Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

by Gail Honeyman

I looked in the fridge, and popped a packet of cheese slices into the bag. All men like cheese.

I realized that such small gestures—the way his mother had made me a cup of tea after our meal without asking, remembering that I didn’t take sugar, the way Laura had placed two little biscuits on the saucer when she brought me coffee in the salon—such things could mean so much.

We walked in silence, the kind that you didn’t feel the need to fill.

All of the people in the room seemed to take so much for granted: that they would be invited to social events, that they would have friends and family to talk to, that they would fall in love, be loved in return, perhaps create a family of their own.

I allowed my mind to wander. I’ve found this to be a very effective way of passing the time; you take a situation or a person and start to imagine nice things that might happen. You can make anything happen, anything at all, inside a daydream.

expecting Raymond to be there, a smile ready as I thought how he’d like to hear about the arm-shape dance, but it wasn’t him.

I began to wonder if cobblers and chiropractors had established some fiendish cartel.

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.

woman who knew her own mind and scorned the conventions of polite society. We were going to get along just fine.