Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely - Gail Honeyman Page 0,77

characteristics that I found attractive. Looking at all my purchases, spread across my bed for closer examination, I assuaged my concerns about the cost by reassuring myself that the entire outfit could be worn again and again, either together or separately. I now owned what I believed was called a “capsule wardrobe,” clothes which were appropriate for most social events that the musician and I might attend together. I’d look right in them, on his arm. An evening at the ballet, perhaps? The opening night of a new play? I knew he’d be opening up uncharted worlds for me. At least now I had the appropriate shoes for them.

I’d spent more in these last few weeks than I usually spent in a year. Social interaction, it appeared, was surprisingly expensive—the travel, the clothes, the drinks, the lunches, the gifts. Sometimes it evened out in the end—like with the drinks—but, I was finding out, more often than not, one incurred a net financial loss. I’d a bit of money saved up, but it only amounted to a month’s wages or so, and Bob’s paychecks were far from generous. I saw now that this had only been possible because I hadn’t had much requirement to spend money on the social aspects of life before now.

Mummy liked to live extravagantly, but after . . . everything changed . . . I’d learned that money was something to worry about, to ration. It had to be asked for, and then counted out into my red raw hands. I never forgot—was never allowed to forget—that someone else was paying for my clothes, the food I ate, even for the heating in the room where I slept. My foster carers received an allowance for looking after me, and I was always conscious of making sure not to cause them to exceed it by needing things. And especially not by wanting things.

“Allowance” is not a generous, lavish word. I earn my own money now, of course, but I have to be careful with it. Budgeting is a skill, and a very useful one at that—after all, if I were to run out of funds, find myself indebted, there is no one, not a single soul, on whom I could call to bail me out. I’d be destitute. I have no anonymous benefactor to pay my rent, no family members or friends who could kindly lend me the money to replace a broken vacuum cleaner or pay the gas bill until I could return the borrowed sum to them on payday. It was important that I did not allow myself to forget that.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t attend Sammy’s funeral in inappropriate clothing. The black dress, the assistant assured me, was smart, but could also be “dressed down.” The coat could be worn all winter. My jerkin had more than paid for itself over the years, but I would keep it, of course, in case it was required again in future. I hung everything up carefully. I was ready. Bring out your dead.

Friday was bright, although it was impossible to tell if it would stay that way. I showered and put on my new clothes. It had been many years since I’d worn tights, preferring a handy pair of pop socks under my slacks, but I still remembered how to roll them on. I was very careful, as they were thin and delicate, and could be ripped in an instant by a careless fingernail. I felt enclosed in them, somehow, as though I was wearing someone else’s skin.

I’d made my legs black, and my hair blond. I’d lengthened and darkened my eyelashes, dusted a flush of pink onto my cheeks and painted my lips a shade of dark red which was rarely found in nature. I should, by rights, look less like a human woman than I’d ever done, and yet it seemed that this was the most acceptable, the most appropriate appearance that I’d ever made before the world. It was puzzling. I supposed I could have gone further—made my skin glow with tanning agent, scented myself with a spray made from chemicals manufactured in a laboratory, distilled from plants and animal parts. I did not want to do that. I picked up my new bag and locked the door behind me.

For safety and security reasons, I had specified that I should be collected from a location on a main road near my flat rather than disclose my home address, and an unprepossessing vehicle drew up outside the building