Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

The family, the minister told us, would be very pleased if we would join them afterwards 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 flowerbed 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 judgements 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 sombre 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 tell-tale 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.