.

  ‘You didn’t have to do that,’ Chris said as they passed through the sliding doors.

  ‘We’re in this together, OK?’

  ‘OK,’ Chris said, and gave her a grateful look.

  ‘If it had been me who was ill you’d have cut me open and removed the tumours yourself,’ Faye said. ‘S
adly I’m scared of the sight of blood so I’ll have to make do with keeping you company and not drinking crap coffee. It isn’t much of a price to pay for spending a few hours with my best friend.’

  She pulled Chris towards her. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Like a cancer patient. As for you …’ Chris whispered in her ear, ‘you’re not scared of anything. But thanks for pretending. For my sake.’

  Faye didn’t say anything. Because the only thing she could have said was that she was actually scared. Scared that her best friend was going to die.

  When they left the hospital Chris was so exhausted that Faye had to put her arm round her. Faye wasn’t sure if it was mental or physical exhaustion. She didn’t know anything about cancer. Or cancer treatment.

  Chris would have taken a taxi, but Faye decided to drive her home and spend the night with her. She sent Kerstin a text, and she replied saying that she’d take Julienne to the cinema.

  Chris leaned her head against the window with her eyes half-closed as the city rushed past outside.

  ‘Is Johan at yours?’ Faye asked.

  ‘No, I told him … I told him I’ve got meetings all weekend and haven’t got time to see him.’

  ‘You need to tell him.’

  ‘I know.’

  Chris picked at the car door with a red-varnished nail.

  ‘But I’d like you to meet him first. In case he …’

  ‘In case he what?’

  ‘In case he leaves me.’

  ‘What sort of man would he be if he leaves you?’

  ‘A typical man,’ Chris said with her eyes closed, smiling wearily. ‘You of all people ought to know how it works. Why should Johan be any different?’

  Faye didn’t know what to say, she had thousands of stories from the online forum lodged in her heart like lumps of ice. All the betrayals. All the lies. All the indifference and selfishness. She couldn’t tell Chris she was wrong with anything approaching confidence. No matter how much she wanted to.

  The short walk from the car park to the lift felt endless. When they finally made it into the flat Chris hurried into the bathroom and threw up. Faye held her hair back. Fifteen years had passed since they were last in that situation. It felt like a lifetime ago.