Jack let out a laugh.

“Lebanese or not, you eat everything that’s put in front of you,” he said. “You just shovel it all in.”

Faye looked down at her plate. Was that the image her husband had of her? Someone who gorged herself on anything she could find?

Henrik leaned toward her.

“How are you doing these days?” he said. “You never come up and visit us anymore.”

“No, I think it’s best to leave you in peace at work. You have so much to do.”

“Yes, there is a lot going on. But there’s always time for you.”

“Thanks, Henrik, but it’s best if I leave the two of you to look after yourselves.”

Why did they sound like strangers? Like polite acquaintances who were filling a gap with small talk? She, Jack, and Henrik used to have fun together. Talk about proper subjects. She used to be treated as an equal, occasionally their better when she rapped their knuckles about business structure and financial tools. In the end she was actually the person who came up with the business model that Jack and Henrik based Compare on. Now she felt like a child who was being allowed to sit at the grown-ups’ table.

“Are you ready, Henrik? The taxi will be here any minute.”

Jack stood up, wiping his mouth. He and Henrik were going out to meet some old friends in the city center. They were going to drop her and Julienne off at home on the way. Faye heard her running down the stairs.

“I don’t want to go home,” Julienne said, looking beseechingly at Jack. “I want to stay here.”

“Okay, you can stay here with Mommy, then. You don’t mind, do you, Alice?”

Faye bit her lip. She had been looking forward to getting home and curling up on the sofa in some comfortable clothes with a bottle of wine. Drinking away all her worries about the following day.

“Of course, the kids would love that,” Alice said.

As usual she lit up when she looked at him. More than when she looked at her husband.

“Great,” Jack said, and Julienne rushed back upstairs.

Faye and Alice walked to the door with their husbands.

“Have fun, boys,” Alice said, kissing Henrik on the lips.

“The babysitter’s coming at nine o’clock tomorrow,” Faye said.

“Right. Okay, see you,” Jack said, and disappeared.

They loaded the dishwasher and put the leftover food in the fridge.

“Leave the rest,” Alice said. “The housekeeper can deal with it tomorrow.”

She took out another bottle of wine and they settled down on the sofa in front of the big picture window.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” Alice asked.

“I’ve got a doctor’s appointment, that’s all.”

“Nothing serious?”

“No, nothing serious.”

“It’s sweet of Jack to go with you anyway.”

Faye just murmured in reply.

Alice, with those big Bambi eyes and perfect skin. Was she happy with her life? Was there anything she felt passionate about? Faye couldn’t be bothered to play any more games. They were both trapped in golden cages. Like a couple of peacocks. Even if Faye felt more like one of the scabby pigeons at H?torget these days. Rats with wings, as Chris usually called them with distaste.

Faye didn’t want to talk to a bird in a cage. She wanted to talk to a real person. They drank another couple of glasses.

Alice was telling a fantastically boring story about what her son, Carl, had been getting up to at preschool. Did Alice have anything else in her life apart from Henrik and the children? And the status accorded by their lifestyle? Was there a real person behind all that? Real feelings? Real dreams? Or was there something wrong with Faye, who seemed unable to be content with all this? Most people dreamed of a life like hers. Being able to buy whatever she wanted, not having to work, being successful, having beautiful children, getting invited to the opening of a new Louis Vuitton boutique and being in a position to spend more on a handbag than the average Swede earned in a month.

“What would you have done if you didn’t have Henrik?” she asked.

“How do you mean?”

“What sort of job would you have done?”

Alice thought about the question for a long time. As if it was something she had never thought about before. Eventually she shrugged.

“Interior design, I think. I like making homes beautiful.”

“Why don’t you do it, then?”

Alice hadn’t even designed the interior of her own home. That had been done by an expensive and much-hyped designer with a long list of Liding? villas in his portfolio.

Alice shrugged her shoulders again.

“Then who’d look after the children?”

Faye opened her eyes wide and looked around the living room.

“The same person who does now. The au pair! Honestly, though, don’t you ever dream about doing anything else? Doing what you really want, independent of the children and Henrik? Being your own person?”

She was drunk, she knew that, but she couldn’t stop herself. She wanted to nudge open the door to Alice’s gilded cage, if only for a brief moment. Though they seemed to be living the same life, the differences between them were immense. She had an education to fall back on, and she had made a conscious decision, together with Jack, because they both thought it was for the good of their family. Unlike Alice, she wasn’t dependent upon her husband.

Faye drank some more wine. At least the child would get one hell of a hangover as a parting gift.

A lump rose to her throat and she let out a cough.

“I am my own person,” Alice said. “I don’t want to change anything.”

She moistened her lips. She really was like something out of a fairytale. Her peacock’s feathers were shimmering.

“You’re extremely beautiful,” Faye said.

“Thank you.”

Alice turned toward her with a smile, but Faye wasn’t quite ready to let it go yet.

“Doesn’t it bother you that Henrik would never look at you if you weren’t? That that’s why we’re in this house? Because we deserve to be shown off? Like dolls. Well, I used to be worth showing off, anyway.”

She poured herself more wine, hadn’t even noticed she’d finished the last.

“Stop it. You know very well that that’s not the case.”

“Yes, it is, it very clearly is.”

Alice didn’t answer, but held her glass out for Faye to refill it. The calories in wine evidently didn’t seem to count in Alice’s world.

A silence descended. Faye sighed. From farther inside the house came the sound of children yelling.

“Did you know that I’ve always envied you?” Alice mumbled.

Faye looked at her in surprise. There was something new, something sad in Alice’s eyes. Was this a glimpse of the real Alice?

“No,” she said. “I had no idea.”

“Henrik always speaks so warmly about you, says you’re the smartest woman he’s ever met. You understand the things they talk about, you understand the business. You eat what you like, you drink beer, you make them laugh. It’s probably that—the fact that you can make Henrik laugh—that I’m most envious of. He . . . well, he respects you.”

Faye shifted position. She couldn’t help thinking that a lot of what Alice had said was no longer true. She was describing the past. There was nothing left to envy. Nothing to respect. Sometimes she wondered if there ever had been, or if she had simply conjured up her own imagined version of what it had been like.

Sometimes unwelcome fragments of memory popped up. Of all the times she hadn’t been able to get hold of Jack when she needed him. Some memories, such as Julienne’s birth, were so painful that she daren’t go anywhere near them. So she suppressed them. And forgave. Over and over again.

Faye shifted on the sofa. Put the wineglass down on a side table. Julienne came running in to ask if they could go for a swim in the pool.

“Are Carl and Saga going to go swimming too?” Faye asked, glancing at Alice.

“Yes!” Julienne said emphatically, nodding hard.

When Julienne had gone Alice let out a sigh.

“I know Henrik would never have married me if I hadn’t had my looks and my background. I’m not na?ve. But he makes me happy, and he’s kind to me. I know women who are in a far worse position.” She raised her glass and took a sip. “As a woman in this damn society you’re not allowed to say that you want to be looked after. But that’s what I want. I want Henrik to be the man of the house. I don’t care if he fucks around from time to time.”

She gestured with her arm, almost spilling red wine on the white sofa.

Faye couldn’t take her eyes off her.

All of Jack’s stories about Henrik’s affairs, how had she ever thought they were funny? She had never imagined that Alice knew about them. Poor, beautiful Alice, who had given away her rights.

“Alice, I . . .” Her conscience was throbbing behind her temples.