Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

‘I remember moments here and there, fragments, but I can’t think of a complete incident,’ I said. ‘No, wait. A picnic, at school. It must have been the end of term, or something like that – we all were outside, at any rate, in the sunshine.’ It wasn’t much to go on, and certainly not a detailed recollection.

‘What was it about that day that made you feel so happy, d’you think?’ She spoke gently.

‘I felt … safe,’ I said. ‘And I knew Marianne was safe too.’

Yes, that was it. Marianne – don’t think too hard – that’s right, her nursery class was there that day too. We all got a packed lunch, cheese sandwiches and an apple. The sunlight, the picnic. Marianne and I had walked home together after school, as we always did, going as slowly as we could and telling each other about our day. The walk home wasn’t long. It was never long enough. She was funny, a gifted mimic. It hurt to remember how much she made me laugh.

School had been a place of refuge. Teachers asked how you got your cuts and bruises, sent you to the nurse to have them dressed. The nit nurse combed your hair gently, so gently, said you could keep the elastics because you’d been such a good girl. School dinners. I could relax at school, knowing Marianne was at nursery, safe and warm. The little ones had their own special peg to hang their coats on. She loved it there.

It wasn’t long after the picnic that Mummy found out Mrs Rose had been asking about my bruises. We were home-schooled after that, all day every day – no more escaping from nine till four, Monday to Friday. Worse and worse, quicker and quicker, hotter and hotter, fire. I’d brought it on myself as usual, my own stupid fault, stupid Eleanor, and, worst of all, I’d dragged Marianne into it too. She’d done nothing wrong. She’d never done anything wrong.

Dr Temple pushed the tissues towards me and I wiped the tears from my cheeks.

‘You mentioned Marianne a lot there,’ she said gently, ‘when you were talking about your day-to-day life.’

I was ready to say it out loud. ‘She’s my sister,’ I said.

We sat for a moment and I let the words crystallize. There she was: Marianne. My little sister. My missing piece, my absent friend. The tears were coursing down my cheeks now, and Maria let me sob until I was ready to speak.

‘I don’t want to talk about what happened to her,’ I said. ‘I’m not ready to do that!’

Maria Temple was very calm. ‘Don’t worry, Eleanor. We’ll take this one step at a time. Acknowledging that Marianne is your sister is a huge thing. We’ll get to the rest, in time.’

‘I wish I could talk about it now,’ I said, furious with myself. ‘But I can’t.’

‘Of course, Eleanor,’ she said, calmly. She paused. ‘Do you think that’s because you can’t remember what happened to Marianne? Or is it because you don’t want to?’ Her voice was very gentle.

‘I don’t want to,’ I said slowly, quietly. I rested my elbows on my knees and put my head in my hands.

‘Be gentle with yourself, Eleanor,’ Maria said. ‘You’re doing incredibly well.’

I almost laughed. It certainly didn’t feel like I was doing well.

Before and after the fire. Something fundamental had gone missing in the flames: Marianne.

‘What do I do?’ I said, desperate, suddenly, to move forward, to get better, to live. ‘How do I fix this? How do I fix me?’

Dr Temple put down her pen and spoke firmly but gently.

‘You’re doing it already, Eleanor. You’re braver and stronger than you give yourself credit for. Keep going.’

When she smiled at me then, her whole face crinkled into warm lines. I dropped my head again, desperate to hide the emotion that flamed there. The lump in my throat. The pricking of more tears, the swell of warmth. I was safe here, I’d talk more about my sister soon, however hard it was going to be.

‘See you next week, then?’ I said. When I looked up, she was still smiling.

Later that day, Glen and I were watching a televisual game in which people with a fatally flawed understanding of statistics (specifically, of probability theory) selected numbered boxes, each containing a cheque, to be opened in turn, in the hope of unearthing a six-figure sum. They based their selections on wildly unhelpful factors such as their birth date or that of a person they cared about, their house number or, worst of all, ‘a good feeling’ about a particular integer.

‘Humans are idiots, Glen,’ I said, kissing the top of her head and then burying my face into her fur, which had grown back with such resplendence that she could now afford to shed it all over my clothes and furniture with gay abandon. She purred her assent.