Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine(63)

“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.)