Jack was standing in the doorway. The expression on his face switched quickly from surprise to suspicion.
Faye thought quickly. She smiled at Jack. Submissively. Apologetically.
‘I … I just wanted to see how you’d furnished your study. You know I always loved this desk. I suppose I was curious to know if you’d kept it.’
He processed the information. Appeared to conclude that she was same naïve, pathetic creature she had always been.
‘Why?’
‘Oh, this is so silly,’ she said, looking down at the floor. ‘Sorry, I know I shouldn’t be in here, this is your home, it’s not right, but I got a bit nostalgic …’
She took a step towards the door but when she was about to pass him he grabbed hold of her wrist. She almost dropped the USB-stick from her hand.
‘Why did you want to see how I’d furnished my study?’ he asked with a smile as he pulled her towards him.
She smelled that familiar scent again. His hard penis pressed against her hip and against her will she felt herself getting wet.
‘Do you miss me? Is that what this nostalgia of yours is all about?’ Jack whispered hoarsely in her ear.
‘Jack, stop it,’ she murmured.
But he ignored her protests. His eyes were blazing. He didn’t like it when she objected. The old Faye had never said no, was more likely to beg and plead for him to touch her, to notice her.
His voice became scornful but he didn’t let go of her.
‘So little Faye has had her tits done to get more attention in bars. Have you missed getting fucked by a real man? Is that why you’ve come here, begging to be fucked? I’ve heard all about the way you’ve been behaving. Going home with one man after the other. No, not men. Boys. How many have you had sex with since we split up, Faye? Have any of their cocks been bigger than mine? I bet you’ve had more than one at a time as well.’
His own words were making him pant, his cock grew harder against her hip, pressing against her. Faye’s body responded, and she let it, so that she could protect the USB-stick. She didn’t protest when he unzipped her dress and pulled it down to her waist. He tore her bra off. Ran his fingers over her breasts. Squeezed them hard. They had healed well, but she didn’t have any feeling in the scar-tissue, so his touch felt rather odd.
‘Little Faye, who just wants to be fucked.’
Jack turned her round. Grabbed the hem of her dress and hoisted it up over her hips. Undid his trousers. He pushed her forward, over the desk that once belonged to Ingmar Bergman, and pressed into her. She gasped. Felt invaded.
‘You like that, don’t you?’ he snarled. ‘Being fucked from behind like some horny secretary. You might be a managing director now, but you still like getting fucked like a whore. Is this what they do to you, Faye? Do they take you like this? Those young guys? Do they turn you round and fuck you from behind?’
He was panting harder now, and kicked her legs further apart so he could push deeper, pressing her down on the desk with his right hand coiled hard in her hair.
His movements grew rougher. Faye held onto the desk with the hand that wasn’t holding the USB-stick. She groaned girlishly, she knew he liked that. With her left cheek pressed against the desk she stared at the photograph of Ylva’s serious, black-and-white face.
He reached his climax. Faye felt a stab of pain as he pressed in further. He groaned one last time, pulled out, took a step back and fastened his trousers. She lay there for a few seconds before standing up and pulling her dress down.
‘You’ve always been a first-class fuck,’ Jack said. ‘I’ve missed this.’
He smiled at her, pointed at her breasts, which were still exposed, flushed, with large, swollen nipples.
‘They’ve turned out really well, I like them.’
Jack looked full of confidence. Order had been restored. He had conquered her, reclaimed what was his, at least for a while. She let him believe that.
Without letting go of the USB-stick she slipped her arms back into the top half of the dress and pulled it up over her shoulders. Then she turned her back on Jack and held her hair up so he could fasten the zip. Seconds later he was gone.
When Faye walked back into the tent the girls in their expensive designer dresses were standing up and singing Happy Birthday. Sean and Ville were leading the singing.
Ylva glanced over at her. She looked suspicious but resigned. Her skin had taken on a greenish pallor in the heat of the tent and she looked like she felt sick, her blonde hair hanging limply. She pointed at Julienne, who was now wearing a sparkling crown.
When everyone in the tent had given three cheers Jack appeared beside Ylva, kissed her on the cheek and put his arm round her. Ylva relaxed. Faye couldn’t hold back a smirk. She could feel Jack’s semen slowly trickling out of her, down the inside of her thighs.
Fjällbacka – then
Mum was whimpering down in the kitchen but I couldn’t get up from my bed, couldn’t stop Dad’s blows from hitting their target. Instead I let the darkness envelope all my anxiety, shut out all my fear.
Autumn would soon be here and Dad would do worse things to Mum. To me and Sebastian. It felt like the stormy autumns never ended, with Dad like a raging animal trapped in a cage with his prey. We all circled round each other: a small, isolated unit in a small, isolated town.
Sometimes I dreamed that someone would come and save us. Everyone knew, after all. Even if they had no idea how bad it was, they knew enough. Why didn’t anyone come and save us? Free us? But everyone sheepishly averted their gaze, blind to the bruises and cuts. None of the teachers ever said anything. None of the doctors at the clinic ever commented on the injuries Mum, Sebastian and I showed up with. Last winter Mum had to get medical help eight times. A dislocated shoulder. A fractured wrist. A cracked jaw. No one questioned her stories about clumsy falls down cellar steps, the doors of kitchen cupboards suddenly flying open to attack her. Everyone shut their eyes.
What would this winter be like?
Mum’s crying grew even louder when my door opened and closed. Sebastian padded over to my bed and curled up next to me. He fell asleep snuggled up beside me, like a dog seeking warmth. But I found no comfort in his presence. No one needed to tell me that the only person I could find comfort in was myself. I had found that out the hard way.
I was stronger than they were. Especially Sebastian.
Sebastian’s breathing merged with the sound of the sea raging outside. The last of the summer visitors had left for the season. They all pretended not to hear the screams from our house, one of the few that was inhabited all year round. Presumably they didn’t want anything unpleasant to disturb their summer holiday. In a way I could understand that. But I couldn’t help wondering if they ever spared a thought for the children in the next house when they shut their summer pleasures away and went back to their nice homes in Gothenburg. Probably not.
Once Faye had dropped Julienne off at school the next day she shut herself away in her office, opened her laptop and went through the file from the key-logger. It took her ten minutes to find the new password for Jack’s Gmail account: venividivici3848.
She hadn’t told anyone about what had happened in his study. No matter how much she might have hated having to play the role of desperate little Faye, she hadn’t had any choice. Jack mustn’t be allowed to get suspicious, she’d had to go along with him to prevent him from finding the USB-stick that had been scorching her hand. But she couldn’t deny that she had enjoyed feeling Jack inside her again. That troubled her. Annoyed her. That was a crack in her armour that she couldn’t afford.
Faye logged into his Gmail account, scrolled through the files and found what she was looking for. She downloaded everything, calmly and methodically.
Everything she needed was there.
She spent the rest of the morning going through the text file in minute detail, tracking everything he’d been doing on his computer. His porn searches for ‘young girl’, ‘teen’ and ‘petite’,
banter with Henrik about the ‘slag’ he’d had sex with in the office, and mockery of a female employee’s weight. It could all come in useful one day.
Faye packed her new laptop away and told Kerstin she was going out. She went and sat in Starbucks at Stureplan and carried on looking through the documents. Compare was going to be floated on the stock market on Tuesday the following week. That gave her plenty of time to work out a precise plan of how to use what she’d found. She’d probably be in a position to set everything in motion on Friday. Four days from now.
Her mobile buzzed. It was Jack. Can’t stop thinking how much fun we had. Do you want to meet up? he wrote.
She considered how she should reply. Things had started to move faster than she had expected. She needed to keep him interested until it was time for the final step. She thought for a while longer, then tapped a quick message and pressed ‘send’.
Chris was drinking apple juice at a table on the upper floor of the Sture Bathhouse. The air was humid. Pensioners wrapped in white towelling dressing-gowns were eating two-hundred-kronor salads, all to the accompaniment of the water lapping in the pools below.
Faye pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down.
‘Why did you want to meet here?’ she asked.
Chris looked up in surprise.
‘Oh, hi. I didn’t see you. I don’t know. The sound makes me feel calmer somehow. It’s like being in a great big womb.’
Faye looked at her as she hung her jacket on the back of the chair. There was a distant look in Chris’s eyes.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Today’s a good day,’ she said. ‘But then I haven’t had to go to the hospital. I’m having dinner with Johan tonight.’
‘What did he say when you told him?’
Chris looked down at the tabletop.
‘I haven’t told him. I … I can’t do it. I can’t lose him.’
Her eyes filled with shame. And fear. That frightened Faye. She had never seen Chris look ashamed before. Never seen her show any fear.
She took her friend’s hand.
‘Oh, sweetie, I understand. Would it be easier if I was there when you told him? Just … well, just in case.’
Chris nodded slowly.
‘Would you do that?’
‘Of course I would, if it would make it easier for you.’
‘I hate to be a nuisance, but I feel so weak, so helpless. The few hours when I manage to be myself are so exhausting that all I can do when I’m not with Johan is sit around. Who’d have thought this was where I’d end up spending my last days. At the Sture Bathhouse.’
And with that she smiled a real smile. A trace of the real Chris, Faye thought, and smiled back.
The school where Johan worked was a big red-brick building on Valhallavägen. A few boys and girls the same age as Julienne were hanging around the gates. They looked over as Faye and Chris got out of the taxi and walked into the schoolyard.
They entered a long corridor full of turquoise lockers. There was no one in sight.
‘Do you know where he is?’ Faye asked.
‘No, but there should be some sort of lunch-break now, shouldn’t there?’
Faye looked at the time. Midday. At that moment the classroom doors ahead of them opened in a synchronized movement and the pupils streamed out. She grabbed a spotty teenager in a cap and padded jacket and asked if he knew where Johan the Swedish-language teacher was.
‘Johan Sjölander,’ Chris added.
He shook his head and walked off.
They pushed up against the lockers to avoid being sent flying by a group of very noisy boys.
‘Try calling him.’
Chris put her mobile to her right ear and covered her left ear with the other hand. She turned away when he answered.
The corridor started to empty. Faye found being back in school unsettling. The height differences, the insecure, flitting eyes, the hierarchies. The tensions were all on the surface, ready to snap at the slightest provocation. Matilda had tried to move through corridors like this as invisibly as possible, but it had never worked. Everyone always knew who she was. Everyone knew what had happened.
Chris tapped her on the shoulder.
‘He’s meeting us outside.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He seemed … surprised that I was here. And pleased.’
She sounded nervous and excited at the same time. They followed the stream of pupils through a glass door, down the steps into the schoolyard again, and found a free bench close to some bushes.
‘How are you feeling?’ Faye asked.
‘Nervous.’
‘It’s going to be fine. Absolutely fine.’
Chris nodded but didn’t seem convinced. A door opened and a tall, thin man in jeans and a checked shirt came out. His blond hair was unkempt. He caught sight of them and headed in their direction with a broad smile on his lips. There was something very open, generous about him, Faye liked him immediately. He was nothing like the other men Faye had seen Chris with over the years. She took this as a definite plus. Chris had never been good at choosing men, but Faye had a feeling that Johan was very different.
‘Chris,’ he said brightly. ‘Great to see you! What are you doing here?’
Chris leapt to her feet and hugged him. When they separated he turned to Faye.
‘You must be the famous Faye. Lovely to meet you at last. I was starting to wonder if you were Chris’s imaginary friend.’
She shook his outstretched hand. He must have realized that their visit wasn’t quite as cheerful as he had thought at first, because an anxious look appeared on his face.
‘Is everything OK?’ he asked.
‘Perhaps we should sit down,’ Faye said, gesturing towards the bench.
Chris sat between them. She took a deep breath, hesitated, but Faye nudged her gently with her elbow. Chris glared at her, then took Johan’s hand.
‘Johan, there’s something I need to tell you …’ she began, and Faye nodded encouragingly. ‘I’m ill. I’ve got cancer. The sort it’s hard to do anything about.’
Her words came out quickly, and were almost unintelligible. But Johan’s face revealed that he’d heard what she’d said. His mouth opened to say something, then closed again. He took a deep breath and nodded.
‘I know,’ he said slowly.
‘You do?’ Faye and Chris exclaimed in unison.
‘I saw the note about your chemotherapy appointment in your flat.’
‘Why didn’t you say?’
‘Because … I thought it was up to you if you wanted to tell me or not. I assumed you would when you felt ready.’
Chris wrapped her arms round him.
‘And you … you don’t want to leave me? If you did, I’d understand.’
The fear in her eyes was so great that Faye broke into a cold sweat.
But Johan laughed and shook his head. A fractured, ragged laugh, but still a laugh.
‘Bloody hell, darling. It would take a hell of a lot more than cancer to make me leave you. I’ve never been with anyone who makes me as happy as you do.’
‘But I might die. I’m more likely to die than survive.’
Johan nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes, you might. And if you do, my ugly face will be the last thing you see.’
Around them children were yelling and shouting, full of hope for the future, good and bad times alike ahead of them. Triumphs and mistakes. Chris ought to have plenty of mistakes left, she had always been world-class when it came to mistakes. She’d always said bad mistakes were what made life worth living.
Faye turned away so Chris wouldn’t see her tears. From the corner of her eye she saw Chris lean against Johan as she explained the current situation. In spite of the terrible circumstances, it was the most beautiful conversation Faye had ever heard. And Chris smiled like a child whenever Johan so much as opened his mouth. Faye wondered how Jack would have reacted if she’d told him anything like this. Jack didn’t like illne
ss. Or weakness. He’d be gone before the end of the first sentence, on his way towards fresh adventures.
Faye got up to leave them alone but Johan asked her to stay. He turned to Chris.
‘OK, you’ve had your say, so now I want to say something that I’ve been holding back. And it’s probably best if Faye stays, seeing as you might leave me after this, and then I’d need someone to give me a hug.’
Chris looked worried, and Faye felt annoyed. Now wasn’t the time to confess to any indiscretions or whatever else he was going to say. She got ready to drag Chris away from there.
But Johan put his hand in his pocket and pulled something out, then he got down on one knee in front of Chris and held both her hands. Something was glinting between his fingers and Faye’s heart started to thud. She glanced at Chris, who looked totally uncomprehending. Her anger faded as quickly as it had arisen, and she broke out in goosebumps all over. Johan only had eyes for Chris as he knelt there on the tarmac of the schoolyard. Some of the children seemed to have realized something was going on, like dogs scenting a treat, and stopped to watch in small groups.
But in Johan’s world there was no one but him and Chris. He cleared his throat:
‘Chris, you’re the most wonderful person I’ve ever met, you’re the kindest and smartest person I’ve ever encountered. I love you so, so much. Right from the very first time I saw you. If you hadn’t followed me to Farsta I was planning to go back to the salon the next day, to get a Mohican of my own, or God knows what. This ring …’ He held out a sparkling engagement ring. ‘I bought this ring four days after we met. I’ve kept it on me ever since. I didn’t want to look like a lunatic by getting it out too early, but for me there’s never been any such thing as too early with you. So now I’ve kept hold of it for far too long. So I was wondering if you might consent to wear it on your finger? I guess what I’m asking is … will you marry me?’
The children around them started to whoop and cheer. A few let out wolf-whistles. One girl yelled:
The Gilded Cage Page 23
