The Golden Cage

by Camilla Lackberg

  “Two beers,” he said to the waiter. “To start with.”

  Alice and Iris rolled their eyes.

  “How has he managed to get a table here?” Alice murmured. “This place is really starting to take risks.”

  Iris shifted position uncomfortably, and her stiff, gold Cartier bracelets rattled.

  Faye looked over at John Descentis. She had been planning Jack’s birthday party for a while now, and he’d be delighted if John Descentis performed at it. She stood up. With Alice and Iris looking on in horror, she made her way to the singer’s table.

  “Sorry to disturb you. My name’s Faye.”

  John Descentis looked her up and down.

  “Hello, Faye,” he said with a crooked smile. “Don’t worry, you’re not disturbing us at all.”

  “It’s my husband Jack’s birthday on the fourth of May, and I’m organizing a party at Hasselbacken. He worships you. I was wondering if you might be free then and would be interested in coming by to sing a few songs?”

  “Jack Adelheim? The entrepreneur?”

  The black-haired girl pursed her lips, but John had straightened up.

  Faye smiled at him.

  “Yes, that’s him, he runs a company called Compare.”

  “I know very well who he is. Sure, no problem. I didn’t know he liked my stuff.”

  “He has ever since he was a teenager. He’s got all your albums. On vinyl, no less!”

  Faye laughed.

  “That’s probably not the sort of thing you boast about in interviews with the business press,” John said.

  The girl sighed audibly, got up from the table, and announced in a monotone that she was going to the bathroom.

  Faye sat down on the vacated seat. She was tempted to drink the beer the waiter had just put down on the table, but controlled herself. From the corner of her eye she could see Alice and Iris staring at her.

  She couldn’t wait to tell Jack. She should probably keep it a secret, make it a surprise, but she knew herself too well to think that was going to happen.

  “Can I…would it be okay to take your number? Then I can call you about the details. And we can talk about a fee, and so on.”

  “Sure, tell me your number and I’ll send you a text.”

  He tapped out a message to her and formed his lips into a smile that still had some of his old charm. Rumor had it that he had succumbed to more than just alcohol and had been in rehab several times, but right now he didn’t seem to be on anything.

  Faye’s mobile buzzed. She glanced at the text and saw a winking smile emoji as she returned to her table.

  “What did you say to him?” Alice whispered, though she had probably heard every word.

  If Faye hadn’t known that she’d had Botox injected into her forehead, she could almost have sworn she saw a worried frown there.

  “He’s going to perform at Jack’s birthday party.”

  “Him?” Alice balked.

  “Yes, him. John Descentis. Jack loves him.”

  “Jack won’t like it,” Alice said. “There’ll be a lot of business contacts there. It won’t look good.”

  “I know what my husband likes and doesn’t like, Alice. You take care of your family and I’ll take care of mine!”

  * * *

  • • •

  Faye clutched her coat more tightly around her when she finally emerged from Riche. Blasts of ice-cold wind were blowing from Nybroviken. The sky was gray. People were hurrying past, hunched over. Schuterman’s seventy percent off sale was coming to an end, and the shop was starting to look empty.

  She had an hour before she had to be home to relieve the babysitter. She had just set off toward Stureplan when a nail-varnish-red Porsche Boxster braked sharply, making the driver of the Taxi Stockholm cab behind it blow his horn angrily.

  The window glided open and Chris Nydahl leaned across the passenger seat with one arm resting on the wheel.

  “Can I offer you a lift, darling?” she said with an exaggeratedly sleazy voice.

  Jack hated Chris and Faye looked around anxiously. But the Gucci-clad clothes-horses were still in Riche, probably reeling in shock at her behavior, and all of a sudden Faye realized how much she had missed Chris. Her raw sense of humor, her laughter and outrageous anecdotes about meaningless sex and long nights partying. They had been inseparable once upon a time.

  Faye opened the door and jumped in. The leather, leopard-skin-patterned seat creaked as she made herself comfortable.

  “Nice car,” she said. “Very low-key.”

  Chris gathered together the shopping bags from the passenger footwell and tossed them carelessly into the cramped space behind them. Another car blew its horn.

  “Dickhead,” Chris said, giving the driver the finger in the rearview mirror before driving off.

  Faye shook her head and laughed. She always felt ten years younger when she was with Chris.

  “What’s the point of having a fuck-load of money if you can never tell people to fuck off?” Chris muttered, glancing in the mirror.

  “Where do you get it all from?”

  “I heard that particular line in a television program.”

  She turned to look at Faye, who would rather she kept her eyes on the road.

  “How long have you got before you have to get back to your wifely duties and all the other stuff you’re going to regret when you’re old and incontinent?”

  Faye clutched her seat belt in alarm when Chris appeared not to notice that the lights in front of them had turned red.

  “About an hour.”

  “Great.”

  Without warning, Chris wrenched the wheel and did a U-turn, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with a bus. Faye gripped her seat belt even tighter.

  “We’re going to Djurgården,” Chris said. It was all Faye could do to nod.

  * * *

  • • •

  They found a restaurant that was open and ordered coffee. As usual, Chris seemed completely unconcerned by the looks the other customers were shooting her. Chris had a column in Elle where she wrote about female entrepreneurs, and was a regular guest on TV talk shows. Last week she had been on Malou’s program on TV4.

  After graduation (unlike Faye, she had completed her degree), Chris opened her first hair salon in what would become the Queen group, a hair-care empire built on the idea that all women deserved to feel like royalty. She had originally trained to be a hairstylist, and used that as a way to earn an income while she was studying to become an economist. The first time she met Faye she had declared that she wanted to establish an empire of her own. Five years after she graduated there were ten Queen salons, located in some of the biggest cities in Scandinavia. But she had earned most of her money from the products she had developed. They were ecologically sound, top quality, and beautifully packaged, and—thanks to Chris’s winning personality as a saleswoman—could now be found in major retailers throughout Europe. She had recently started to dip her toes in the lucrative U.S. market.

  “I don’t understand how you can bear to have lunch with that desiccated mummy and her funeral cortege every week.”

  “Alice? She’s not that bad…”

  Faye knew that Chris knew she was lying. But Jack would never forgive her if she took Chris’s side against Alice.

  While she was a student Chris had had a brief but intense fling with Henrik, Alice’s husband. Faye, Jack, Chris, and Henrik had been an inseparable quartet. But one day Chris opened the paper to find a notice announcing Henrik’s engagement to Alice. He had chosen breeding, money, and docility over love.

  In the years that had passed since then Chris had merely used men as a disposable resource. Faye knew Chris had been deeply hurt, and suspected that she was still mourning the loss of Henrik, even if she would never admit it. But Jack ha
d told Faye about everything that had gone on under the harmonious surface, about Henrik’s many dalliances. He had always been shy, but with the passage of time and as his fortune grew, he had become a changed man, and seemed desperate to make up for lost time. Or, as Jack usually put it, “Henrik will fuck anything with a pulse.”

  “Well, if you say so,” Chris said. “But don’t you think it’s a bit odd?”

  “What?”

  “That in spite of all the millions Henrik has showered her with, she can’t afford to find someone to remove that broom handle from her ass.”

  Faye sniggered.

  “Seriously, though, Faye, I don’t understand how you can bear it. I know how big a role you played in setting up Compare, the whole damn idea for it was yours, and you helped Henrik and Jack set up the structure of the company. But that’s not what comes across in the business magazines when they’re boasting about their success. Their success, not yours. Why should you have to stay at home spending your time…well, God knows what you spend your time doing! It’s a waste of resources! You’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, and that includes all the time I spend with myself.”

  She smiled, but it was a strained smile. She opened her mouth to go on but Faye interrupted her.

  “Stop it. I love my life.”

  Her throat felt tight with anger, like the reflux she’d suffered during the last months of pregnancy. She adored Chris, but she couldn’t stand it when she tried to talk shit about Jack, twisting things to make them look different from reality. Chris didn’t appreciate everything Jack did for her and Julienne. She didn’t see the sacrifices he made for their sake, all the difficult choices he had to make, all the time he had to devote to the business. And what did it matter if she didn’t get credit for the work she had done setting up Compare? Jack knew. So did Henrik. That was enough.

  It was better for the company if the myth of Jack and Henrik and their unique partnership became even more established. But Chris didn’t have a family, she was too busy jumping from one man to the next. She didn’t understand what it was like to be responsible for a whole family. The sacrifices that demanded. Chris never compromised on anything.

  “I hope you’re right,” Chris said. “But what would happen if he left you? Like I said, you’re one of the smartest people I know. How could you agree to sign that prenuptial agreement? Tell me at least that you’ve had it amended since Julienne was born? To give you a bit more security? Just in case?”

  Faye smiled. It was actually very sweet of Chris to worry about her like this.

  She shook her head. “That was Henrik’s idea, not Jack’s. Obviously Jack didn’t want a prenuptial agreement, but the shareholders demanded it.”

  “If you get divorced you won’t get anything. Nada.”

  Chris was speaking slowly and clearly. Like she was talking to a child. Who did she think she was? Just because she hadn’t managed to find anyone like Jack.

  Faye took a couple of deep breaths before responding.

  “We’re not going to get divorced. We’re happier than we’ve ever been. You’re going to have to accept that it’s my life and I live it the way I like.”

  Chris said nothing for a while, then held her hands up disarmingly. “Sorry, you’re right, I should keep my big nose out of it!”

  She smiled that smile that was impossible to resist. And Faye knew that Chris meant well. She didn’t want to fall out with her.

  “Let’s talk about something fun instead. How about going off somewhere together one weekend? Just you and me?”

  “That would be great,” Faye said, looking at the time. She needed to get going now. “I’d have to check with Jack first though.”

  She blew Chris a kiss as she called for a taxi.

  As she ran out, she was aware of Chris watching her.

  STOCKHOLM, AUGUST 2001

  I LAY IN BED writing in my diary, recording all my feelings. It was such a liberation that Matilda no longer existed. No one knew her from before. No one knew anything about what had happened. If anyone asked, I told them that my parents were dead. Car accident. And that I didn’t have any brothers or sisters. Which was true enough. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters. Not anymore.

  But sometimes Sebastian would come to me in my dreams. Always out of reach. Always just beyond my outstretched arms. I could still smell him when I closed my eyes.

  I always woke up in a sweat when I’d been dreaming about Sebastian. I could see him so clearly in my mind’s eye. His dark hair and clear blue eyes. He looked a lot like Dad even though their personalities were so different. It usually took me a while to get back to sleep again.

  But my new identity as Faye gave me strength. For the time being I was keeping it secret from Viktor. I wasn’t sure he’d understand. But everyone else got to meet my new, confident self, who had nothing in common with Matilda. My chief concern had been that the letters from prison could no longer reach me. I’d never opened a single one. But I remembered the terror I felt when I saw Dad’s handwriting on the envelopes. Now he no longer knew where I was, he couldn’t contact me. He no longer existed. He belonged to Matilda’s world.

  I reached for my handbag, tucked my diary in the inside pocket, and zipped it closed.

  If it wasn’t for the dreams, I might have been able to believe my own lie about the past being dead and buried. Sebastian came to me at night. Alive to start with, with those penetrating eyes that could see so deep. Then dangling from the rope.

  Sunday morning. Faye was hurrying to clear up after Julienne’s breakfast so that Jack didn’t have to see the chaos left in her wake. Okay, she might not actually turn the kitchen into Pearl Harbor, but Faye could see what Jack meant about it not being pleasant to walk into a messy kitchen in the morning.

  She had decided not to trouble Jack with the idea of going away for a weekend with Chris. It would only lead to irritation and arguing.

  Though she hadn’t wanted to admit it to Chris, she and Jack were going through a rough patch. The same thing happened to all couples. Jack’s work made such colossal demands of him, and she was hardly the first woman in the world to feel that her husband’s job got the best of him. Obviously she wished he had more time and energy. Both for her and for Julienne. But she quickly shrugged off such thoughts. She belonged to the upper echelon of what was arguably the most well-off country in the world. She didn’t have to work, didn’t have to worry about the bills, or preschool pickup times, or tiresome chores—there was an army of nannies and maids ready to help with everything. She could shop till she dropped and then have her purchases delivered by courier so she wouldn’t have to carry them.

  Jack, on the other hand, had a huge number of responsibilities, responsibilities that sometimes made him curt and cold. Toward her, anyway. But she knew it was only temporary. In a few years they’d have more time for each other. They’d be free to make the most of life, go traveling. Fulfill their dreams.

  “Do you think I enjoy having to work this hard?” he would say. “Of course I’d rather be at home with you and Julienne, never having to worry about how to pay the bills. But soon it’ll be you and me, darling.”

  It may have been a while since he had last said that. But the promise was there. She believed him.

  Julienne was lying on the sofa with her iPad on her lap. Faye had connected the wireless headphones so she wouldn’t disturb Jack. He never slept very soundly, so Faye had taught their daughter to be as quiet as possible in the morning.

  She settled down on the sofa next to her daughter and brushed a strand of hair from her face, noting without surprise that Julienne was watching Frozen for the thousandth time. She turned the television on to watch breakfast news, with the volume turned down low. She liked feeling Julienne’s warm body against her, the closeness between them.

  The bedroom door opened and Faye heard Jack walking toward
the kitchen. She listened carefully to his steps, trying to gauge what sort of mood he was in. She held her breath.

  Jack cleared his throat.

  “Can you come here?” he said in his groggy just-woken-up voice.

  Faye hurried into the kitchen. Smiled at him.

  “What’s this?” he said, gesturing with his hand.

  “What?”

  She hated not understanding, the sense that they were failing to communicate. It had always been Jack and Faye. Equals. A team, who knew each other inside out.

  “This isn’t the sort of counter you can make a sandwich on,” Jack said, running his hand over the marble. “Not me, anyway!”

  He held his hand up. A few crumbs were stuck to his palm.

  How could she be so stupid? So careless. She knew better than that.

  Faye grabbed the dishcloth. Her heart was beating so hard that it was pulsing in her ears. She wiped away the remaining crumbs, caught them in her other hand, and threw them in the drainer. After a quick glance at Jack she turned the tap on and rinsed the drainer with the dish brush.

  She hung the dishcloth up and put the dish brush in the stylish silver holder.

  Jack hadn’t moved.

  “Would you like coffee, darling?” she asked.

  She opened the cupboard containing the Nespresso capsules and automatically took out two of the purple ones, Jack’s favorites. One lungo, one espresso in the same cup, with a dash of frothed milk. Jack liked his coffee strong.

  He turned his head and looked into the living room.

  “Every time I see her she’s crouched over a screen. You need to make more of an effort. Read to her, play with her.”

  A few drops of coffee ran down the white cup. Faye wiped them off with her finger and put the cup in Jack’s hand. He barely seemed to notice.

  “You know what Henrik told me? Saga and Carl aren’t allowed to use their iPads more than an hour a day. Instead they go to museums, have piano lessons, tennis coaching, read books. Saga goes to ballet as well, three times a week, at Anneli Alhanko’s School of Dance.”