The Golden Cage Read online

  The last page had a picture of Jack taken in the office. He was bent over his desk, deep in conversation, as he pointed to a document. Beside him, closest to the camera, stood Ylva Lehndorf, dressed in a pale-blue pencil skirt, her hair pulled into a tight ponytail.

  Ylva had made her name in publishing. She’d managed to turn figures that were deeply in the red back to black. She had made the business more efficient, had come up with new solutions, had challenged those who insisted “but this is what we’ve always done.” She changed structures and broke down walls. Faye had met her at a party three years ago and Ylva had mentioned that she was looking for a fresh challenge. Her ambition and quick wits had impressed Faye, and two weeks later, on Faye’s recommendation, Jack had offered her a job. One year later she had been appointed finance director of Compare. It looked good to have a woman in senior management, as Faye had pointed out to Jack. It couldn’t be her, because they had made the joint decision that she should stay at home with Julienne for those first few years.

  Faye ran her finger across the picture, along Ylva’s figure, down her spine, her backside, her thin, suntanned legs, all the way down to her black pumps. She was everything Faye had dreamed of becoming. The age gap separating them was only five years, but it might as well have been twenty. And instead of being in the heat of the action in an office, beautiful and successful, here she was sitting in Mocco, drinking unpleasant green tea and dreaming about the Danish pastries on the counter. She closed the newspaper unhappily. She had made her choice. For Jack. For their family.

  * * *

  • • •

  Faye was lying on a yoga mat in a set of new exercise clothes doing the pissing dog in front of the television when Jack came home. He tossed his briefcase aside and stopped behind her. The room filled with the smell of cologne and alcohol. Faye finished her exercise, got to her feet, and walked up to him. When she tried to give him a kiss he turned his head away.

  “Did you have a good time?” she said. The knot in her stomach was back.

  Jack snatched the remote from the coffee table and switched off the television, and the YouTube video of yoga for beginners disappeared.

  “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 toward her clothes. The knot in her stomach grew.

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

  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 scale out from under the sink 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 scale back under the sink 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 use 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 twent
y-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 park. 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 toward 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 apartment in Gärdet, seeing as I never spent any time in the one-room sublet apartment on Villagatan that I’d just gotten hold of.

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

  I looked around 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 my place on the way and sort ourselves out. We stink.”

  Chris was subletting a single-room apartment at Sankt Eriksplan. There were clothes scattered across every one of its four hundred square feet. 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 gotten into the School of Economics, the answer was on the table. Tossed nonchalantly among the bills and ads lay the results of her high school exams. She’d gotten 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 underwear. “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 of 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 favor 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 gray cloth.

  “What is it, a tea towel?” I said skeptically, 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 around. 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 gotten off the bus from Skara.”

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

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

  * * *

  • • •

  An hour later we pushed through the doorway 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 toward 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 favor. 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 toward 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 did 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 toward 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 babysitter 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 home late.

  Johanna sat down on the other side of Julienne, put her arm around 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, hopi
ng 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 whiskey. 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 whiskey 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 whiskey down in front of him. Nudged it toward him with two fingers. He looked up in surprise. Bloodshot, tired eyes.

  “What is it?”

  She backed away and spun around. 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 shown 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 whiskey, 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.