I unwrapped the parcel carefully. It was the beautiful red sweater, the one Sammy had been wearing on the day Raymond and I found him in the street. I could smell it, still faintly scented by its wearer with apples and whiskey and love, and I squeezed it tight, feeling the softness and the warmth against my palms, the gentle, exuberant Sammyness of it.
Keith had gone to the window and was staring out at the street, an action I completely understood. When you’re struggling hard to manage your own emotions, it becomes unbearable to have to witness other people’s, to have to try and manage theirs too. He couldn’t deal with my tears. I remember, I remember.
“Thank you,” I said. He nodded, his back still turned. Everything was there, obvious to us both, but it all remained unsaid. Sometimes that was best.
After he’d gone, I put the sweater on. It was far too big, of course, but that made it even better, with more of it to go around me, anytime I needed it. Sammy’s parting gift.
36
Getting to Dr. Temple’s office involved a bus journey into town and then a short walk. My travel pass had expired, and it was symptomatic of my general feeling of Weltschmerz, of anomie, that I hadn’t even bothered to renew it last week. Marianne. Everything else was just trivia. I dropped two pounds into the driver’s slot, caring not one whit that it bore an ugly sticker saying No Change Given, and that I had therefore needlessly sacrificed twenty pence. Who gave a fig about twenty pence, when it came down to it?
All of the seats already had an occupant, which meant I was going to have to position myself next to a stranger. In a different mood, I enjoyed this game: one had ten seconds to scan the occupants and select the slimmest, sanest, cleanest-looking person to sit next to. Choose wrongly, and the fifteen-minute journey into town would be a much less pleasant experience—either squashed beside a sprawling fatty, or mouth-breathing to minimize the penetration of the reek emanating from an unwashed body. Such was the excitement of traveling on public transport.
I took no pleasure in the game today, however, and merely seated myself as close to the front as possible, taking no interest in the merits or demerits of my companion. As luck would have it, she was an elderly woman, slightly on the plump side but not inconveniently so, who smelled of hairspray and kept herself to herself. Good.
She got off at the next stop and then I had the seat to myself. More people got on, and I watched a handsome young man—tall, slim, with disproportionately large brown eyes—play the scanning game in order to select a seat. I looked forward to sitting next to him, being sure that he was neither mad nor malodorous.
However, he walked straight past me and sat on the other side of the bus, next to a short, rough-looking man in a sports jacket. I couldn’t believe it! Two people got on at the next stop—one went upstairs, the other, once again, eschewed the spare seat next to me and walked toward the back of the bus, where, I noticed when I turned around to look, she seated herself next to a man with no socks on. His bare ankles looked distressingly white above his oxblood leather brogues, which he had teamed with green jogging bottoms. A madman.
I stared at the floor, my mind racing. Did I . . . did I look like the kind of person who ought to be avoided in a game of bus seat selection? I could only conclude, in the face of the evidence, that I did. But why?
I would have to reason my way to the answer. I wasn’t overweight. I didn’t smell—I showered daily, and I laundered my clothes regularly. That left madness, then. Was I mad? No. No, I wasn’t. I was suffering from clinical depression, but that was an illness. It wasn’t madness. Did I look mad, then? Act mad? I didn’t think so. But then, how would I know? Was it my scar? My eczema? My jerkin? Was it a sign of madness even to think you might be mad? I rested my elbows on my knees and placed my head in my hands. Oh God oh God oh God.
“You all right, hen?” a voice said, and I felt a hand on my shoulder, causing me to startle and sit up again. It was the man with no socks, who was en route to the front of the bus.
“Yes, thank you,” I said, not making eye contact. He sat down next to me while the bus approached the next stop.
“You sure?” he said kindly.
“Yes, thank you,” I repeated. I risked a look at his face. He had very gentle eyes, the same delicate shade of green as newly emerged buds on trees.
“Just taking a wee moment, hen?” He patted me on the arm. “Everybody needs to take a wee moment to themselves now and again, eh?” He smiled, full of warmth, and stood up to leave. The bus was slowing down.
“Thanks!” I called after him. He didn’t look round, but raised a hand in salutation, trousers riding up past his bare ankles as he left.
He wasn’t mad. He just didn’t have any socks on.
Eleanor, I said to myself, sometimes you’re too quick to judge people. There are all kinds of reasons why they might not look like the kind of person you’d want to sit next to on a bus, but you can’t sum someone up in a ten-second glance. That’s simply not enough time. The way you try not to sit next to fat people, for example. There’s nothing wrong with being overweight, is there? They could be eating because they’re sad, the same way you used to drink vodka. They could have had parents who never taught them how to cook or eat healthily. They could be disabled and unable to exercise, or else they could have an illness that contributes to weight gain despite their best efforts. You just don’t know, Eleanor, I said to myself.
The voice in my own head—my own voice—was actually quite sensible, and rational, I’d begun to realize. It was Mummy’s voice that had done all the judging, and encouraged me to do so too. I was getting to quite like my own voice, my own thoughts. I wanted more of them. They made me feel good, calm even. They made me feel like me.
37
Old routines, new routines. Perhaps even, sometimes, no routines? But twice a week, for as long as it was going to take, I made the journey to town and climbed the stairs to Dr. Temple’s consulting room. I no longer found it nasty—I was beginning to understand the efficacy of neutral, unattractive surroundings, tissues, chairs and an ugly framed print. There was nothing else to look at, save oneself, nowhere to retreat to. She was smarter than she first appeared, Dr. Temple. That fact notwithstanding, her dream catcher earrings today were, frankly, abominable.
I was about to take to the stage and say my piece. I wasn’t acting, though. I’m a terrible actor, not being, by nature, a dissembler or a faker. It’s safe to say that Eleanor Oliphant’s name will never appear in lights, and nor would I want it to. I’m happiest in the background, being left to my own devices. I’ve spent far too long taking direction from Mummy.
The subject of Marianne had caused me so much distress, me trying furiously to build up my courage and direct my memory into places it didn’t want to go. We’d agreed not to force it, to let her appear naturally, we hoped, as we talked about my childhood. I’d accepted this. Last night, as Glen and I listened to the radio, the memory, the truth of it, had come to me, quite unbidden. It had been a perfectly ordinary evening, and there was no fanfare, no drama. Just the truth. Today was going to be the day I spoke it aloud, here in this room, to Maria. But there had to be some preamble. I couldn’t just blurt it out. I’d let Maria help by leading me there.
There was also no escaping Mummy in the counseling room today. It was hard to believe that I was actually doing this, but there it was. The sky didn’t fall in, Mummy wasn’t summoned like a demon by the mere mention of her name. Dr. Temple and I were, quite shockingly, having a reasoned, calm conversation about her.
“Mummy’s a bad person,” I said. “Really bad. I know that, I’ve always known that. And I wondered . . . do you think I might be bad too? People inherit all sorts of things from their parents, don’t they—varicose veins, heart disease. Can you inherit badness?”
Maria sat back, fiddled with her scarf.
“That’s a very interesting question, Eleanor. The examples you gave are physical
conditions. What you’re talking about is something different, though—a personality, a set of behaviors. Do you think that behavioral traits can be inherited?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I thought about it. “I really, really hope not.”
I paused for a minute. “People talk about nature and nurture. I know I haven’t inherited her nature. I mean, I’m a . . . difficult person sometimes, I suppose . . . But I’m not . . . I’m not like her. I don’t know if I could live with myself if I thought I was like her.”
Maria Temple raised her eyebrows.
“Those are very strong words, Eleanor. Why do you say that?”
“I couldn’t bear it if I thought that I would ever actually want to cause someone pain. To take advantage of weaker, smaller people. To leave them to fend for themselves, to . . . to . . .”
I broke off. It had been very, very hard to say that. It hurt, a real, physical pain, as well as a more fundamental, existential ache. For goodness’ sake—existential ache, Eleanor! I said to myself. Get a grip.
Maria spoke gently.
“But you’re not your mother, are you, Eleanor? You’re a completely separate person, an independent person, making your own choices.”
She gave an encouraging smile.
“You’re still a young woman—if you wanted to, you could have a family of your own one day, and be a totally different kind of mother. What do you think about that?”
That was an easy one.
“Oh, I’ll never have children,” I said, calm, matter-of-fact. She indicated that I should keep talking. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? I mean, what if I passed it on, the Mummy thing? Even if I don’t have it, it could skip a generation, couldn’t it? Or . . . or what if it’s the act of giving birth that brings it out in a person? It could be lying dormant all this time, waiting . . .”
She looked very serious.
“Eleanor, I’ve worked with several clients over the years who’ve had similar worries to yours. It’s normal to feel that way. Remember, though—we’ve just been discussing how different you are from your mother, the different choices you’ve made . . .”
“But Mummy’s still in my life, even after all this time. That worries me. She’s a bad influence, a very bad influence.”
Maria looked up from the book where she was taking notes.
“You’re still talking to her, then?” she said, her pen poised.
“Yes,” I said. I clasped my hands and took a deep breath. “But I’ve been thinking that it needs to come to an end. I’m going to stop. It has to stop.”
She looked as serious as I’d ever seen her.
“It’s not my role to tell you what to do, Eleanor. I will say this, though—I think that’s a very good idea. But, ultimately, it’s your decision. It’s always been your decision,” she said, excessively calm and ever so slightly aloof. It was as though she was trying just a bit too hard to be neutral, I thought. I wondered why.
“The thing is, even after everything that she’s done, after all of it, she’s still my mummy. She’s the only one I’ve got. And good girls love their mothers. After the fire, I was always so lonely. Any mummy was better than no mummy . . .”
As I paused, in tears, I saw that Dr. Temple was completely sympathetic, that she understood what I was saying and was listening without judgment.
“Lately,” I said, starting to feel a bit stronger, a bit braver, buoyed by her kind eyes and supportive silence, “lately, though, I’ve come to realize that she’s . . . she’s just bad. She’s the bad one. I’m not bad and it’s not my fault. I didn’t make her bad, and I’m not bad for wanting nothing to do with her, for feeling sad and angry—no, furious—about what she did.”
The next bit was hard, and I looked at my clasped hands as I spoke, scared to see any change in Dr. Temple’s demeanor in response to the words coming out of my mouth.
“I knew that something about her was very, very wrong. I’ve always known, as long as I can remember. But I didn’t tell anyone. And people died . . .”
I dared to look up, and felt my body slump with relief when I saw the expression on Maria’s face, unchanged.
“Who died, Eleanor?” she said quietly. I took a deep breath.
“Marianne,” I said. “Marianne died.” I looked at my hands, then back at Maria. “Mummy set a fire. She wanted to kill us both, except, somehow, Marianne died and I didn’t.”
Maria nodded. She didn’t look surprised. Had she already worked it out? She seemed to be waiting for me to say something else, but I didn’t. We sat in silence for a moment.
“It’s the guilt, though,” I said, whispering. It was very hard to speak, physically hard, trying to force out sound. “I was her big sister; I should have been looking out for her. She was so small. I did try, I really did, but it just . . . it wasn’t enough. I failed her, Maria; I’m still here and that’s all wrong. It should be her who survived. I don’t deserve to be happy, I don’t deserve to have a nice life when Marianne . . .”
“Eleanor,” she said gently, once I’d calmed myself, “feeling guilty about surviving when Marianne didn’t is a perfectly normal reaction. Don’t forget, you were only a child yourself when your mother committed her crime. It’s very important that you understand that it’s not your fault, that none of it was your fault.”
I was sobbing again.
“You were the child and she was the adult. It was her responsibility to look after you and your sister. Instead, there was neglect and violence and emotional abuse, and there were terrible, terrible consequences for everyone involved. And none of that is your fault, Eleanor, absolutely none of it. I don’t know if you need to forgive your mother, Eleanor,” she said. “But I’m certain of one thing: you need to forgive yourself.”
I nodded through the tears. It made sense. I wasn’t sure that I quite believed it—yet—but it certainly made logical sense. And you can’t ask for more than that.
Blowing my nose, unembarrassed by the trumpeting, which was as nothing compared to the horrors I’d already laid before Dr. Temple in this room, I made my decision. It was time to say a final good-bye to Mummy.
38
Raymond had insisted on meeting outside the counseling rooms that day to take me for coffee. I watched him amble toward me. His peculiar loping walk was almost endearing now—I wouldn’t recognize him if he started to walk as normal men did. He had his hands in the pockets of his low-slung denim trousers, and was wearing a strange, oversized woolen hat that I hadn’t seen before. It looked like the kind of hat that a German goblin might wear in an illustration from a nineteenth-century fairy tale, possibly one about a baker who was unkind to children and got his comeuppance via an elfin horde. I rather liked it.
“All right?” he said. “I nearly froze my bollocks off on the way over here.” He blew into his cupped hands.
“It is rather inclement today,” I agreed, “although it’s wonderful to see the sun.”
He smiled at me. “It is, Eleanor.”
I thanked him for taking time off to come and meet me. It was kind of him, and I told him so.
“Away you go, Eleanor,” he said, putting out his cigarette. “Any excuse for a half day. Anyway, it’s nice to talk to someone about something that isn’t software licenses and Windows 10.”
“But you love talking about software, Raymond,” I said, sniffing, and then I nudged him in the ribs, very gently, very bravely. He laughed, and nudged me back.
“Guilty as charged, Miss O,” he said.
We went into a branch of a café chain—I’d seen lots of them around town. We queued, and I asked for a grande mochaccino with extra cream and hazelnut syrup. The young man asked my name.
“Why do you need to know my name?” I said, puzzled.
“We write it on your cup,” he said, “so the drinks don’t get mixed up.”
Ridiculous.
He stared at me, the pen still poised in his hand. “I have to write your name on the cup,” he repeated, sounding firm but bored, as people in uniform are often wont to do.
“And I have to maintain a modicum of privacy by not sharing my given name with all and sundry in the middle of a cafeteria,” I said, equally firmly.
Someone further back in the queue tutted, and I heard someone else mutter something that sounded like for fuck’s sake. It appeared that we had reached something of an impasse.
“Fine, all right then,” I said. “My name is Miss Eleanor Oliphant.”
He boggled at me.
“I’ll just put, eh, Ellie,” he said, scribbling. Raymond was silent, but I could feel his large shoulders and misshapen body quivering with laughter. It was his turn next.
“Raoul,” he said, and then spelled it out.
When we’d collected our drinks—with no problem whatsoever—we sat at a table in the window and watched people pass by. Raymond stirred three sachets of sugar into his Americano, and I resisted the urge to suggest that he make healthier choices.
“So,” he said, after what I recognized was a comfortable silence. “How did it go today?”
I nodded. “It was OK, actually,” I said. He looked closely at me.
“You look like you’ve been crying,” he said.
“I have,” I told him. “But it’s fine. It’s normal to cry when you’re talking about your dead sister.”
Raymond’s face contorted with shock.
“She died in the house fire. Mummy started it on purpose. We weren’t meant to survive, but somehow I did. My little sister didn’t, though,” I said. I sounded strangely calm as I said these words. I looked away when I’d finished, knowing that Raymond’s face would be expressing emotions that I wasn’t quite ready to relive yet while he processed this information. He started to speak, but struggled.
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