Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

‘I’m going tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Half past eleven.’

He nodded. ‘That’s good, Eleanor,’ he said. ‘Now, promise me you’ll be completely honest with the doctor, tell her exactly what you’ve been feeling, what you’ve been going through.’

I thought about this. I would tell her almost everything, I’d decided, but I wasn’t going to mention the little stockpile of pills (which no longer existed in any case – Raymond had, with scant concern for the environment, flushed them down the lavatory. I’d professed irritation but was secretly glad to be rid of them), and I had also decided to say nothing about the chats with Mummy or our ridiculous, abortive project. Mummy always said that information should be divulged to professional busybodies on a need-to-know basis, and these topics weren’t relevant. All the doctor needed to understand was that I was very unhappy, so that she could advise me how best to go about changing that. We didn’t need to start digging around in the past, talking about things that couldn’t be changed.

‘Promise,’ I said. I had my fingers crossed, though.

29

WHEN THE GP SIGNED me off work, I wondered how a life of indolence would suit me. I’ve always had a full-time job, having started with Bob the week after I received my degree, and in all the years since then, I’ve never once had cause to call in sick. Fortunately, I’ve been blessed with an extremely robust constitution.

That first week, the week immediately after the incident with the vodka and the visit from Raymond, I slept a lot. I must have done other things, normal things too, like going out to buy milk or having a shower, but I can’t recall them now.

The doctor had somehow managed to deduce that I was suffering from depression, even with only a few scant details to go on. I managed to keep all of my most important secrets to myself. She suggested that medication and talking therapy combined was the most effective form of treatment, but I insisted that I did not wish to take any tablets, at least initially. I was worried that I might start to rely on them in the same way that I’d been relying on vodka. I did, however, reluctantly agree to see a counsellor as a first step, and the inaugural session had been scheduled for today. I had been assigned to a Maria Temple – no title provided. I cared nothing for her marital status, but it would have been helpful to know in advance whether or not she was in possession of any formal medical qualifications.

Her office was located on the third floor of a tall modern block in the city centre. The lift had transported me back in time to that least belle of époques – the 1980s. Grey grey grey, sludgy pastels, dirty plastic, nasty carpets. It smelled like it hadn’t been cleaned since the 1980s either. I had been reluctant to attend the counselling session from the outset, and to do so in this setting made it even less enticing, if such a thing were possible. Sadly, the environment was all too familiar, and this was, in its own way, a comfort. The institutional corridors with floral friezes and Artex ceilings down which I have walked in my life are legion.

I knocked on the door – thin plywood, grey, no nameplate – and, too quickly, as though she had been standing right behind it, Maria Temple opened it and invited me in. The room was tiny, a dining chair and two institutional armchairs (the wipe-clean, uncomfortable kind) arranged opposite a small, low table, on which was placed a box of non-branded ‘man-size’ tissues. I was momentarily thrown. Their noses are, with a few exceptions, more or less the same size as our own, are they not? Did they really need a vastly bigger surface area of tissue, simply because they were in possession of an XY chromosome? Why? I suspected that I really did not want to know the answer to that question.

There was no window, and a framed print on the wall (a vase of roses, made using a computer by someone who was dead inside) was more offensive to the eye than a bare wall.

‘You must be Eleanor?’ she said, smiling.

‘It’s Miss Oliphant, actually,’ I said, taking off my jerkin and wondering what on earth to do with it. She pointed to a row of hooks on the back of the door, where I placed it as far away as possible from the very practical waterproof which hung there already. I sat down opposite her – the chair released a tired whump of stale air from its grubby cushions. She smiled at me. Her teeth! Oh, Ms Temple. She had done her best, but nothing could change the size of them, I supposed. They belonged in a far bigger mouth, perhaps not even a human one. I was reminded of a photograph that the Telegraph had featured some time ago, of a monkey which had grabbed a camera and taken its own grinning photograph (a ‘selfie’). The poor woman; an adjective which one would never wish to have applied to one’s teeth was simian.