Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely - Gail Honeyman Page 0,22

the department would be in touch in due course regarding next steps.

File note: on November 12, 1999 a Children’s Panel Review of Compulsory Supervision Order concerning Eleanor Oliphant took place, at which Mr. Brocklehurst and Miss Scatcherd were present (minutes attached).

The Children’s Panel concluded that, on account of Eleanor’s challenging behavior in this and previous placements, foster care in a family environment was not appropriate at the current time. It was therefore agreed that Eleanor should be placed in a residential care home for the time being, and that the decision of the panel would be reviewed in twelve months.

(Action: R. Scatcherd to investigate availability of places in local facilities and notify Mr. and Mrs. Reed of expected date of removal.)

R. Scatcherd, 11/12/99

Liars. Liars, liars, liars.

7

The bus was quiet and I had a seat to myself, the old man’s shopping sitting in two Bags for Life beside me. I’d thrown out the sausages and the orange cheese, but I kept the milk for myself, reasoning that it wasn’t stealing as he wouldn’t be able to use it anyway. I had some qualms about throwing out the other perishable items. I do understand that some people think waste is wrong, and, after careful reflection, I tend to agree. But I’d been brought up to think very differently; Mummy always said that only peasants and grubby little worker ants worried about such trivial things.

Mummy said that we were empresses, sultanas and maharanis in our own home, and that it was our duty to live a life of sybaritic pleasure and indulgence. Every meal should be an epicurean feast for the senses, she said, and one should go hungry rather than sully one’s palate with anything less than exquisite morsels. She told me how she’d eaten chili-fried tofu in the night markets of Kowloon, and that the best sushi outside of Japan could be found in São Paulo. The most delicious meal of her life, she said, had been chargrilled octopus, which she’d eaten at sunset in an unassuming harbor front taverna one late summer evening on Naxos. She’d watched a fisherman land it that morning, and then sipped ouzo all afternoon while the kitchen staff battered it again and again against the harbor wall to tenderize its pale, suckered flesh. I must ask her what the food is like where she is now. I suspect that Lapsang souchong and langues de chat biscuits are in short supply.

I remember being invited to a classmate’s house after school. Just me. The occasion was “tea.” This was confusing in itself; I had, not unreasonably, been expecting afternoon tea, whereas her mother had prepared a sort of early kitchen supper for us. I can still picture it—orange and beige—three luminous fish fingers, a puddle of baked beans and a pale pile of oven chips. I had never seen, let alone tried any of these items, and had to ask what they were. Danielle Mearns told everyone in the class the next day and they all laughed and called me Beanz Meanz Weird (shortened to Beanzy, which stuck for a while). No matter, school was a short-lived experience for me. There was an incident with an over-inquisitive teacher who suggested a trip to the school nurse, after which Mummy decided that said teacher was a barely literate, monolingual dullard whose only worthwhile qualification was a certificate in first aid. I was homeschooled after that.

At Danielle’s house, her mother gave us each a Munch Bunch yogurt for pudding, and I snuck the empty pot into my school bag so that I could study it afterward. Apparently, it was merchandise pertaining to a children’s television program about animated pieces of fruit. And they said I was weird! It was a source of disgust to the other children at school that I couldn’t talk about TV programs. We didn’t have a television; Mummy called it the cathode carcinogen, cancer for the intellect, and so we would read or listen to records, sometimes playing backgammon or mah-jongg if she was in a good mood.

Taken aback by my lack of familiarity with frozen convenience food, Danielle Mearns’ mother asked me what it was that I usually had for tea on a Wednesday night.

“There’s no routine,” I said.

“But what kind of things do you eat, generally?” she asked, genuinely puzzled.

I listed some of them. Asparagus velouté with a poached duck egg and hazelnut oil. Bouillabaisse with homemade rouille. Honey-glazed poussin with celeriac fondants. Fresh truffles when in season, shaved over cèpes and buttered