“Mum, Eleanor doesn’t want to be bored to death looking at our old photos,” he said, blushing in a way that I supposed some people might consider charming. I thought for a moment about insisting that I’d love to see them, but he looked so miserable that I couldn’t do it. Conveniently, my stomach gave a loud rumble. I’d only had the Wagon Wheel since my lunchtime repast of spaghetti hoops on toast. She coughed politely.
“You’ll stay for your tea, won’t you, Eleanor? It’s nothing fancy, but you’re very welcome.”
I looked at my watch. It was only five thirty—an odd time to eat, but I was hungry, and it would still allow me time to go to Tesco on the way home.
“I’d be delighted, Mrs. Gibbons,” I said.
We sat around the small table in the kitchen. The soup was delicious; she said she’d used a pork knuckle to make stock, and then shredded the meat through the soup, which was also full of vegetables from the garden. There was bread and butter and cheese, and afterward we had a cup of tea and a cream cake. All the while, Mrs. Gibbons regaled us with tales of her neighbors’ various eccentricities and illnesses, along with updates on the activities of their extended family, which seemed to be of as little relevance to Raymond as they were to me, judging by his expression. He teased his mother frequently and affectionately, and she responded with mock annoyance, gently slapping him on the arm or chiding him for his rudeness. I was warm and full and comfortable in a way I couldn’t remember feeling before.
Raymond’s mother heaved herself to her feet and reached for her walking frame. She had crippling arthritis in her knees and hips, Raymond told me, while she hobbled upstairs to the bathroom. The house wasn’t really suitable for someone with limited mobility, but she refused to move, he said, because she’d lived all her adult life there and it was the place where she’d brought up her family.
“Now then,” she said, returning from upstairs, “I’ll wash these few dishes and then we can settle down and watch a bit of telly.” Raymond got straight to his feet.
“Sit down, Mum, let me do it—it won’t take a minute. Eleanor will help me, won’t you, Eleanor?”
I stood up and began gathering up the plates. Mrs. Gibbons protested vehemently, but eventually sat back down in her chair, slow and awkward, and I heard a tiny sigh of pain.
Raymond washed and I dried. This was his suggestion—somehow, he’d noticed my red, sore hands, although he didn’t make a hullaballoo about it. He’d merely nudged me away from the sink and thrust a tea towel—a rather jaunty one with a Scottie dog sporting a tartan bow tie—into my damaged fingers.
The tea towel was soft and fibrous, as though it had been washed many times over, and had been ironed carefully into a neatly pressed square. I cast an eye over the plates before stacking them on the table for Raymond to put away. The crockery was old but good quality, painted with blowsy roses and edged in faded gilt. Mrs. Gibbons saw me looking at it. There was certainly nothing wrong with her powers of observation.
“That was my wedding china, Eleanor,” she said. “Imagine—still going strong almost fifty years later!”
“You, or the china?” Raymond said, and she tutted and shook her head, smiling. There was a comfortable silence as we worked on our respective tasks.
“Tell me, are you courting at the moment, Eleanor?” she asked.
How tedious.
“Not presently,” I said, “but I have my eye on someone. It’s only a matter of time.” There was a crash from the sink as Raymond dropped the ladle onto the draining board with a clatter.
“Raymond!” his mum said. “Butterfingers!”
I’d been keeping track of the musician online, of course, but he’d been rather quiet, virtually speaking. A couple of Instagram snaps of some meals he’d had, a few tweets, uninteresting Facebook updates about other people’s music. I didn’t mind. It was merely a matter of biding my time. If I knew one thing about romance, it was that the perfect moment for us to meet and fall in love would arrive when I least expected it, and in the most charming set of circumstances. That said, if it didn’t happen soon, I’d need to take matters into my own hands.
“And what about your family?” she said. “Do they live close by? Any brothers or sisters?”
“No, unfortunately,” I said. “I would have loved to have had siblings to grow up with.” I thought about this. “It’s actually one of the greatest sources of sadness in my life,” I heard myself say. I had never uttered such a sentence before, and, indeed, hadn’t even fully formed the thought until this very moment. I surprised myself. And whose fault is that, then? A voice, whispering in my ear, cold and sharp. Angry. Mummy. I closed my eyes, trying to be rid of her.
Mrs. Gibbons seemed to sense my discomfort. “Oh, but I’m sure that must mean you’ve got a lovely close relationship with your mum and dad, then? I bet you mean the world to them, being the only one.”
I looked at my shoes. Why had I selected them? I couldn’t remember. They had Velcro fastenings for ease of use and they were black, which went with everything. They were flat for comfort, and built up around the ankle for support. They were, I realized, hideous.
“Don’t be so nosy, Mum,” Raymond said, drying his hands on the tea towel. “You’re like the Gestapo!”
I thought she’d be angry, but it was worse than that; she was apologetic.
“Oh, Eleanor, I’m sorry, love, I didn’t mean to upset you. Please, hen, don’t cry. I’m so sorry.”
I was crying. Sobbing! I hadn’t cried so extravagantly for years. I tried to remember the last time; it was after Declan and I split up. Even then, those weren’t emotional tears—I was crying with pain because he’d broken my arm and two ribs when I’d finally asked him to move out. This simply wasn’t on, sobbing in the kitchen of a colleague’s mother. Whatever would Mummy say? I pulled myself together.
“Please don’t apologize, Mrs. Gibbons,” I said, my voice croaking and then splitting like a teenage boy’s as I tried to calm my breath, wiping my eyes on the tea towel. She was literally wringing her hands and looked on the verge of tears herself. Raymond had his arm around her shoulder.
“Don’t upset yourself, Mum. You didn’t mean anything by it, she knows that—don’t you, Eleanor?”
“Yes, of course!” I said and, on impulse, leaned across and shook her hand. “Your question was both reasonable and appropriate. My response, however, was not. I’m at a loss to explain it. Please accept my apologies if I’ve made you feel uncomfortable.”
She looked relieved. “Thank God for that, hen,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting tears in my kitchen today!”
“Aye, it’s usually your cooking that makes me cry, Ma,” Raymond said, and she laughed quietly. I cleared my throat.
“Your question took me unawares, Mrs. Gibbons,” I said. “I never knew my father, and I know nothing about him, not even his name. Mummy is currently . . . let’s just say she’s hors de combat.” I received blank looks from both of them—I was clearly not among Francophones. “I don’t ever see her, she’s . . . inaccessible,” I explained. “We communicate once a week, but . . .”
“Of course—that would make anyone sad, love, of course it would,” she said, nodding sympathetically. “Everyone needs their mum now and again, doesn’t matter how old they are.”
“On the contrary,” I said, “if anything, weekly contact is too much for me. Mummy and I—we’re . . . well, it’s complicated . . .”
Mrs. Gibbons nodded sympathetically, wanting me to continue. I, on the other hand, knew that it was time to stop. An ice-cream van went past in the street, the chimes playing “Yankee Doodle,” pitched a few painful hertz below the correct notes. I recalled the words, feathers in caps and macaroni, from some deep and completely useless vault of memories.
Raymond clapped his hands together in fake bonhomie.
“Right then, time’s marching on. Mum, go and sit do
wn—your program’s about to start. Eleanor, could you maybe give me a hand and bring in the washing?”
I was glad to help, glad to be moving away from Mummy-related conversation. There were various chores Mrs. Gibbons needed assistance with—Raymond had elected to change the cats’ litter trays and empty the bins, so I’d certainly drawn the long straw with the laundry.
Outside, the early evening sun was weak and pale. There was a row of gardens to the right and the left, stretching off in both directions. I placed the laundry basket on the ground and took the peg bag (on which, in looping cursive, someone had helpfully stitched “Pegs’) and hung it on the line. The washing was dry and smelled of summer. I heard the syncopated thud of a football being kicked against a wall, and girls chanting as a skipping rope skimmed the ground. The distant chimes of the ice-cream van were now almost inaudible. Someone’s back door slammed, and a man’s voice shouted a furious reprimand at—one hoped—a dog. There was birdsong, a descant over the sounds of a television drifting through an open window. Everything felt safe, everything felt normal. How different Raymond’s life had been from mine—a proper family, a mother and a father and a sister, nestled among other proper families. How different it was still; every Sunday, here, this.
Back indoors, I helped Raymond swap the sheets on his mother’s bed for the clean ones I’d brought in from the line. Her bedroom was very pink and smelled of talcum powder. It was clean and nondescript—not like a hotel room, more like a bed and breakfast, I imagined. Save for a fat paperback and a packet of extra strong mints on the bedside table, there was nothing personal in the room, no clue to the owner’s personality. It struck me that, in the nicest possible way, she didn’t really have a personality; she was a mother, a kind, loving woman, about whom no one would ever say, “She was crazy, that Betty!” or, “You’ll never guess what Betty’s done now!” or, “After reviewing psychiatric reports, Betty was refused bail on grounds that she posed an extreme risk to the general public.” She was, quite simply, a nice lady who’d raised a family and now lived quietly with her cats and grew vegetables. This was both nothing and everything.
“Does your sister help out with your mother, Raymond?” I asked. He was grappling with the duvet and I took it from him. There is a knack to such things. Raymond is a man without the knack. He put on the pillowcases (flowers, ruffles) instead.
“Nah,” he said, concentrating. “She’s got two kids, and they’re a bit of a handful. Mark works offshore, so she’s a single parent for weeks at a time, really. It’s not easy. It’ll be better when the kids are at school, she says.”
“Ah,” I said. “Do you—do you enjoy being an uncle, then?” Uncle Raymond: a somewhat unlikely role model, I felt. He shrugged.
“Yeah, they’re good fun. There’s not much to it, to be honest; I just slip them some cash at Christmas and birthdays, take them to the park a couple of times a month. Job done.”
I would never be an aunt, of course. Probably just as well.
“You had a lucky escape with Mum and the photo albums this time, Eleanor,” Raymond said. “She’ll bore the pants off you next time about the grandkids, just you wait and see.”
He was making a lot of assumptions there, I thought, but I let it pass. I looked at my watch, surprised to see it was after eight.
“I must be off, Raymond,” I said.
“If you want to hang on for another hour or so, I’ll be done here and we can get the bus together?” he said. I declined, naturally.
I went downstairs and thanked Mrs. Gibbons for “tea.” She, in turn, thanked me profusely for coming and for helping with the chores.
“Eleanor, it’s been lovely, so it has,” she said. “I haven’t been beyond the garden for months now—these knees of mine—so it’s a pleasure to see a new face, and such a friendly one at that. You’ve been a great help around the house too—thanks, hen, thanks very much.”
I smiled at her. Twice in one day, to be the recipient of thanks and warm regard! I would never have suspected that small deeds could elicit such genuine, generous responses. I felt a little glow inside—not a blaze, more like a small, steady candle.
“Come back anytime, Eleanor—I’m always in. You don’t have to come with”—she jabbed a finger Raymond-ward—“him, just come yourself, if you like. You know where I am now. Don’t be a stranger.”
On impulse, I leaned forward and brushed my cheek (not the scarred one, the normal one) close to hers. It wasn’t a kiss or an embrace, but it was as close as I was able to come.
“Cheerio!” she said. “Safe home, now!”
Raymond walked me to the end of the road to show me where the bus stop was located. I’d probably have a bit of a wait, it being Sunday, he said. I shrugged; I was used to waiting, and life has taught me to be a very patient person.
“See you tomorrow, then, Eleanor,” he said.
I took out my travel pass and showed it to him. “Unlimited travel!” I said. He nodded, gave a small smile. Miraculously, the bus arrived. I raised my hand and climbed on board. I stared straight ahead as the bus pulled away to avoid any awkwardness with waving.
It had been quite a day. I felt drained, but something had crystallized in my mind. These new people, new adventures . . . this contact. I found it overwhelming, but, to my surprise, not at all unpleasant. I’d coped surprisingly well, I thought. I’d met new people, introduced myself to them, and we’d spent problem-free social time together. If there was one thing I could take from today’s experiences, it was this: I was nearly ready to declare my intentions to the musician. The time for our momentous first encounter was drawing ever closer.
11
I didn’t see Raymond on Monday, or on Tuesday. I didn’t think about him, although my mind did return to Sammy and to Mrs. Gibbons on occasion. I could, of course, visit either or both of them without Raymond being there. Indeed, both had stressed that to me on Sunday. But would it be better if he were by my side? I suspected that it would, not least because he could always fill a silence with banal, inane comments and questions should the need arise. In the meantime, I’d gone to the mobile telephone emporium with the least garish fascia in the closest location to the office and, on the highly suspect advice of a bored salesperson, had eventually purchased a reasonably priced handset and “package” which allowed me to make calls, access the Internet and also do various other things, most of which were of no interest to me. He’d mentioned apps and games; I asked about crosswords, but was very disappointed with his response. I was familiarizing myself with the manual for the new device, rather than completing the VAT details on Mr. Leonard’s invoice, when, very much against my will, I became aware of the conversation going on around me, due to its excessive volume. It was, of all things, on the topic of our annual Christmas lunch.
“Yeah, but they have entertainment laid on there! And lots of other big groups go, so we can meet new people, have a laugh,” Bernadette was saying.
Entertainment! I wondered if that would involve a band, and, if so, might it be his band? A very early Christmas miracle? Was this fate interceding once again? Before I could ask for details, Billy jumped in.
“You just want to cop off with some drunk guy from Allied Carpets under the mistletoe,” Billy said. “There’s no way I’m paying sixty quid a head for a dry roast turkey dinner and a cheesy afternoon disco. Not just so’s you can scout for talent!”
Bernadette cackled and slapped him on the arm.
“No,” she said, “it’s not that. I just think it might be more fun if there’s a bigger crowd there, that’s all . . .”
Janey looked slyly at the others, thinking that I hadn’t seen her. I saw her eyes flick up to my scars, as they often did.
“Let’s ask Harry Potter over there,” she said, not quite sotto voce, and then turned to address me.
“Eleanor! Hey, Eleanor! You’re a bit of a girl about town, aren’t you? What do yo
u reckon: where should we go for the office Christmas lunch this year?”
I looked pointedly at the office wall calendar, which, this month, displayed a photograph of a green articulated lorry.
“It’s the middle of summer,” I said. “I can’t say I’ve really given it any thought.”
“Yeah,” she said, “but we’ve got to get something booked up now, otherwise all the good places get taken and you get left with, like, Wetherspoons or a rubbish Italian.”
“It’s a matter of supreme indifference to me,” I said. “I shan’t be going anyway.” I rubbed at the cracked skin between my fingers—it was healing, but the process was painfully slow.
“Oh, that’s right,” she said, “you never go, do you? I’d forgotten about that. You don’t do the Secret Santa either. Eleanor the Grinch, that’s what we ought to call you.” They all laughed.
“I don’t understand that cultural reference,” I said. “However, to clarify, I’m an atheist, and I’m not consumer oriented, so the midwinter shopping festival otherwise known as Christmas is of little interest to me.”
I went back to my work, hoping it would inspire them to do the same. They are like small children, easily distracted, and content to spend what feels like hours discussing trivialities and gossiping about people they don’t know.
“Sounds like somebody had a bad experience in Santa’s grotto back in the day,” said Billy, and then, thankfully, the phone rang. I smiled sadly. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the sort of bad experiences I’d had, back in the day.
It was an internal call: Raymond, asking if I wanted to go and visit Sammy again with him tonight. A Wednesday. I’d miss my weekly chat with Mummy. I’d never missed one, not in all these years. But then, what could she actually do about it, after all? There couldn’t be much harm in skipping it, just this once, and Sammy was in need of nutritious food. I said yes.
Our rendezvous was scheduled for five thirty. I’d insisted that we meet outside the post office, fearing the reaction of my coworkers were we to be observed leaving work together. It was a mild, pleasant evening, so we decided to walk to hospital, which would take only twenty minutes. Raymond was certainly in need of the exercise.
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine Page 10