Гейл Ханимен - Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

‘How old is your mum?’ he said. I was taken aback. How old was she? I started to work it out.

‘So … I’m thirty, and I think she must have had me when she was very young — nineteen, twenty? So she’ll be … I’d guess she’d be in her early fifties now, something like that?’

Raymond nodded.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘So … I’m wondering … I mean, I don’t have kids, so what would I know — but I imagine it can’t be easy, lodging in an opium den in Tangier if you’ve got a toddler with you? Or … what was the other thing? Working as a blackjack dealer in Macau?’ He spoke very gently, as though he were afraid to upset me.

‘I mean, if you added up all the things she said she’d done, wouldn’t it cover a longer period than thirty years? Unless she did it all before you were born and she was still a teenager. And if she did … well, I’m wondering … where did she get the money from, to do all that travelling, and wasn’t she a bit young to be going to places like that on her own at that age? What about your dad? Where did she meet him?’

I looked away. These were important questions that I couldn’t answer. Questions I wasn’t sure I wanted to answer. But really, why hadn’t I ever thought about them before?

This conversation with Raymond came back to me the next time I spoke to her.

‘Hello, darling,’ she said. I thought I heard a hiss of static, or perhaps the malign buzz of strip lighting and another noise, something that sounded a bit like the clanging of bolts being drawn.

‘Hello, Mummy,’ I whispered. I could hear chewing.

‘Are you eating?’ I said. She exhaled, and then there was an awful honking sound, like a cat trying to cough up a furball, followed by a moist splat.

‘Chewing tobacco,’ she said dismissively. ‘Ghastly stuff — I’d advise against it, darling.’

‘Mummy, I’m hardly likely to try chewing tobacco, am I?’

‘I suppose not,’ she said. ‘You never were very adventurous. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, though. I indulged in some paan now and again, back when I lived in Lahore.’

As I’d told Raymond, Mummy has lived in Mumbai, Tashkent, São Paulo and Taipei. She’s trekked in the Sarawak jungle and climbed Mount Toubkal. She’s had an audience with the Dalai Lama in Kathmandu and taken afternoon tea with a Maharaja in Jaipur. And that’s just for starters.

There was some more throat-clearing — the chewing tobacco had clearly taken its toll. I took advantage of the opening.

‘Mummy, I wanted to ask you something. How … how old were you when you had me?’

She laughed, unamused.

‘I was thirteen … no, wait … I was forty-nine. Whatever. Why do you care? What’s it to you, daughter mine?’

‘I was just wondering …’ I said.

She sighed. ‘I have actually told you all this before, Eleanor,’ she said briskly, ‘I do wish you would listen.’ There was a pause.

‘I was twenty,’ she said calmly. ‘From an evolutionary point of view, that’s actually the peak time for a woman to give birth, you know. Everything just springs back into place. Why, even now, I still have the pert, firm breasts of an early-career supermodel …’

‘Mummy, please!’ I said. She cackled.

‘What’s wrong, Eleanor? Am I embarrassing you? What a strange child you are! You always were. Hard to love, that’s what you are. Very hard to love.’

Her laughter trailed off into a long, painful-sounding cough.

‘Christ,’ she said. ‘I’m starting to fall apart.’

For the first time I could remember, I heard a note of sadness in her voice.

‘Aren’t you well, Mummy?’ I asked.

She sighed.

‘Oh, I’m fine, Eleanor,’ she said. ‘Talking to you always revitalizes me.’

I looked at the wall, waiting for the onslaught. I could almost feel her gathering herself, ready to strike.

‘All alone, aren’t you? No one to talk to, no one to play with. And it’s all your own fault. Strange, sad little Eleanor. Too bright for your own good, aren’t you? You always were. And yet … in so many ways, you’re incredibly, spectacularly stupid. You can’t see what’s right in front of your nose. Or should I say who …’

She coughed again. I did not dare to breathe, waiting for what would come next.

‘Oh, I’m so, so tired of talking. It’s your turn, Eleanor. If you had even a modicum of social savoir-faire , you’d know that conversation is supposed to be a to-and-fro, a game of verbal tennis. Don’t you remember me teaching you that? So, come on, tell me — what have you been doing this week?’

I said nothing. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to speak.

‘I must say,’ she went on, ‘I was surprised when you told me you’d been promoted at work. You’ve always been more of a follower than a leader, haven’t you, darling?’

Should I tell her that I’d been signed off sick? I had managed to avoid any talk of work recently, but she’d raised the topic now. Did she already know about my absence, and was this therefore a trap? I tried to think on my feet, but that’s something I’ve never been good at. Too slow, Eleanor, too late …

‘Mummy, I … I’ve been unwell. I’m off work at the moment. I’m on sick leave for a while.’ I heard a deep breath. Was she shocked? Concerned? The same breath rushed out of her, down the phone and into my ear, heavy and fast.

‘That’s better,’ she said, sighing happily. ‘Why on earth would you chew tobacco when you could smoke a lovely, delicious Sobranie?’

She took another deep drag on her cigarette and spoke again, sounding, if anything, even more bored than before.

‘Look, I haven’t got long,’ she said, ‘so let’s keep it brief. What’s so wrong with you that you’re skiving off work? Is it serious? Life threatening? Terminal?’

‘I’ve got clinical depression, Mummy,’ I said, all in a rush.

She snorted.

‘Stuff and nonsense!’ she said. ‘There’s no such thing.’

I thought back to what the GP and Raymond had said, and how kind and understanding Bob had been. His sister had depression for years, he’d told me. I’d had no idea.

‘Mummy,’ I said, as defiantly as I dared, ‘I have clinical depression. I’m seeing a counsellor and exploring what happened during my childhood, and—’

‘NO!’ she shouted, so loud and sudden that I took a step back. The next time she spoke, she was quiet — dangerously quiet.

‘Now, you listen to me, Eleanor. Under no circumstances are you to discuss your childhood with anyone, especially not a so-called “counsellor”. Do you hear me? Don’t you dare. I’m warning you, Eleanor. If you start down that path, do you know what will happen? Do you know what I’ll do? I’ll—’

Dead air.

As always, Mummy was scary. But the thing was, this time — for the first time ever — she’d actually sounded scared too.

A FEW WEEKS PASSED, AND the sessions with Maria Temple had become a natural part of my routine. It was nice to be out, despite the wind, and I decided to walk instead of taking the bus, enjoying what remained of the sun. There were plenty of other people with the same idea. It felt good to be part of a throng, and I took gentle pleasure in mingling. I dropped twenty pence into the paper cup of a man sitting on the pavement with a very attractive dog. I bought a fudge doughnut from Greggs and ate it as I walked. I smiled at a spectacularly ugly baby who was shaking his fist at me from a garish pushchair. Noticing details, that was good. Tiny slivers of life — they all added up and helped you to feel that you, too, could be a fragment, a little piece of humanity who usefully filled a space, however minuscule. I was pondering this as I waited for the lights to change. Someone tapped me on the arm, and I jumped.