He stood up and kissed me on the cheek, and while he hugged me, his little potbelly pressed against me and made me want to laugh. He patted my back a few times. The whole thing was excruciatingly embarrassing, but really, really nice.
He made me a cup of tea and fussed around with biscuits, making sure I was comfortable.
“Now then, this interview. It’s nothing to worry about, Eleanor, a formality—HR gives me a hard time if I don’t do these things, you know what it’s like.” He made a face. “We just need to ticky boxy” (what?) “and sign the form, and then I’ll let you get back to it.”
He was slurping from a mug of coffee and had spilled some down his shirtfront. Bob wore thin shirts, a vest visible beneath, which added to the overall impression of an overgrown schoolboy. We went through a list of insultingly banal prescribed questions from a form. It was, to the visible relief of us both, a painless if somewhat tedious process.
“Right then,” he said, “that’s done, thank Christ. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about? It’s a bit soon to get into specifics, I know,” he said. “We can meet again tomorrow when you’ve had a chance to get up to speed with everything, if you like?”
“The Christmas lunch,” I said, “is it all arranged now?”
He screwed up his little round face, and swore in a most uncherubic fashion.
“I totally forgot about that!” he said. “There were so many other things to sort out, and it just kind of, I don’t know, slipped off my radar. Shit . . .”
“Fear not, Bob,” I said. “I shall address it posthaste.” I paused. “I mean, after I’ve caught up with all the accounts, of course.”
Bob looked worried. “Are you sure? I really don’t want to put any extra pressure on you, Eleanor—you’re just back, and I’m sure you’ll have more than enough on your plate . . .”
“No problemo, Bob,” I said confidently, giving him a double thumbs-up sign, thereby trying out a favorite phrase and gesture of Raymond’s for the first time. Bob’s eyebrows shot up. I hoped I had used them correctly, and in the appropriate context. I’m very good with words as a rule, but this sort of thing does, I must confess, trip me up sometimes.
“Well, if you’re one hundred percent sure . . .” he said, not, it must be noted, sounding particularly sure himself.
“Absolutely, Bob.” I nodded. “Everything will be confirmed and arrangements put in place by the end of the week. You can count on it.”
“Ah, well, that’d be brilliant,” he said, scribbling on the form, which he then passed to me. “I just need you to fill in that section at the bottom, and that’s us done,” he said. I signed with a flourish. I don’t have much opportunity to use my signature in day-to-day life, which is rather a pity, as I have a very interesting “John Hancock,” as our cousins across the pond would have it. I don’t mean to boast. It’s just that almost everyone who’s seen it has remarked on how unusual, how special it is. Personally, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Anyone could write an “O” as a snail-shell spiral if they wished to, after all, and using a mixture of upper-and lowercase letters is simply good sense—it ensures that the signature is difficult to forge. Personal security, data security: so important.
When I finally sat down at my desk, the first thing I noticed was the flowers. They’d been obscured by the monitor as I’d approached, but now I saw the vase (well, it was actually a pint glass; the office never had enough vases, cake knives or champagne flutes, despite employees celebrating life events on what seemed to be a weekly basis). It was filled with blooms, sea holly and agapanthus and iris, and it was glorious.
An envelope was propped against the arrangement, and I slowly opened the seal. There was a card inside, a stunning photograph of a red squirrel eating a hazelnut on the front. Inside, someone (Bernadette, I suspected, from the childlike scrawl) had written WELCOME BACK ELEANOR! and a multitude of signatures, accompanied by Best Wishes or Love, were scattered across both sides. I was somewhat taken aback. Love! Best wishes! I wasn’t at all sure what to think.
Still mulling this over, I switched on my computer. There were so many unanswered e-mails that I went straight to today’s, thinking that I’d simply delete all the others. The senders would get in touch again if they were important, surely. The most recent one, sent only ten minutes ago, was from Raymond. The subject heading read: READ ME!!!
Thought I’d better put that as u probs have about ten billion unread messages in your inbox right now LOL. I meant to say the other afternoon, I’ve got two tickets to a concert, it’s classical music, I dunno if you like that sort of thing but I kind of thought you might? It’s two weeks on Saturday if you’re free—maybe go for something to eat afterward?
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 anymore, 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 good-bye to you tonight.”
She laughed. “Good-bye? 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.