Гейл Ханимен - Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

Everything took so long. Before, I’d simply bathed, run a comb through my hair and pulled on my trousers. Being feminine apparently meant taking an eternity to do anything, and involved quite a bit of advanced planning. I couldn’t imagine how it would be possible to hike to the source of the Nile, or to climb up a ladder to investigate a malfunction inside a particle accelerator, wearing kitten heels and ten denier tights.

It was hard to gauge the full effect of Raymond’s outfit, but it was apparent, even from this position, that he was wearing an ironed white shirt, a black tie, and black trousers. I couldn’t see his feet, and issued a silent prayer that he was not shod in training shoes, even black ones.

‘You look nice,’ he said.

I nodded, feeling slightly self-conscious in my new dress, and looked at him again. He hadn’t shaved off his odd little beard, but it had been trimmed, and his hair was combed neatly. The taxi moved off, and we joined the slow morning traffic. The radio jabbered nonsense, and we didn’t look at one another or speak. There was really nothing to be said.

The crematorium was in the suburbs, a 1970s monstrosity of white concrete and brutal angles. The gardens were neat in a sterile, municipal way, but, surprisingly, were full of beautiful blown roses. There were lots of mature trees around the perimeter, which pleased me. I liked to think of their roots, coursing with life, snaking under this place. We drew up in an enormous car park which was already almost full, although it was only ten thirty. The place was out of the way and would be impossible to reach by public transport, which was completely illogical. There ought to be a train or a shuttle bus, I thought. It was a place we were all guaranteed to be visiting at some point.

Raymond paid the driver and we stood for a moment, taking it in.

‘Ready?’ he said.

I nodded. There were lots of other mourners, moving through the grounds like slow black beetles. We walked up the path, in silent agreement that we were in no hurry to leave the trees and the roses and the sunshine and go inside. A long hearse sat at the front door, and we looked at the coffin, which was covered in wreaths. A coffin was a wooden box in which Sammy’s corpse would be lying. What was he wearing in there, I wondered. I hoped it was that nice red jumper; cosy, smelling of him.

We sat down on the left-hand side of the room, in a pew not too far from the front. The place was half full already, and there was a low hum of muttered conversation, a muted, insect-like buzzing that I hadn’t heard in any other venue or set of circumstances.

I picked up one of the sheets that had been placed along the pews: Samuel McMurray Thom , it said, 1940–2017. Inside it told us what would happen, listed the readings and hymns, and suddenly I was overwhelmed with a desire for it to be over, not to have to be there and experience it all.

Raymond and I were silent. The room was much nicer inside than the exterior had suggested, with wooden beams and a high vaulted ceiling. The entire side wall to the left of where we were seated was glass, and we could see the rolling lawns and more of those huge, primeval trees in the background. I was glad. Nature should make her presence felt in the room in some way, I thought; living nature, not cut flowers. The sun was quite bright now, and the trees cast short shadows, although autumn was creeping up through a shimmer of wind in the leaves. I turned around and saw that the room was full, perhaps a hundred people, maybe more. The buzzing hum threatened to drown out the dull recorded organ music.

Something shifted in the air and silence fell. Both of his sons and four other men whose faces I recognized from the party carried Sammy’s coffin down the aisle and placed it gently on a sort of raised platform with a roller belt, at the end of which was a set of red velvet curtains. I tried to remember what the platform reminded me of, and it came to me: the supermarket checkout in Tesco, where you place your items and they move towards the cashier. I leaned across to tell Raymond, but he had fished a bag of peppermints from his suit pocket and offered me one before I could speak. I popped it in and sucked.

Other people had joined us on the pew, and we’d had to shuffle up like crabs to make space for them. I was therefore in very close proximity to Mr Raymond Gibbons. I noticed that he smelled extremely pleasant today; the peppermints, of course, but also a clean soap scent and something almost woody, like cedar. I hadn’t seen him smoke a cigarette yet. I suppose even Raymond would think it inappropriate to smoke a cigarette outside a crematorium.

The rest of the family entered and sat beside Sammy’s boys on the front pew; Laura was on her own, looking impossibly glamorous. Dark glasses! Indoors! Astonishing. They were followed by a jolly-looking minister. A man at a keyboard tucked away in the corner flexed his fingers and started to play, and we shuffled to our feet. The words to the hymn were printed in the booklet but I found that I could remember them from childhood. The communal singing was of extremely poor quality, more like an atonal mumble, and the minister’s unpleasant voice was overly loud, perhaps because he was wearing a lapel microphone. He really ought to turn it off for the hymns, I thought — there was no need to amplify his caterwauling. Raymond, to my immense surprise, had a pleasant light tenor, and he was singing properly, unlike most other people. When did people become embarrassed to sing in public? Was it because of the decline in churchgoing? And yet the television schedule was full of singing contests in which people, however untalented, were far from shy about participating. Perhaps people are only interested in giving solo performances.

Surely this was the ultimate in disrespect — to attend a man’s funeral and mumble during hymns which, however dreary, had been specifically selected to commemorate his life? I began to sing more loudly. Raymond and I were making more noise than the next four pews put together, and I was glad of it. The words were incredibly sad, and, for an atheist like myself, entirely without hope or comfort, but still; it was our duty to sing them to the best of our ability, and to sing proudly, in honour of Sammy. I sat down when it was finished, happy that Raymond and I had shown him the respect he deserved. Quite a few people turned around to look at us, presumably because they had enjoyed our vocal tribute.

The minister spoke about Sammy’s life; it was interesting to hear that he’d grown up near a tiny village in the North East, on a sheep farm. He’d joined the merchant navy when he left school but, soon tiring of life at sea, he’d pitched up in Glasgow with ten pounds, a new suit and no desire whatsoever to return to farming. He’d met Jean in Woolworths, looking for a needle and thread. The minister, looking pleased with himself, said that they’d stitched a happy life together after that. There was a brief religious bit — the usual balderdash — and then, like the assistant in Tesco, he made the coffin conveyer belt move, and Sammy checked out.

Bright as a button, smile plastered on, as though this were the best part of the whole terrible event, the minister announced that we would sing the final hymn. Raymond and I made a valiant effort, but it’s impossible to sing when you’re crying — there’s a lump like a plum stone lodged in your throat, and the music can’t get past it. Raymond blew his nose and passed me a packet of tissues, which I gratefully accepted.

The family, the minister told us, would be very pleased if we would join them afterwards at the Hawthorn House Hotel for light refreshments. The congregation filed out, shaking hands and mumbling meaningless platitudes. I did the same. There was a collection basket for the British Heart Foundation, ‘in lieu of flowers’, and I saw Raymond drop in a twenty-pound note. I put in three pound coins. If anything, I felt that this was overly generous. Researching new drugs and efficacious treatments for heart disease costs hundreds of millions of pounds. Three pounds or three hundred pounds — it was hardly going to swing the balance between finding and not finding a cure, after all.