Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely - Gail Honeyman Page 0,126

was, to the visible relief of us both, a painless if somewhat tedious process.

“Right then,” he said, “that’s done, thank Christ. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about? It’s a bit soon to get into specifics, I know,” he said. “We can meet again tomorrow when you’ve had a chance to get up to speed with everything, if you like?”

“The Christmas lunch,” I said, “is it all arranged now?”

He screwed up his little round face, and swore in a most uncherubic fashion.

“I totally forgot about that!” he said. “There were so many other things to sort out, and it just kind of, I don’t know, slipped off my radar. Shit . . .”

“Fear not, Bob,” I said. “I shall address it posthaste.” I paused. “I mean, after I’ve caught up with all the accounts, of course.”

Bob looked worried. “Are you sure? I really don’t want to put any extra pressure on you, Eleanor—you’re just back, and I’m sure you’ll have more than enough on your plate . . .”

“No problemo, Bob,” I said confidently, giving him a double thumbs-up sign, thereby trying out a favorite phrase and gesture of Raymond’s for the first time. Bob’s eyebrows shot up. I hoped I had used them correctly, and in the appropriate context. I’m very good with words as a rule, but this sort of thing does, I must confess, trip me up sometimes.

“Well, if you’re one hundred percent sure . . .” he said, not, it must be noted, sounding particularly sure himself.

“Absolutely, Bob.” I nodded. “Everything will be confirmed and arrangements put in place by the end of the week. You can count on it.”

“Ah, well, that’d be brilliant,” he said, scribbling on the form, which he then passed to me. “I just need you to fill in that section at the bottom, and that’s us done,” he said. I signed with a flourish. I don’t have much opportunity to use my signature in day-to-day life, which is rather a pity, as I have a very interesting “John Hancock,” as our cousins across the pond would have it. I don’t mean to boast. It’s just that almost everyone who’s seen it has remarked on how unusual, how special it is. Personally, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Anyone could write an “O” as a snail-shell spiral if they wished to, after all, and using a mixture of upper- and lowercase letters is simply good sense—it ensures that the signature is difficult to forge. Personal security, data security: so important.

When I finally sat down at my desk, the first thing I noticed was the flowers. They’d been obscured by the monitor as I’d approached, but now I saw the vase (well, it was actually a pint glass; the office never had enough vases, cake knives or champagne flutes, despite employees celebrating life events on what seemed to be a weekly basis). It was filled with blooms, sea holly and agapanthus and iris, and it was glorious.

An envelope was propped against the arrangement, and I slowly opened the seal. There was a card inside, a stunning photograph of a red squirrel eating a hazelnut on the front. Inside, someone (Bernadette, I suspected, from the childlike scrawl) had written WELCOME BACK ELEANOR! and a multitude of signatures, accompanied by Best Wishes or Love, were scattered across both sides. I was somewhat taken aback. Love! Best wishes! I wasn’t at all sure what to think.

Still mulling this over, I switched on my computer. There were so many unanswered e-mails that I went straight to today’s, thinking that I’d simply delete all the others. The senders would get in touch again if they were important, surely. The most recent one, sent only ten minutes ago, was from Raymond. The subject heading read: READ ME!!!

Thought I’d better put that as u probs have about ten billion unread messages in your inbox right now LOL. I meant to say the other afternoon, I’ve got two tickets to a concert, it’s classical music, I dunno if you like that sort of thing but I kind of thought you might? It’s two weeks on Saturday if you’re free—maybe go for something to eat afterward?

See you lunch

Rx

Before I had a chance to reply, I realized that my colleagues had assembled in a circle around my desk without my noticing. I looked up at them. Their expressions ranged from bored to benevolent. Janey looked mildly concerned.

“We know you don’t like a fuss, Eleanor,” she said, having