Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

I woke again. I had not closed the curtains and light was coming in, moonlight. The word connotes romance. I took one of my hands in the other, tried to imagine what it would feel like if it was another person’s hand holding mine. There have been times when I felt that I might die of loneliness. People sometimes say they might die of boredom, that they’re dying for a cup of tea, but for me, dying of loneliness is not hyperbole. When I feel like that, my head drops and my shoulders slump and I ache, I physically ache, for human contact – I truly feel that I might tumble to the ground and pass away if someone doesn’t hold me, touch me. I don’t mean a lover – this recent madness aside, I had long since given up on any notion that another person might love me that way – but simply as a human being. The scalp massage at the hairdresser, the flu jab I had last winter – the only time I experience touch is from people whom I am paying, and they are almost always wearing disposable gloves at the time. I’m merely stating the facts.

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 for ever 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 onto 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 pouffe 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.