Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

by Gail Honeyman

  I swallowed hard, suddenly finding it difficult to speak. “I’ll return later in the week, then, with comestibles,” I said eventually. “I promise.” Sammy nodded.

  “Cheers then, big man,” Raymond said, placing a meaty hand on Sammy’s shoulder. “See you soon, eh?”

  Sammy waved to us as we made our way out of the ward, and was still waving and smiling as we turned the corner and headed toward the lift.

  Neither of us spoke until we got outside.

  “What a lovely guy, eh?” Raymond said, somewhat redundantly.

  I nodded, trying to hold on to the feeling of my hands in his, cozy and safe, and the look of kindness and warmth in his eyes. I found, to my extreme consternation, that nascent tears were forming in my eyes, and I turned away to rub them before they could spill over. Annoyingly, Raymond, usually the least observant of men, had noticed.

  “What are you doing for the rest of the day, Eleanor?” Raymond asked gently. I looked at my watch. It was almost four.

  “I suppose I’ll return home, perhaps read for a while,” I said. “There’s a radio program on later where people write in to request excerpts of items they’ve enjoyed during the week. That can often be reasonably entertaining.”

  I was also thinking that I might buy some more vodka, just a half bottle, to top up what remained. I yearned for that brief, sharp feeling I get when I drink it—a sad, burning feeling—and then, blissfully, no feelings at all. I had also seen the date on Sammy’s newspaper and remembered that today was, in fact, my birthday. Annoyingly, I’d forgotten to ask the nurse where she had purchased her wasp socks—those could have been my present to myself. I decided that I might buy some freesias instead. I have always loved their delicate scent and the softness of their colors—they have a kind of subdued luminosity which is much more beautiful than a garish sunflower or a clichéd red rose.

  Raymond was looking at me. “I’m going to my mum’s now,” he said.

  I nodded, blew my nose and zipped up my jerkin in preparation for the journey home.

  “Listen—d’you fancy coming with me?” Raymond said, just as I was turning toward the gate.

  Under no circumstances, was my immediate thought.

  “I go over most Sundays,” he went on. “She doesn’t get out much—I’m sure she’d love to see a new face.”

  “Even one like mine?” I said. I couldn’t imagine that anyone would take any particular pleasure in looking at my face, either for the first or for the thousand and first time. Raymond ignored me and began to rummage in his pockets.

  I thought about his suggestion while he lit up another cigarette. I could still purchase vodka and birthday flowers on the way home, after all, and it might be interesting to see the inside of another person’s home. I tried to think of the last time I had done so. I had stood in the hallway of my downstairs neighbors’ flat a couple of years ago, when I was delivering a parcel I’d taken in for them. The place had smelled strongly of onions, and there was an ugly standard lamp in the corner. A few years before that, one of the receptionists had hosted a party at her flat and invited all the women from work. It was a beautiful flat, a traditional tenement with stained glass and mahogany and elaborate cornices. The “party,” however, had merely been a pretext, a ruse of sorts to provide her with the opportunity to attempt to sell us sex toys. It was a most unedifying spectacle: seventeen drunken women comparing the efficacy of a range of alarmingly large vibrators. I left after ten minutes, having downed a tepid glass of Pinot Grigio and parried an outrageously impertinent question from a cousin of the host about my private life.

  I’m familiar with the concept of bacchanalia and Dionysian revels, of course, but it strikes me as utterly bizarre that women should want to spend an evening together drinking and purchasing such items, and, indeed, that this should pass as “entertainment.” Sexual union between lovers should be a sacred, private thing. It should not be a topic for discussion with strangers over a display of edible underwear. When the musician and I spent our first night together, the joining of our bodies would mirror the joining of our minds, our souls. His otherness, the flash of dark hair in his armpit, the buttons of bone at his clavicle. The blood scent in the crook of his elbow. The warm softness of his lips, as he takes me in his arms and . . .

  “Erm, Eleanor? Hello? I was just saying . . . we’ll need to go now to catch the bus, if you’re coming to Mum’s?”

  I dragged myself back to the unwelcome present and the squat figure of Raymond, with his grubby hooded sweatshirt and dirty training shoes. Perhaps Raymond’s mother would prove intelligent and charming company. I doubted it, based on the evidence of her progeny, but one never knew.

  “Yes, Raymond. I will accompany you to your mother’s house,” I said.

  10

  Of course Raymond didn’t have a car. I would guess he was in his midthirties, but there was something adolescent, not fully formed, about him. It was partly the way he dressed, of course. I had yet to see him in normal, leather footwear; he wore training shoes at all times, and seemed to own a wide range of colors and styles. I have often noticed that people who routinely wear sportswear are the least likely sort to participate in athletic activity.

  Sport is a mystery to me. In primary school, sports day was the one day of the year when the less academically gifted students could triumph, winning prizes for jumping fastest in a sack, or running from Point A to Point B more quickly than their classmates. How they loved to wear those badges on their blazers the next day! As if a silver in the egg-and-spoon race was some sort of compensation for not understanding how to use an apostrophe.

  At secondary school, PE was simply unfathomable. We had to wear special clothes and then run endlessly around a field, occasionally being told to hold a metal tube and pass it to someone else. If we weren’t running, we were jumping, into a sandpit or over a small bar on legs. There was a special way of doing this; you couldn’t simply run and jump, you had to do some strange sort of hop and skip first. I asked why, but none of the PE teachers (most of whom, as far as I could ascertain, would struggle to tell you the time) could furnish me with an answer. All of these seemed strange activities to impose on young people with no interest in them, and indeed I’m certain that they merely served to alienate the majority of us from physical activity for life. Fortunately, I am naturally lithe and elegant of limb, and I enjoy walking, so I have always kept myself in a reasonable state of physical fitness. Mummy has a particular loathing for the overweight (“Greedy, lazy beast,” she’d hiss, if one waddled past us in the street) and I may perhaps have internalized this view to some extent.

  Raymond wasn’t overweight, but he was doughy and a bit paunchy. None of his muscles were visible, and I suspect he only ever used the ones in his forearms with any degree of regularity. His sartorial choices did not flatter his unprepossessing physique: slouchy denims, baggy T-shirts with childish slogans and images. He dressed like a boy rather than a man. His toilette was sloppy too, and he was usually unshaven—it was not a beard as such, but patchy stubble, which merely served to make him look unkempt. His hair, a mousy, dirty blond, was cut short and had been given minimal attention—at most, perhaps a rub with a grubby towel after washing. The overall impression was of a man who, whilst not exactly a vagrant, had certainly slept rough in a flophouse or on a stranger’s floor the previous evening.

  “Here’s our bus, Eleanor,” Raymond said, nudging me rudely. I had my travel pass ready but, typically, Raymond did not possess one, preferring to pay well over the odds for want of a few moment’s advance planning. He did not, it transpired, even have the correct change, and so I had to lend him a pound. I would be sure to recoup it at work tomorrow.

  The journey to his mother’s house took about twenty minutes, during which I explained the benefits of a travel pass to him, including where one could purchase such an item and how many journeys one needed to take in order to break even
or, indeed, to effectively travel for free. He did not seem particularly interested, and didn’t even thank me when I’d finished. He is a spectacularly unsophisticated conversationalist.

  We walked through a small estate of square white homes; there were four different house designs interspersed in a predictable pattern. Each had a newish car in the driveway, and evidence of children—small bicycles with stabilizers, a basketball hoop fixed to the garage wall—but there was neither sight nor sound of any. The streets were all named after poets—Wordsworth Lane, Shelley Close, Keats Rise—no doubt chosen by the building company’s Marketing Department. They were all poets that the kind of person who’d aspire to such a home would recognize, poets who wrote about urns and flowers and wandering clouds. Based on past experience, I’d be more likely to end up living in Dante Lane or Poe Crescent.

  I was very familiar with such environs, having lived in several virtually identical houses in virtually identical streets during foster placements. There would be no pensioners here, no friends sharing a house and no one living alone, save for the occasional transitory divorcé. Newish cars lined up in driveways, two per house, ideally. Families came and went, and the whole place felt temporary, somehow, like theatrical scenery that had been hastily assembled and could be shifted at any time. I shuddered, chasing away the memories.

  Raymond’s mother lived in a neat terrace behind the newer houses, a row of tiny pebble-dashed semis. It was social housing; the streets here were named after obscure local politicians. Those who had purchased their homes had fitted UPVC double-glazed front doors, or added little porches. Raymond’s family homestead was unmodified.

  Raymond ignored the front door and walked around the side of the house. The back garden had a shed with net curtains in the window, and a square of green lawn marked by clothes poles. Washing flapped on the line, pegged out with military precision, a row of plain white sheets and towels and then a line of alarming elasticated undergarments. There was a vegetable patch, with tropically lush rhubarb and neat rows of carrots, leeks and cabbages. I admired the symmetry and precision with which they had been laid out.

  Raymond pushed open the back door without knocking, shouting hello as he walked into the little kitchen. It smelled deliciously of soup, salty and warm, probably emanating from the large pot that sat on the hob. The floor and all the surfaces were immaculately clean and tidy, and I felt certain that, were I to open a drawer or cupboard, everything inside would be pristine and neatly arranged. The décor was plain and functional, but with occasional flashes of kitsch—there was a large calendar with a lurid photograph of two kittens in a basket, and a cloth tube to store plastic bags and designed to resemble an old-fashioned doll hung on a door handle. A single cup, glass and plate were stacked on the drainer.

  We walked into a tiny hall, and I followed Raymond into the living room which, again, was spotless, and reeked of furniture polish. A vase of chrysanthemums sat on the window ledge, and an uncurated jumble of framed photographs and ornaments was protected by the smoked-glass doors of an outmoded dresser like holy relics. An old woman in an armchair reached forward for a remote to mute an enormous television. It was showing that program where people take old things to be valued and then, if it turns out they are worth something, pretend they like them too much to sell them. Three cats lounged on the sofa; two glared at us, the third merely opened one eye and then went back to sleep, not deigning us worthy of a response.

  “Raymond, son! Come in, come in,” the old woman said, pointing to the sofa and leaning forward in her chair to shoo the creatures off.

  “I’ve brought a friend from work, Mum, hope that’s OK?” he said, walking forward and kissing her on the cheek. I stepped forward and held out my hand.

  “Eleanor Oliphant, pleased to meet you,” I said. She took my hand, then clasped it in both of hers, much as Sammy had done.

  “Lovely to see you, hen,” she said. “I’m always pleased to meet Raymond’s friends. Sit down, won’t you? You’ll be needing a cup of tea, I’m sure. What do you take in it?” She made to stand, and I noticed the wheeled walking frame by the side of the chair.

  “Stay where you are, Mum, I’ll get it,” Raymond said. “Shall I make us all a nice cuppa?”

  “That’d be lovely, son,” she said. “There’s some biscuits too—Wagon Wheels—your favorites.”

  Raymond went off to the kitchen and I sat on the sofa to the right of his mother.

  “He’s a good boy, my Raymond,” she said proudly. I was unsure how best to respond, and opted for a short nod. “So you work together,” she said. “Do you fix computers too? My goodness, girls can do just about anything these days, can’t they?”

  She was as neat and tidy as her house, her blouse fastened at the neck with a pearl brooch. She wore wine-colored velvet slippers with a sheepskin trim, which looked cozy. She was in her seventies, I’d guess, and I noticed, when I shook her hand, that her knuckles were swollen to the size of gooseberries.

  “I work in accounts, Mrs. Gibbons,” I said. I told her a bit about my job, and she appeared to be fascinated, nodding along and occasionally saying “Is that right?” and “My my, isn’t that interesting.” When I ended my monologue, having exhausted the already limited conversational opportunities afforded by accounts receivable, she smiled.

  “Are you local, Eleanor?” she asked gently. Usually I abhor being questioned in this manner, but it was clear that her interest was genuine and without malice, so I told her where I lived, being deliberately vague as to the precise location. One should never disclose one’s exact place of residence to strangers.

  “You don’t have the accent, though?” she said, framing it as another question.

  “I spent my early childhood down south,” I said, “but I moved to Scotland when I was ten.”

  “Ah,” she said, “that explains it.” She seemed happy with this. I’ve noticed that most Scottish people don’t inquire beyond “down south,” and I can only assume that this description encapsulates some sort of generic Englandshire for them, boat races and bowler hats, as though Liverpool and Cornwall were the same sorts of places, inhabited by the same sorts of people. Conversely, they are always adamant that every part of their own country is unique and special. I’m not sure why.

  Raymond returned with the tea things and a packet of Wagon Wheels on a garish plastic tray.

  “Raymond!” his mother said. “You might have put the milk into a jug, for heaven’s sake! We’ve got a guest!”

  “It’s only Eleanor, Mum,” he said, then looked at me. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Not at all,” I said. “I always use the carton at home too. It’s merely a vessel from which to convey the liquid into the cup; in fact, it’s probably more hygienic than using an uncovered jug, I would have thought.”

  I reached forward for a Wagon Wheel. Raymond was already chewing on his. The pair of them chatted about inconsequential matters and I settled into the sofa. Neither of them had particularly strident voices, and I listened to the carriage clock on the mantelpiece tick loudly. It was warm, just on the right side of oppressively hot. One of the cats, lying on its side in front of the fire, stretched out to its full length with a shudder, and then went back to sleep. There was a photograph next to the clock, the colors muted with age. A man, obviously Raymond’s father, grinned broadly at the camera, holding up a champagne flute in a toast.

  “That’s Raymond’s dad,” his mother said, noticing. She smiled. “That was taken the day Raymond got his exam results.” She looked at him with obvious pride. “Our Raymond was the first one in the family to go to university,” she said. “His dad was pleased as punch. I only wish he could have been there for your graduation. What a day that was, eh, Raymond son?” Raymond smiled, nodded.

  “He had a heart attack not long after I started uni,” he explained to me.

  “Never got to enjoy his retirement,” his mother
said. “It often happens that way.” They both sat quietly for a moment.

  “What did he do for a living?” I asked. I wasn’t interested, but I felt it was appropriate.

  “Gas engineer,” Raymond said.

  His mother nodded. “He worked hard all his days,” she said, “and we never wanted for anything, did we, Raymond? We had a holiday every year, and a nice wee car. At least he got to see our Denise married, anyway—that’s something.”

  I must have looked puzzled.

  “My sister,” Raymond explained.

  “Och, for goodness’ sake, Raymond. Too busy talking about football and computers, no doubt, and I don’t suppose she wants to hear about that sort of thing anyway. Boys, eh, Eleanor?” She shook her head at me, smiling.

  This was puzzling. How on earth could you forget that you had a sister? He hadn’t forgotten, I supposed—he’d simply taken his sibling for granted: an unchanging, unremarkable fact of life, not even worthy of mention. It was impossible for me to imagine such a scenario, alone as I was. Only Mummy and I inhabit the Oliphant world.

  His mother was still talking. “Denise was eleven when Raymond came along—a wee surprise and a blessing, so he was.”

  She looked at him with so much love that I had to turn away. At least I know what love looks like, I told myself. That’s something. No one had ever looked at me like that, but I’d be able to recognize it if they ever did.

  “Here, son, get the album out. I’ll show Eleanor those photos of that first holiday in Alicante, the summer before you started school. He got stuck in a revolving door at the airport,” she said, sotto voce, leaning toward me confidentially.

  I laughed out loud at the look of utter horror on Raymond’s face.