Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

I made some tea and heated up the ready meal that Raymond had left in the fridge. I was, I discovered, very hungry indeed. I washed the cup and fork afterwards, stacked them beside the other clean crockery he’d left to drain. I went into the living room and picked up the phone. He answered on the second ring.

‘Eleanor – thank God,’ he said. Pause. ‘How’re you feeling?’

‘Hello, Raymond,’ I said.

‘How are you?’ he asked again, sounding strained.

‘Fine, thanks,’ I said. This was, I knew, the correct answer.

‘For fuck’s sake, Eleanor. Fine. Christ!’ he said. ‘I’ll be round in an hour, OK?’

‘Really, Raymond, there’s no need,’ I said calmly. ‘I’ve had some food’ – I didn’t know what time it was, and didn’t want to risk guessing whether it had been lunch or dinner – ‘and a shower, and I’m going to read for a while and then have an early night.’

‘I’ll be round in an hour,’ he said again, firmly, and then hung up.

When I answered the door, he was holding a bottle of Irn-Bru and a bag of jelly babies. I managed a smile.

‘Come in,’ I said.

I wondered how he had got in before, had no recollection of opening the door to him. What had I said, what kind of state had I been in? I felt my heart start to pound, jittery and anxious. Had I sworn at him? Had I been naked? Had something terrible happened between us? I felt the Irn-Bru start to slip from my grasp and it fell on the floor and rolled around. He picked it up, gripped my elbow in his other hand and guided me to the kitchen. He sat me at the table and put the kettle on. I should have been offended that he was commandeering my living space, but instead I felt relief, overwhelming relief at being taken care of.

We sat on opposite sides of the table with a cup of tea and said nothing for a while. He spoke first. ‘What the fuck, Eleanor?’ he said.

I was shocked to hear the wobble in his voice, as though there were tears lurking there. I simply shrugged. He began to look angry.

‘Eleanor, you were AWOL from work for three days, Bob was really worried about you, we all were. I got your address from him, I came round to see if you’re OK, and I find you … I find you …’

‘… preparing to kill myself?’ I ask.

He rubbed his hand across his face, and I saw that he was very close to crying.

‘Look, I know you’re a very private person, and that’s fine, but we’re pals, you know? You can talk to me about stuff. Don’t bottle things up.’

‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘How can telling someone how bad you’re feeling make it better? It’s not like they can fix it, can they?’

‘They probably can’t fix everything, Eleanor, no,’ he said, ‘but talking can help. Other people have problems too, you know. They understand what it feels like to be unhappy. A problem shared and all that …’

‘I don’t think anyone on earth would understand what it feels like to be me,’ I said. ‘That’s just a fact. I don’t think anyone else has lived through precisely the set of circumstances I’ve lived through. And survived them, at any rate,’ I said. It was an important clarification.

‘Try me,’ he said. He looked at me, and I looked at him. ‘OK, if not me, then try someone else. A counsellor, a therapist …’

I snorted – a most inelegant sound.

‘A counsellor!’ I said. ‘“Let’s sit around and talk about our feelings and that’ll magically make everything better.” I don’t think so, Raymond.’

He smiled. ‘How will you know until you try, though? What have you got to lose? There’s no shame, you know, no shame at all in being … depressed, or having a mental illness or whatever …’ I almost choked on my tea.

‘Mental illness? What are you talking about, Raymond?’ I shook my head.

He held up both hands in a placatory movement.

‘Look, I’m not a doctor. It’s just … well … I don’t think that someone who gives themselves alcohol poisoning while they plan their suicide is, you know, in a very good place?’

This was such a ridiculous summation of my situation that I almost laughed. Raymond wasn’t usually prone to exaggeration but this was over the top, and I couldn’t allow it to stand as a factually accurate description of what had happened that night.

‘Raymond, I simply had a bit too much vodka after a stressful evening, that’s all. It’s hardly symptomatic of an illness.’

‘Where had you been that night?’ he said. ‘What’s been going on since then?’

I shrugged. ‘I went to a gig,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t very good.’

Neither of us spoke for a while.

‘Eleanor,’ he said eventually, ‘this is serious. If I hadn’t come over when I did, you might be dead by now, either from the booze or from choking on your own vomit. That’s if you hadn’t already overdosed on the pills or whatever.’

I put my head on one side and pondered this.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I concede that I was feeling very unhappy. But doesn’t everyone feel sad from time to time?’