Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely - Gail Honeyman Page 0,111
hours, from start to finish. Glen was still asleep on the duvet.
I spent the day pottering around the flat. Glen was good company: quiet, self-contained, mostly asleep. That evening, as I sat with a cup of tea and listened to a play on the radio, she jumped onto my lap and began kneading my thighs with her paws, claws partially unsheathed. It was slightly uncomfortable, but I could tell that she meant it kindly. After doing that for a minute or so, she settled herself carefully onto my lap and went to sleep. I needed to go to the bathroom about twenty minutes later, a necessity exacerbated by the fact that she was far from slender and was lounging with her full body weight directly atop my bladder. I tried to gently shift her to one side; she resisted. I tried again. On the third attempt, she got to her feet slowly, arched her back and then shuddered out a long, judgmental sigh, before dropping down onto the floor and waddling off toward her new bed. Once ensconced there, she glared at me as I left the room, maintaining the expression when I returned, and continued to glower at me throughout the evening. I wasn’t worried. I’d dealt with far, far worse things than an irritated feline.
Raymond paid a visit again a few days later to see how Glen was settling in. I’d invited him and his mother, as he’d mentioned that she was keen and I imagined, as a cat obsessive, she’d enjoy meeting Glen. In any case, there were still plenty of biscuits left over from his previous visit, so it was not as though it was any trouble.
They arrived in a black cab, which Mrs. Gibbons was very pleased about.
“The driver was lovely, Eleanor, wasn’t he, Raymond?” she said. Raymond nodded, and I thought I detected a hint, just a tiny one, of weariness, as though it wasn’t the first time she’d gone over the topic during their short journey from the south to the west of the city. “Oh, he couldn’t have been nicer, helped me in—and out!—of the taxi, held the door open while I got my walking frame . . .”
“That’s right, Mum,” he said, tucking her walking frame into the corner of the living room while she settled herself on the sofa. Glen, ever the iconoclast, had immediately gone to bed—my bed—as soon as they arrived, and there was nothing to see of her but a lightly snoring lump under the duvet. Mrs. Gibbons was disappointed, but I left her to peruse some photos on my phone while I went to make tea. Raymond joined me in the kitchen, leaning against the work top while he watched me pour. He placed a carrier bag next to me.
“It’s nothing much,” he said. I peered inside. There was a white cardboard box, from a bakery, tied with ribbon. There was also a tiny tin of “gourmet” cat food. “How lovely!” I said, delighted.
“I wasn’t sure what you liked, didn’t want to come empty-handed . . .” Raymond said, blushing. “I thought, well . . . you seem like the kind of person who likes nice things,” he said, looking up at me. “You deserve to have nice things,” he said firmly.
This was strange. I must confess I was somewhat lost for words for a moment or two. Did I deserve nice things?
“It’s funny, you know, Raymond,” I said. “Growing up with Mummy was very disorientating. Sometimes she gave us nice things, other times . . . not. I mean, one week we’d be dipping quail eggs in celery salt and shucking oysters, the next we’d be starving. I mean, you know, literally, deprived of food and water,” I said. His eyes widened.
“Everything was always extreme, so extreme, with her,” I said, nodding to myself. “I used to long for normal. You know, three meals a day, ordinary stuff—tomato soup, mashed potatoes, cornflakes . . .”
I untied the ribbons and looked inside the box. The sponge cake inside was an artful confection, chocolate ganache scattered with bright raspberry jewels. It was an ordinary luxury, which Raymond had chosen, especially for me.
“Thank you,” I said, feeling tears threaten to well up. There was really nothing else I needed to say.
“Thanks for inviting us, Eleanor,” he said. “Mum loves to get out, but she doesn’t often get the chance.”
“You’re welcome anytime, both of you are,” I said, and I meant it.