Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely - Gail Honeyman Page 0,118
deal with my tears. I remember, I remember.
“Thank you,” I said. He nodded, his back still turned. Everything was there, obvious to us both, but it all remained unsaid. Sometimes that was best.
After he’d gone, I put the sweater on. It was far too big, of course, but that made it even better, with more of it to go around me, anytime I needed it. Sammy’s parting gift.
36
Getting to Dr. Temple’s office involved a bus journey into town and then a short walk. My travel pass had expired, and it was symptomatic of my general feeling of Weltschmerz, of anomie, that I hadn’t even bothered to renew it last week. Marianne. Everything else was just trivia. I dropped two pounds into the driver’s slot, caring not one whit that it bore an ugly sticker saying No Change Given, and that I had therefore needlessly sacrificed twenty pence. Who gave a fig about twenty pence, when it came down to it?
All of the seats already had an occupant, which meant I was going to have to position myself next to a stranger. In a different mood, I enjoyed this game: one had ten seconds to scan the occupants and select the slimmest, sanest, cleanest-looking person to sit next to. Choose wrongly, and the fifteen-minute journey into town would be a much less pleasant experience—either squashed beside a sprawling fatty, or mouth-breathing to minimize the penetration of the reek emanating from an unwashed body. Such was the excitement of traveling on public transport.
I took no pleasure in the game today, however, and merely seated myself as close to the front as possible, taking no interest in the merits or demerits of my companion. As luck would have it, she was an elderly woman, slightly on the plump side but not inconveniently so, who smelled of hairspray and kept herself to herself. Good.
She got off at the next stop and then I had the seat to myself. More people got on, and I watched a handsome young man—tall, slim, with disproportionately large brown eyes—play the scanning game in order to select a seat. I looked forward to sitting next to him, being sure that he was neither mad nor malodorous.
However, he walked straight past me and sat on the other side of the bus, next to a short, rough-looking man in a sports jacket. I couldn’t believe it! Two people got on at the next stop—one went upstairs, the other, once again, eschewed the spare seat next to me and walked toward the back of the bus, where, I noticed when I turned around to look, she seated herself next to a man with no socks on. His bare ankles looked distressingly white above his oxblood leather brogues, which he had teamed with green jogging bottoms. A madman.
I stared at the floor, my mind racing. Did I . . . did I look like the kind of person who ought to be avoided in a game of bus seat selection? I could only conclude, in the face of the evidence, that I did. But why?
I would have to reason my way to the answer. I wasn’t overweight. I didn’t smell—I showered daily, and I laundered my clothes regularly. That left madness, then. Was I mad? No. No, I wasn’t. I was suffering from clinical depression, but that was an illness. It wasn’t madness. Did I look mad, then? Act mad? I didn’t think so. But then, how would I know? Was it my scar? My eczema? My jerkin? Was it a sign of madness even to think you might be mad? I rested my elbows on my knees and placed my head in my hands. Oh God oh God oh God.
“You all right, hen?” a voice said, and I felt a hand on my shoulder, causing me to startle and sit up again. It was the man with no socks, who was en route to the front of the bus.
“Yes, thank you,” I said, not making eye contact. He sat down next to me while the bus approached the next stop.
“You sure?” he said kindly.
“Yes, thank you,” I repeated. I risked a look at his face. He had very gentle eyes, the same delicate shade of green as newly emerged buds on trees.
“Just taking a wee moment, hen?” He patted me on the arm. “Everybody needs to take a wee moment to themselves now and again, eh?” He smiled, full of warmth, and stood up to leave. The bus was slowing down.