Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

by Gail Honeyman

  The minister spoke about Sammy’s life; it was interesting to hear that he’d grown up near a tiny village in the North East, on a sheep farm. He’d joined the merchant navy when he left school but, soon tiring of life at sea, he’d pitched up in Glasgow with ten pounds, a new suit and no desire whatsoever to return to farming. He’d met Jean in Woolworths, looking for a needle and thread. The minister, looking pleased with himself, said that they’d stitched a happy life together after that. There was a brief religious bit—the usual balderdash—and then, like the assistant in Tesco, he made the coffin conveyer belt move, and Sammy checked out.

  Bright as a button, smile plastered on, as though this were the best part of the whole terrible event, the minister announced that we would sing the final hymn. Raymond and I made a valiant effort, but it’s impossible to sing when you’re crying—there’s a lump like a plum stone lodged in your throat, and the music can’t get past it. Raymond blew his nose and passed me a packet of tissues, which I gratefully accepted.

  The family, the minister told us, would be very pleased if we would join them afterward at the Hawthorn House Hotel for light refreshments. The congregation filed out, shaking hands and mumbling meaningless platitudes. I did the same. There was a collection basket for the British Heart Foundation, “in lieu of flowers,” and I saw Raymond drop in a twenty-pound note. I put in three pound coins. If anything, I felt that this was overly generous. Researching new drugs and efficacious treatments for heart disease costs hundreds of millions of pounds. Three pounds or three hundred pounds—it was hardly going to swing the balance between finding and not finding a cure, after all.

  I perched on a low wall behind the crematorium and turned my face to the sun. I felt utterly exhausted. After a moment, Raymond sat beside me, and I heard the click of his lighter. I didn’t even have the energy to move away. He blew out a long stream of smoke.

  “All right?” he said.

  I nodded. “You?”

  He shrugged.

  “Not a big fan of funerals, to be honest,” he said. He looked away. “Reminds me of my dad. It was years ago, but it’s still hard, you know?”

  I nodded; that made sense. Time only blunts the pain of loss. It doesn’t erase it.

  “I really, really, really do not want to go to the Hawthorn House Hotel for light refreshments, Raymond,” I said. “I want to stop thinking about death. I just want to go home, put on normal clothes and watch television.”

  Raymond stubbed his cigarette out and then buried it in the flower bed behind us.

  “No one wants to go to these things, Eleanor,” he said gently. “You have to, though. For the family.” I must have looked sad.

  “You don’t need to stay long,” he said, his voice soft and patient. “Just show face; have a cup of tea, eat a sausage roll—you know the drill.”

  “Well, I hope they’ve at least got a high meat content and friable pastry,” I said, more in hope than in expectation, and shouldering my handbag.

  The Hawthorn House Hotel was walking distance from the crematorium. The woman at the reception desk smiled, and it was impossible not to notice that she had only one front tooth; the remaining molars were the exact same shade as Colman’s English mustard. I’m not one to make judgments about other people’s personal appearance, but really; of all the available staff, was this woman the best choice for the front desk? She directed us to the Bramble Suite and flashed us a gappy, sympathetic smile.

  We were among the last to arrive, as most people had driven the short journey from the crematorium to the hotel. The crematorium was a busy place and the parking spaces were needed, I supposed. I’m not sure I’d like to be burned. I think I might like to be fed to zoo animals. It would be both environmentally friendly and a lovely treat for the larger carnivores. Could you request that? I wondered. I made a mental note to write to the WWF in order to find out.

  I went up to Keith and told him how very sorry I was, and then I sought out Gary to say the same thing. Both of them looked overwhelmed, which was understandable. It takes a long time to learn to live with loss, assuming you ever manage it. After all these years, I’m still something of a work in progress in that regard. The grandchildren sat quietly in the corner, cowed, perhaps, by the somber atmosphere. The other person I had to pass on my condolences to was Laura, but I couldn’t spot her. She was usually easy to find. Today, as well as the huge sunglasses, she’d been wearing vertiginous heels, a short black dress with a plunging neckline and her hair was piled on top of her head in an artful birdcage creation that added several inches to her height.

  There being no sign of her, and no sign of the promised refreshments either, I went in search of the lavatories. I would have put money on their having a dusty bowl of apricot-scented potpourri beside the washbasins, and I was right. On the way back, I spotted a telltale platform heel poking out from behind a swagged curtain. There was a window seat recess, in which Laura was sitting in the lap of a man who, it soon became apparent, was Raymond, although they were embracing so closely that it took a moment before I could see his face and be sure. He was wearing black leather shoes, I noticed. So he did at least possess a pair.

  I went back into the Bramble Suite without disturbing them; they hadn’t seen me, being very much otherwise engaged. This was an all too familiar social scenario for me: standing alone, staring into the middle distance. It was absolutely fine. It was absolutely normal. After the fire, at each new school, I’d tried so hard, but something about me just didn’t fit. There was, it seemed, no Eleanor-shaped social hole for me to slot into.

  I wasn’t good at pretending, that was the thing. After what had happened in that burning house, given what went on there, I could see no point in being anything other than truthful with the world. I had, literally, nothing left to lose. But, by careful observation from the sidelines, I’d worked out that social success is often built on pretending just a little. Popular people sometimes have to laugh at things they don’t find very funny, do things they don’t particularly want to, with people whose company they don’t particularly enjoy. Not me. I had decided, years ago, that if the choice was between that or flying solo, then I’d fly solo. It was safer that way. Grief is the price we pay for love, so they say. The price is far too high.

  The buffet had been laid out—yes, there were sausage rolls, but also sandwiches. Staff were dispensing indistinguishable tea and coffee from bitter-smelling urns into industrial white crockery. This wouldn’t do at all. I was decidedly not in the mood for hot brown liquid, oh no. I was in the mood for cool, clear vodka.

  All hotels had bars, didn’t they? I wasn’t a great frequenter of hostelries, but I knew that bedrooms and bars were their raison d’être. I spoke to the dentally challenged lady in reception again, who directed me down another long corridor, at the end of which lay the imaginatively named Hawthorn Lounge. I stood on the threshold and looked around. The place was deserted, the fruit machines flashing purely for their own amusement. I walked in. Just me. Eleanor, alone.

  A barman was watching TV and absentmindedly polishing glasses.

  “Homes Under the Hammer,” he said, turning toward me. I remember thinking, surprised, that he was passably attractive, and then chastising myself for the thought. My prejudice was that beautiful, glamorous people would not be at work in the Hawthorn House Hotel on a Friday lunchtime. Granted, the receptionist had confirmed my initial thoughts, but really, it was shameful of me to have these preconceptions—where on earth did they come from? (A little voice whispered the answer in my head: Mummy.)

  The barman smiled, revealing a lovely set of teeth and clear blue eyes.

  “It’s a load of old shite,” he said, in a voice that could strip paint from walls, after giving them a good sanding down first. See—told you! Mummy whispered.

  “Is it?” I said. “Unfortunately I’m not generally at home during the day to see it.”

  “Watch
it here, if you like,” the man said, shrugging.

  “Could I?”

  “Why not?” he said. “It’s not like there’s much else going on, is there?” He gestured around the empty bar.

  I perched on a bar stool—something I have always wanted to try—and ordered a vodka and cola. He made it slowly, added ice and lemon without asking and pushed it toward me.

  “Funeral, was it?” he said.

  I wondered how he knew, and then I realized that I was dressed entirely in black, that my smoky eye makeup had run somewhat and that there was no other reason to be in this particular venue at this time of day. I nodded. No further exchanges were required, and we both settled back to see how Iain and Dorothy would fare with the 1970s terrace that they’d bought at auction for £95,000, intending to renovate the bathroom, install a new kitchen and “knock through” from the lounge to the dining room.

  “The finishing touch,” the presenter said, “was to paint the front door . . . this fetching shade of green.”

  “‘Green Door’,” the barman said, without missing a beat, and seconds later, lo and behold, that very song began to play. We both laughed, and he pushed another vodka toward me without my having to ask.

  We had moved on to Loose Women, another program I was unfamiliar with. I was on my fourth vodka by now, and the funeral service was there in my mind, but it didn’t hurt—like noticing you had a stone in your shoe, but while you were sitting down rather than walking on it.

  I thought that I probably ought to attempt a sausage roll at some point, or at least put a few in my bag for later, but then I remembered that I had brought my new, tiny bag, into which I could fit, at most, two savory pastries. I tutted, and shook my head.

  “What’s up?” said the barman. We hadn’t asked each other’s names; it didn’t seem necessary, somehow. I slumped forward on my stool and stared, in clichéd fashion, into my glass.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” I said breezily. “I suppose I ought to have something to eat now, really.”

  The barman, who had become less handsome as time had worn on, picked up my glass, filled it back up with vodka and a dash of cola and returned it to me.

  “No rush, eh?” he said. “Why not stay here and keep me company for a while longer?”

  I looked around—the bar was still deserted.

  “You might need a little lie-down after this one, eh?” he said, tapping my glass and leaning very close to me. I could see the enlarged pores on the sides of his nose, some of them filled with microscopic black dots.

  “Perhaps,” I said. “Sometimes I do need a lie-down after vodka and cola.”

  He smiled wolfishly.

  “Puts you in the mood, eh?”

  I tried to lift my eyebrows into a question, but, strangely, could only make one of them rise. I’d had too much to drink because I’d had too much pain, and there was nowhere else it could go but down, drowned in the vodka. Simple, really.

  “What do you mean?” I said, hearing that I was pronouncing the consonants somewhat indistinctly.

  “Funerals,” he said, moving closer to me, so that his face was almost pressed against mine. He smelled of onions. “It’s nothing to feel bad about,” he said. “All that death . . . afterward, don’t you find it really makes you want to—”

  “Eleanor!” I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned round on my stool, exceptionally slowly.

  “Oh, hello, Raymond!” I said. “This is . . . actually, I don’t know. Excuse me, what’s your name, Mr. . . . ?”

  The barman had moved at what must have been lightning speed to the other end of the counter, where he had resumed his glass polishing and TV watching. Raymond gave him a look that could best be described as unfriendly, and placed a twenty-pound note on the counter.

  “Wait, Raymond,” I said, scrabbling for my new bag, “I’ve got some money in here . . .”

  “Come on,” he said, pulling me down rather gracelessly from my stool. “We can sort it out later.”

  I trotted after him in my kitten heels.

  “Raymond,” I said, tugging at his sleeve. He looked down at me. “I’m not going to get a tattoo,” I said, “I’ve decided.”

  He looked puzzled, and I realized that I’d forgotten to tell him that I’d been considering it, ever since I’d spoken to the barman at The Cuttings. He sat me down in a window seat off the corridor—not the same one he’d been in before—and left me there. I looked around, wondering what time it was, and whether they would have burned Sammy by now, or whether they kept all the bodies back till the end of the day to get a really good blaze going. Raymond returned, a cup of tea in one hand and a plate of savory pastries in the other.

  “Get this down you,” he said, “and don’t move till I come back.”

  I discovered that I was ravenous. Mourners kept wandering past, but no one noticed me in my hidey-hole. I rather liked it. The seat was comfortable and the corridor was warm, and I felt like a little dormouse in a cozy nest. Next thing I knew, Raymond was there again, shaking me gently but insistently.

  “Wake up, Eleanor,” he said. “It’s half past four. Time to go.”

  We took the bus to Raymond’s flat. It was on the south side of the city, an area I didn’t know very well and had no cause to visit, as a rule. His flatmates were out, I was relieved to learn, stumbling slightly as we entered the hallway and trying not to laugh. He steered me in a very ungallant fashion into the living room, which was dominated by a huge television. There were lots of what I assumed were game consoles scattered around in front of it. Aside from the computer detritus, it was astonishingly tidy.

  “It doesn’t look like a place where boys live,” I said, surprised.

  He laughed. “We’re not animals, Eleanor. I’m a dab hand with the Hoover, and Desi’s a bit of a neat freak, as it goes.”

  I nodded, relieved to know as I sat down that nothing untoward would be adhering to my new dress and tights.

  “Tea?” he said.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve got any vodka or Magners drink, by any chance?” I said. He raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m absolutely fine now, after the sausage rolls and the catnap,” I said, and I was. I felt floaty and clean, not intoxicated, just very pleasantly numbed to sharp feelings.

  He laughed. “Well, I suppose I could go for a glass of red, right enough,” he said.

  “Red what?” I said.

  “Wine, Eleanor. Merlot, I think—whatever was on special at Tesco this week.”

  “Ah, Tesco,” I said. “In that case . . . I think I’ll join you. Just the one, though,” I said. I didn’t want Raymond to think I was a dipsomaniac.

  He came back with two glasses and a bottle with a screw cap.

  “I thought wine had corks?” I said.

  He ignored me. “To Sammy,” he said, and we clinked glasses like people do on television. It tasted of warmth and velvet, and a little bit like burned jam.

  “Take it easy now!” he said, waggling his finger in a way I recognized was supposed to be humorous. “I don’t want you falling off the sofa!”

  I smiled. “How was your afternoon?” I asked, after another delicious sip. He took a very big swig.

  “You mean apart from rescuing you from the clutches of a pervert?” he said.

  I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Och, the afternoon was fine,” he said, when it became clear I didn’t know how to respond. “It all went off as well as these things can. It’ll be tomorrow that it really hits them. The funeral’s a big distraction; you keep busy with all the arrangements, stupid decisions about scones or biscuits, hymns—”

  “They were bad hymns!” I said.

  “—and then the day itself, making sure you thank people, the cortege and all that stuff . . . The family said to thank you for coming, by the way,” he finished, trailing of
f. It was he who was drinking all the wine, I noticed—he’d already refilled his glass while I’d only had two sips.

  “But the days and weeks after that . . . that’s when it really starts to get hard,” he said.

  “Is that how it was for you?” I said.

  He nodded. He’d switched on the fire, one of those gas ones that’s supposed to look real, and we both stared at it. There must be some piece of wiring left over in our brains, from our ancestors, something that means we can’t help but stare into a fire, watch it move and dance, warding off evil spirits and dangerous animals . . . that’s what fire’s supposed to do, isn’t it? It can do other things too, though.

  “D’you want to watch a film, Eleanor? Cheer ourselves up a bit?”

  I thought about this.

  “A film would be perfect,” I said.

  He left the room and returned with another bottle of wine and a big packet of crisps. “Sharing bag” it said. I’d never tried one, for that very reason. He ripped it down the middle and spread it out on the table in front of the sofa where we were both sitting, then topped up our glasses. He went out again and came back with a duvet which I guessed he’d removed from his bed, and a cozy-looking fleece blanket, red like Sammy’s sweater, which he passed to me. I kicked off my kitten heels and snuggled under the blanket while he fiddled with what seemed like ten remote control devices. The enormous TV sprung to life, and he flicked through various channels.

  “How do you feel about this one?” he said, nodding toward the screen as he wrapped himself in his duvet. The highlighted selection said Sons of the Desert. I had no idea what it was, but I realized that I’d happily sit here in the warmth with him and watch a golf program if that was all there was.