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 clearly been nominated as spokeswoman. ‘We just wanted to say that we’re glad you’re feeling better, and, y’know, welcome back!’ There were nods, murmured assent. As speeches went, it was hardly Churchillian, but it was yet another very kind and thoughtful gesture.
I wasn’t one for public oratory, but I sensed that they would not be satisfied without a few words.
‘Thank you very much indeed for the flowers and the card and the good wishes,’ I said, eventually, eyes on my desk while I spoke. There was a bit of a silence that no one, and certainly not me, quite knew how to fill. I looked up at them.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I don’t suppose those overdue invoices are going to process themselves, are they?’
‘She’s back!’ Billy said, and there was laughter, including my own. Yes. Eleanor Oliphant was back.
40
WEDNESDAY NIGHT. HIGH TIME.
‘Hello, Mummy,’ I said. I heard my own voice – it sounded flat, emotionless.
‘How did you know?’ Sharp. Irritated.
‘It’s always you, Mummy,’ I said.
‘Cheeky! Don’t be insolent, Eleanor. It doesn’t suit you. Mummy doesn’t like naughty girls who talk back, you know that.’
Old ground, this – a reprimand I’d heard so many times before.
‘I don’t really care what you like any more, Mummy,’ I said.
I heard her snort; short, derisive.
‘Oh dear. Someone’s in a strop. What is it – time of the month? Hormones, darling? Or something else … let me see. Has someone been filling your head with nonsense? Telling lies about me? How many times have I warned you about that? Mummy isn’t—’
I interrupted. ‘Mummy, I’m going to say goodbye to you tonight.’
She laughed. ‘Goodbye? But that’s so … final, darling. There’s no need for that, come along now. What would you do without our little chats? What about your special project – don’t you think you ought to keep Mummy updated on your progress, at least?’
‘The project wasn’t the answer, Mummy. It was wrong of you, very wrong of you, to tell me that it was,’ I said, not sad, not happy, just stating facts.
She laughed. ‘It was your idea, as I recall, darling. I merely … cheered you on from the sidelines. That’s what a supportive Mummy would do, isn’t it?’
I thought about this. Supportive. Supportive meant … what did it mean? It meant caring about my welfare, it meant wanting the best for me. It meant laundering my soiled sheets and making sure I got home safely and buying me a ridiculous balloon when I was feeling sad. I had no desire to recount a list of her failings, her wrongdoings, to describe the horrors of the life we’d led back then or to go over the things she’d done and not done to Marianne, to me. There was no point now.
‘You set fire to the house while Marianne and I were asleep inside. She died in there. I wouldn’t exactly call that supportive,’ I said, trying my best to keep my voice calm, not entirely succeeding.
‘Someone has been telling you lies – I knew it!’ she said, triumph in her voice. She spoke brightly, full of enthusiasm. ‘Look, what I did, darling – anyone would have done the same thing in my situation. It’s like I told you: if something needs to change, change it! Of course, there will be inconveniences along the way … you simply have to deal with them, and not worry too much about the consequences.’
She sounded happy, glad to be dispensing advice. She was, I realized, talking about killing us, Marianne and me, her inconveniences. In a strange way, it helped.
I took a breath, although I didn’t really need to.
‘Goodbye, Mummy,’ I said. The last word. My voice was firm, measured, certain. I wasn’t sad. I was sure. And, underneath it all, like an embryo forming – tiny, so tiny, barely a cluster of cells, the heartbeat as small as the head of a pin, there I was. Eleanor Oliphant.
And, just like that, Mummy was gone.
41
ALTHOUGH I FELT COMPLETELY fine and, indeed, ready to get back into the thick of it all, HR had insisted on a ‘phased return’, whereby I only worked during the mornings for the next few weeks. More fool them – if they wished to pay me a full-time salary for part-time hours, it was their lookout. At lunchtime on Friday, the end of my brief working day and my first week back, I met Raymond for the second time that week.
Since then, we’d been communicating solely by electronic means. I had spent the previous evening searching online. It was so easy to find things. Too easy, perhaps. I’d printed two newspaper articles without reading beyond the headlines, then sealed them in an envelope. I knew Raymond would have found them already himself, but it was important to me that I did the searching. It was my history and no one else’s. No one else alive, at any rate.
As requested, he’d joined me in the café, so that I wasn’t alone when I read them for the first time. I’d tried to cope alone for far too long, and it hadn’t done me any good at all. Sometimes you simply needed someone kind to sit with you while you dealt with things.
‘I feel like a spy or something,’ said Raymond, looking at the sealed envelope that lay between us.
‘You’re completely unsuited to a career in espionage,’ I told him. He raised his eyebrows.
‘Your face is too honest,’ I said, and he smiled.
‘Ready then?’ he said, serious now.
I nodded.
The envelope was a buff Manila self-sealing A4, which I had purloined from the office stationery cupboard. The paper had come from there too. I felt slightly guilty about it, especially since Bob, I knew now, had to factor this sort of thing into his running costs. I opened my mouth to tell Raymond about the stationery budget, but he nodded towards the envelope encouragingly, and I realized that I could delay matters no further. I eased it open, then held it towards him to show him that there were two pages of A4 inside. Raymond shuffled even closer, so that we were touching, sides together, congruent. There was warmth and strength there and, gratefully, I drew on it. I started to read.
The Sun, 5 August 1997, p2
‘Pretty but deadly’ kiddie killer ‘fooled
us all’, neighbours say
‘Killer Mum’ Sharon Smyth (pictured), 29, had been living in a quiet Maida Vale street for the last two years, neighbours said, before deliberately starting the fire that ended in tragedy.
‘She was such a pretty young woman – she had us all fooled,’ said a neighbour, who did not wish to be named. ‘Her little ones were always properly turned out, and they spoke so nice – everybody said what lovely manners they had,’ he told our reporter.
‘As time went on, you could tell something wasn’t right, though. The kiddies always seemed terrified of her. Sometimes they had bruises, and people heard a lot of crying in that house. She’d go out a lot. We just assumed there was a babysitter, but looking back on it …
‘One time, I was talking to the older girl – she was only nine or ten, I’d say – and the mum shot her such a look that she started to shake, trembling like a little dog. I dread to think what went on in there behind closed doors.’