Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely - Gail Honeyman Page 0,86

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“Thought I’d try and look the part,” he said, beaming, as he stood beside me in the doorway.

I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. We went in, and I collected the tickets I’d purchased online. The bar was poorly lit and, as implied by the name, utterly filthy. Loutish, unkempt people of both genders sat around in Stygian gloom, and the music from the stereo system was both unfeasibly loud and unspeakably terrible.

We went downstairs to the venue. It was already almost full. As I’d stood waiting for Raymond in the doorway, I’d noticed a procession of ridiculous-looking young people entering the premises—this, it transpired, was where they were going. We were surrounded by black—black clothes, black hair, spiked and shaved and sculpted. Black make-up on both men and women, applied in a way that Bobbi Brown would not have endorsed. There were a lot of spikes everywhere too—hair, jewelry, even on backpacks. Almost no one wore normal shoes. All Hallows’ Eve, I thought. Raymond returned from the bar with a plastic pint of beer for himself and, without having asked, something paler for me.

“Cider?” I shouted, over the din. “But, Raymond. I don’t drink cider!”

“What do you think Magners is, you daft bint?” he said, nudging me gently with his elbow.

I sipped reluctantly—it wasn’t as nice as Magners, but it would do. It was too loud to converse, so I scanned the room. The stage was small and raised only a meter or so from the floor. When I came back here, assuming Johnnie Lomond would be standing front and center, he’d be able to see me easily, even if I were forced to position myself halfway back in the crowd. Cupid does, presumably, need a tiny nudge sometimes.

The audience started making a collective animal noise and surged forward. We stayed where we were—the musicians were now on-stage and had begun to play. I put my hands to my ears, unable to believe what I was hearing. Without exaggeration, it could only be described as the cacophonous din of hell. What on earth was wrong with these people? The “singer” alternated between screaming and growling.

I couldn’t bear it a moment longer and ran upstairs, rushing outside into the street, panting and shaking my head like a dog in an attempt to rid my ears of the sound. Raymond followed shortly afterward.

“What’s wrong, Eleanor?” he said, looking concerned. “Are you OK?”

I wiped the tears from my face.

“That wasn’t music, that was . . . oh, I don’t know. The horror, Raymond! The horror!”

Raymond started to laugh, proper belly laughs (for which he was very well equipped), until he was actually bent over and struggling to breathe.

“Oh, Eleanor,” he said, wheezing. “I knew you weren’t a fan of grindcore! What the fuck were you thinking?” He started giggling again.

“I just wanted to see the venue, listen to a band,” I said. “That such sounds could exist—it’s beyond human imagining.”

Raymond had recovered himself.

“Aye, well—what is it that they say?—try everything once, except incest and morris dancing. Maybe we should add death metal to the list, eh?”

I shook my head.

“I have literally no idea what you are talking about—none of those words make any sense,” I said. I took several deep breaths, until I felt almost calm again.

“Let us retire to an inn or public house, Raymond—a quiet one—and please, allow me to buy you some beer in recompense for this wasted evening.”

“Oh, it wasn’t wasted, Eleanor,” he said, shaking his head. “Your face! This is one of the best nights out I’ve had in ages.”

He started to laugh again, and, much to my surprise, I found myself joining in. It was amusing that I had so comprehensively misunderstood the genre of music being performed. I had a lot to learn about music, I realized, and it would be important to do so in order to interact appropriately with the musician.

“Have you heard of Johnnie Lomond and the Pilgrim Pioneers?” I asked him. He shook his head. “Why?” he said. I took out my phone and navigated to the singer’s web page. Raymond scrolled down for a few moments, reading the text, then popped in his earphones and listened for a minute or two.

“Sounds shit,” he said dismissively, handing me back my phone. This from a man in a skull sweatshirt!

“Really?” I said.

“He’s got a standard-issue beard, an expensive guitar he doesn’t know how to play and a fake American accent. Trying to make out he’s from the South .