Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

Flowers placed carefully on the coffee table, I continued my slow progress around the flat, and as I cleaned, I thought about what it meant to make a home. I didn’t have much experience to draw on. I opened all of the windows, tuned the radio until I found some inoffensive music, and scrubbed each room in turn. Some of the stains in the carpet wouldn’t come out, but I managed to lift most of them. I filled four black bags with rubbish – old crosswords, dried-out pens, ugly knick-knacks that I’d collected over the years. I sorted out my bookshelf, making a pile to take (and in some cases, return) to the charity shop.

I’d recently finished reading a management tome which seemed to be aimed at psychopaths with no common sense (quite a dangerous combination). I have always enjoyed reading, but I’ve never been sure how to select appropriate material. There are so many books in the world – how do you tell them all apart? How do you know which one will match your tastes and interests? That’s why I just pick the first book I see. There’s no point in trying to choose. The covers are of very little help, because they always say only good things, and I’ve found out to my cost that they’re rarely accurate. ‘Exhilarating’ ‘Dazzling’ ‘Hilarious’. No.

The only criterion I have is that the books must look clean, which means that I have to disregard a lot of potential reading material in the charity shop. I don’t use the library for the same reason, although obviously, in principle and reality, libraries are life-enhancing palaces of wonder. It’s not you, libraries, it’s me, as the popular saying goes. The thought of books passing through so many unwashed hands – people reading them in the bath, letting their dogs sit on them, picking their nose and wiping the results on the pages. People eating cheesy crisps and then reading a few chapters without washing their hands first. I just can’t. No; I look for books with one careful owner. The books in Tesco are nice and clean. I sometimes treat myself to a few tomes from there on payday.

At the end of the process, the flat was clean, and very nearly empty. I made a cup of tea and looked around the living room. It just needed pictures on the walls and a rug or two. Some new plants. Sorry, Polly. The flowers would have to do for now. I took a deep breath, picked up the pouffe, and squashed it into a bin liner. It was quite a fight to get it in. As I grappled with it, I thought about what I must look like, my arms wrapped around a giant frog, wrestling it to the ground. I snorted a bit, and then I laughed and laughed until my chest hurt. When I stood up and finally tied the handles, a jaunty pop music song was playing and I realized what I felt … happy. It was such a strange, unusual feeling – light, calm, as though I’d swallowed sunshine. Only this morning I’d been furious, and now I was calm and happy. I was gradually getting used to feeling the range of available human emotions, their intensity, the rapidity with which they could change. Until now, any time that emotions, feelings, had threatened to unsettle me, I’d drink them down fast, drown them. That had allowed me to exist, but I was starting to understand that I needed, wanted, something more than that now.

I took the rubbish downstairs and when I came back into the flat, I noticed that it smelled lemony. It was a pleasure to enter. I didn’t normally notice my surroundings, I realized. It was like my walk to Maria Temple’s office this morning: when you took a moment to see what was around you, noticed all the little things, it made you feel … lighter.

Perhaps, if you had friends or a family, they might help you to notice things more often. They might even point them out to you. I turned off the radio and sat in silence on the sofa, drinking another cup of tea. All I could hear was the breeze whistling softly through the open window and two men laughing in the street below. It was a weekday afternoon. Normally, I’d be at work, watching the hands tick round until five, waiting for pizza and vodka time and then Friday night and the three long sleeps until Monday. With the exception of the shot I’d had in the pub, I hadn’t drunk any vodka for some weeks now. I’d always thought that it helped me sleep, but in fact I’d been sleeping more deeply than ever before, untroubled by disturbing dreams.

An electronic noise startled me and I almost spilled my tea. Someone had sent me a text message. I ran into the hall for my phone. The little envelope flashed:

U about early evening? Can I come over? Got a surprise 4 u! Rx

A surprise! I replied immediately.

Yes. Eleanor O.