Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine(72)

People don’t like these facts, but I can’t help that. If someone asks you how you are, you are meant to say FINE. You are not meant to say that you cried yourself to sleep last night because you hadn’t spoken to another person for two consecutive days. FINE is what you say.

When I first started working for Bob, there was an older woman in the office, only a couple of months away from retirement. She was often absent to care for her sister, who had ovarian cancer. This older colleague would never mention the cancer, wouldn’t even say the word, and referred to the illness only in the most oblique terms. I understand that this approach was considered quite usual back then. These days, loneliness is the new cancer—a shameful, embarrassing thing, brought upon yourself in some obscure way. A fearful, incurable thing, so horrifying that you dare not mention it; other people don’t want to hear the word spoken aloud for fear that they might too be afflicted, or that it might tempt fate into visiting a similar horror upon them.

I got onto all fours, shuffled forward like an old dog and pulled the curtains closed against the moon. I fell back onto the covers and reached again for the bottle.



I heard banging—bang bang bang—and a man shouting my name. I was dreaming a charnel house scene of fire, blood and violence, and it took forever to make the transition from then to now, to realize that the banging was real and coming from my front door. I pulled the covers over my head but it would not stop. I desperately wanted it to end but, despairing, I could not think of any way to make that happen other than answering the door. My legs were shaking and I had to hold on to the wall as I walked. As I fumbled with the locks, I looked down at my feet—small, white, marble. A huge bruise, purple and green, bloomed across one, right down to my toes. I was surprised—I could feel nothing, no pain, and had no recollection of how I had acquired it. It may as well have been painted on.

I finally managed to open the door, but couldn’t raise my head, didn’t have the strength to look up. At least the banging had stopped. That was my only objective.

“Jesus Christ!” a man’s voice said.

“Eleanor Oliphant,” I replied.





27





When I woke again, I was lying on my sofa. The texture under my hands felt rough, strange, and it took me a few moments to realize that I was covered with towels rather than blankets. I lay still, and slowly appraised my situation. I was warm. My head was pounding. My guts were filled with a stabbing pain which pulsed regularly, like blood. I opened my mouth and heard the flesh and gums peel apart, like orange segments being separated. I was wearing my yellow nightdress.

I heard churning, bumping sounds, external to the ones in my body, and eventually placed them as coming from the washer-dryer. I slowly opened one eye—it was gummed shut—and saw that the living room was unchanged, the frog pouf staring back at me. Was I alive? I hoped so, but only because if this was the location of the afterlife, I’d be lodging an appeal immediately. Beside me on the low table in front of the sofa was a large glass of vodka. I reached out, shaking violently, and managed to pick it up and lift it to my mouth without spilling too much. I had gulped down almost half of it before I realized that it was actually water. I gagged, feeling it gurgle and churn in my stomach. Another bad sign—someone or something had turned vodka into water. This was not my preferred kind of miracle.

Lying back down again, I heard other sounds, footsteps. Someone was humming, a man. Who was in my kitchen? I was amazed at how easily the sound traveled. I was always alone here, unused to hearing another person moving around in my home. I drank some more water and started to choke, which turned into a coughing fit and ended with unproductive retching. After a minute or two, someone knocked tentatively on the living room door, and a face peeped round—Raymond.

I wanted to die—this time, in addition to actually wanting to die, I meant it in the metaphorical sense too. Oh, come on now, I thought to myself, almost amused; just how desperately, on how many levels, does a person have to wish to die before it’s actually allowed to happen? Please? Raymond smiled sadly at me and spoke very quietly.

“How are you feeling, Eleanor?” he said.

“What happened?” I asked him. “Why are you in my house?”

He came into the room and stood at my feet.

“Don’t worry. You’re going to be fine.”

I closed my eyes. Neither phrase answered my questions; neither was what I wanted to hear.

“Are you hungry?” he said gently. I thought about it. My insides felt wrong, very wrong. Perhaps part of that was related to hunger? I didn’t know, so I just shrugged. He looked pleased.

“I’m going to make you some soup, then,” he said. I lay back with my eyes closed.

“Not lentil,” I said.



He returned after a few minutes and slowly, so slowly, I eased myself into a seated position, keeping the towels wrapped around me. He’d heated some tomato soup in a mug, and placed it on the table in front of me.

“Spoon?” I said.

He did not reply, but went off to the kitchen and came back with one. I held it in my right hand, trembling violently, and tried to sip some. I shook so much that it spilled onto the towels—I realized that there was no way I would be able to get the liquid from the mug to my mouth.

“Aye, I thought you might be best just trying to drink it,” he said gently, and I nodded.