Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely - Gail Honeyman Page 0,83

clean, not intoxicated, just very pleasantly numbed to sharp feelings.

He laughed. “Well, I suppose I could go for a glass of red, right enough,” he said.

“Red what?” I said.

“Wine, Eleanor. Merlot, I think—whatever was on special at Tesco this week.”

“Ah, Tesco,” I said. “In that case . . . I think I’ll join you. Just the one, though,” I said. I didn’t want Raymond to think I was a dipsomaniac.

He came back with two glasses and a bottle with a screw cap.

“I thought wine had corks?” I said.

He ignored me. “To Sammy,” he said, and we clinked glasses like people do on television. It tasted of warmth and velvet, and a little bit like burned jam.

“Take it easy now!” he said, waggling his finger in a way I recognized was supposed to be humorous. “I don’t want you falling off the sofa!”

I smiled. “How was your afternoon?” I asked, after another delicious sip. He took a very big swig.

“You mean apart from rescuing you from the clutches of a pervert?” he said.

I had no idea what he was talking about.

“Och, the afternoon was fine,” he said, when it became clear I didn’t know how to respond. “It all went off as well as these things can. It’ll be tomorrow that it really hits them. The funeral’s a big distraction; you keep busy with all the arrangements, stupid decisions about scones or biscuits, hymns—”

“They were bad hymns!” I said.

“—and then the day itself, making sure you thank people, the cortege and all that stuff . . . The family said to thank you for coming, by the way,” he finished, trailing off. It was he who was drinking all the wine, I noticed—he’d already refilled his glass while I’d only had two sips.

“But the days and weeks after that . . . that’s when it really starts to get hard,” he said.

“Is that how it was for you?” I said.

He nodded. He’d switched on the fire, one of those gas ones that’s supposed to look real, and we both stared at it. There must be some piece of wiring left over in our brains, from our ancestors, something that means we can’t help but stare into a fire, watch it move and dance, warding off evil spirits and dangerous animals . . . that’s what fire’s supposed to do, isn’t it? It can do other things too, though.

“D’you want to watch a film, Eleanor? Cheer ourselves up a bit?”

I thought about this.

“A film would be perfect,” I said.

He left the room and returned with another bottle of wine and a big packet of crisps. “Sharing bag” it said. I’d never tried one, for that very reason. He ripped it down the middle and spread it out on the table in front of the sofa where we were both sitting, then topped up our glasses. He went out again and came back with a duvet which I guessed he’d removed from his bed, and a cozy-looking fleece blanket, red like Sammy’s sweater, which he passed to me. I kicked off my kitten heels and snuggled under the blanket while he fiddled with what seemed like ten remote control devices. The enormous TV sprung to life, and he flicked through various channels.

“How do you feel about this one?” he said, nodding toward the screen as he wrapped himself in his duvet. The highlighted selection said Sons of the Desert. I had no idea what it was, but I realized that I’d happily sit here in the warmth with him and watch a golf program if that was all there was.

“Fine,” I said. He was about to press play when I stopped him. “Raymond,” I said, “shouldn’t you be with Laura?” He looked quite taken aback.

“I saw you today,” I said, “and at Keith’s golf club birthday party.”

His face was impassive.

“She’s with her family right now, that’s how it should be,” he said, shrugging. I sensed he did not wish to speak about it further, and so I simply nodded.

“Ready?” he asked.

The film was black and white, and it was about a fat, clever man and a thin, stupid man who’d joined the Foreign Legion. They were patently unsuited to it. At one point, Raymond laughed so much that he sprayed wine all over his duvet. I choked on a sharing crisp not long afterward and he had to pause the film and thump me on the back to dislodge it. I was very disappointed when it ended, and also to see that we