Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely - Gail Honeyman Page 0,104

baby who was shaking his fist at me from a garish pushchair. Noticing details, that was good. Tiny slivers of life—they all added up and helped you to feel that you too could be a fragment, a little piece of humanity who usefully filled a space, however minuscule. I was pondering this as I waited for the lights to change. Someone tapped me on the arm, and I jumped.

“Eleanor?” It was Laura, looking cartoonishly glamorous as usual. I hadn’t seen her since Sammy’s service.

“Oh hello,” I said. “How are you? I’m sorry I didn’t manage to speak to you at your father’s funeral.”

She laughed. “Don’t worry about it, Eleanor—Ray explained that you were a bit tiddly that day,” she said.

I felt my face flush and looked down at the pavement. I suppose I had drunk rather a lot of vodka that afternoon. She punched my arm gently.

“Don’t be daft, that’s what funerals are for, aren’t they—a wee drink and a catch-up?” she said, smiling.

I shrugged, still averting my gaze.

“Your hair’s looking good,” she said brightly.

I nodded, glanced up into her kohl-rimmed eyes.

“Several people have remarked upon it, actually,” I said, feeling a bit more confident, “which leads me to think that you must have done a very good job.”

“Och, that’s nice to hear,” she said. “You can pop back into the salon anytime, you know—I’ll always try to fit you in, Eleanor. You were lovely to my dad, so you were.”

“He was lovely to me,” I said. “You were very lucky to have had such a delightful father.”

Her eyes started to brim, but she blinked the tears away, aided no doubt by the enormous artificial lashes she had glued along her upper lids. The lights at the pedestrian crossing started to flash.

“Raymond mentioned how fond of him you both were,” she said quietly. She checked her watch. “Oh God, sorry, I’ll need to run, Eleanor—the car’s on the meter, and you know what those wardens are like if you go a minute over.”

I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, but I let it pass.

“I’m seeing Ray this weekend, actually,” she said, touching my arm. She smiled, “He’s actually quite nice, isn’t he? He kind of slipped under my radar at first but then, once you get to know him . . .” She smiled again. “Anyway, I’ll let him know you were asking after him on Saturday, Eleanor,” she said.

“No need,” I said, bristling slightly. “I’ve recently had luncheon with Raymond, as it happens. What unfortunate timing—I could have let him know that you were asking after him.”

She stared at me. “I wasn’t . . . I mean, I didn’t know you two were close,” she said.

“We lunch together weekly,” I said.

“Ah, right—lunch,” she said, looking happier, for some reason. “Well, like I said, got to run. Nice seeing you, Eleanor!”

I raised my hand and bade her farewell. It was incredible how she managed to run so nimbly in those heels. I feared for her ankles. Fortunately, they were rather on the chunky side.

Maria Temple was wearing yellow tights today, teamed with purple ankle boots. Yellow tights did not, I noticed, flatter a sporty calf.

“I wonder if we might revisit the subject of your mother, Eleanor? Is that perhaps something we could—”

“No,” I said. More silence.

“Fine, fine, no problem. Could you tell me a bit about your father, then? You haven’t really mentioned him so far.”

“I don’t have a father,” I said. More of that awful silence. It was so annoying, but in the end, it actually worked, her refusal to speak. The quiet went on for eons, and in the end I simply couldn’t bear it any longer.

“Mummy told me she was . . . I assumed she was . . . well, she didn’t tell me directly when I was a child, but as an adult, I’ve come to understand that she was the victim of a . . . sexual assault,” I said, somewhat inelegantly. No response. “I don’t know his name and I never met him,” I said.

She was writing in her notebook, and looked up. “Did you ever wish you had a father, or a father figure in your life, Eleanor? Was it something that you missed?”

I stared at my hands. It was difficult, talking openly about these things, dragging them out for inspection when they’d been perfectly fine as they were, hidden away.

“You don’t miss what you’ve never had,” I said eventually. I’d read that somewhere and it sounded as though