I stood and listened. I could hear nothing from inside, just the hum of the stair light and faint sounds from the street below. On the floor above, a television was blaring. I took out my notebook and tore off a blank page. I placed it over the nameplate and took out my pencil, then began a brass rubbing. Within moments, I had a stunning facsimile of the plate, which I placed carefully into my bag, between the pages of the notebook. The exterior doors were open and his interior door, a typical Victorian design of mahogany and opaque etched glass, was tantalizingly close.
I stood as near as I dared. I could hear nothing from within, and there was no visible movement. I could almost make out the shape of a bookcase, and a painting. A cultured man. How much we had in common!
I stiffened. There: soft fingers on vibrating steel, and a chord shimmered into the air, nebulous and milky, like light from an old, old star. A voice: warm and low and gentle, a voice to cast spells, charm snakes, shape the course of dreams. I could do nothing but turn towards it and lean closer. I pressed myself against the glass. He was writing a song, working it all out – words, music, feelings. What a rare privilege, to be permitted to eavesdrop on the very moment of creation! He sang of nature, my handsome Orpheus. His voice. His voice!
I tipped my head back and closed my eyes. I pictured a sky. It was blue-black, soft and dense as fur. Across and over the expanse of night, into the velvet depths of it, light was scattered, enough for a thousand darknesses. Patterns revealed themselves; the eye, exquisitely dazzled, sought out snailshell whorls and shattered pearls, gods and beasts and planets. As we stood still, yet we rotated, and, whilst turning, moved in a larger circle, round and round the sun, and oh, the dizzying momentum of it …
The music stopped and there was a sudden, blurry movement. I stepped back, and quickly started to walk upstairs, my heart hammering. Nothing. I stood on the upper landing and waited for a few minutes. Nothing.
I tiptoed down and placed myself outside his door again. The music had started up once more, but I did not wish to disturb him. I was only there to see where he lived, after all … there was no harm in looking. Mission accomplished.
It was sheer spendthrift madness, but once on the street, I hailed a passing black cab to take me home. The evening had lingered slowly, but now it was definitely night, and I did not care to be abroad. The dark is where bad things happen. I estimated that the taxi was likely to cost in the region of six pounds, but I had no choice. I put on my seat belt and closed the glass panel that separated me from the driver. I had no desire to hear his views on association football, the city council or any other topic. I had only one thing on my mind. Or, more accurately, one person.
I realized after an hour or two that I wasn’t going to be able to sleep after my earlier adventuring. I put on the light and looked down at my nightdress. I have two, to allow for alternate washing. They are identical, both of them ankle-length with a high neckline, made of cosy brushed cotton. They’re lemon-coloured (the shade reminds me of explosively fizzy boiled sweets, not a feature of my early childhood but a comforting image nonetheless). When I was young, for a treat, Mummy would pop a pimento-stuffed olive into my mouth, or, occasionally, an oily anchovy from a coffin-shaped yellow-and-red tin. She always stressed to me that sophisticated palates erred towards savoury flavours, that cheap sugary treats were the ruin of the poor (and their teeth). Mummy always had very sharp, very white teeth.
The only acceptable sweet treats, she said, were proper Belgian truffles (Neuhaus, nom de dieu; only tourists bought those nasty chocolate seashells) or plump Medjool dates from the souks of Tunis, both of which were rather difficult to source in our local Spar. There was a time, shortly before … the incident … when she shopped only at Fortnum’s, and I recall that in that same period she was in regular correspondence with Fauchon over perceived imperfections in their confiture de cerises. I remember the pretty red stamps on the letters from Paris: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. Not exactly a credo of Mummy’s.
I folded my pillow in half to support me as I sat up. Sleep still felt far away, and I was in need of soothing. I reached down into the gap between the mattress and the wall and sought my old faithful, its edges rounded and softened with years of handling. Jane Eyre. I could open up the novel at any page and immediately know where I was in the story, could almost visualize the next sentence before I reached it. It was an old Penguin Classic, Ms Brontë’s portrait gracing the cover. The bookplate inside read: Saint Eustace Parish Church Sunday School, Presented to Eleanor Oliphant for Perfect Attendance, 1998. I had a very ecumenical upbringing, all told, having been fostered by Presbyterians, Anglicans, Catholics, Methodists and Quakers, plus a few individuals who wouldn’t recognize God if he pointed his electric Michelangelo finger at them. I submitted to all attempts at spiritual education with equally bad grace. Sunday school, or its equivalent, did at least get me out of whatever house I was living in, and sometimes there were sandwiches, or, more rarely, tolerable companions.
I opened the book at random, in the manner of a lucky dip. It fell open at a pivotal scene, the one where Jane meets Mr Rochester for the first time, startling his horse in the woods and causing him to fall. Pilot is there too, the handsome, soulful-eyed hound. If the book has one failing, it’s that there is insufficient mention of Pilot. You can’t have too much dog in a book.
Jane Eyre. A strange child, difficult to love. A lonely, only child. She’s left to deal with so much pain at such a young age – the aftermath of death, the absence of love. It’s Mr Rochester who gets burned in the end. I know how that feels. All of it.
Everything seems worse in the darkest hours of the night; I was surprised to hear that the birds were still singing, although they sounded angry. The poor creatures must hardly sleep in summer, when the light glimmers on and on. In the half dark, in the full dark, I remember, I remember. Awake in the shadows, two little rabbit heartbeats, breath like a knife. I remember, I remember … I closed my eyes. Eyelids are really just flesh curtains. Your eyes are always ‘on’, always looking; when you close them, you’re watching the thin, veined skin of your inner eyelid rather than staring out at the world. It’s not a comforting thought. In fact, if I thought about it for long enough, I’d probably want to pluck out my own eyes, to stop looking, to stop seeing all the time. The things I’ve seen cannot be unseen. The things I’ve done cannot be undone.
Think about something nice, one of my foster parents would say when I couldn’t sleep, or on nights when I woke up sweating, sobbing, screaming. Trite advice, but occasionally effective. So I thought about Pilot the dog.
I suppose I must have slept – it seems impossible that I wouldn’t have dropped off for at least a moment or two – but it didn’t feel like it. Sundays are dead days. I try to sleep as long as possible to pass the time (an old prison trick, apparently – thank you for the tip, Mummy) but on summer mornings, it can be difficult. When the phone rang just after ten, I’d been up for hours. I’d cleaned the bathroom and washed the kitchen floor, taken out the recycling and arranged all the tins in the cupboard so that the labels were facing forwards in zetabetical order. I’d polished both pairs of shoes. I’d read the newspaper and completed all the crosswords and puzzles.
I cleared my throat before I spoke, realizing that I hadn’t uttered a word for almost twelve hours, back when I told the taxi driver where to drop me off. That’s actually quite good, for me – usually, I don’t speak from the point at which I state my destination to the bus driver on Friday night, right through until I greet his colleague on Monday morning.
‘Eleanor?’ It was Raymond, of course.
‘Yes, this is she,’ I said, quite curtly. For goodness’ sake, who did he expect? He coughed extravagantly: filthy smoker.
‘Erm, right. I just wanted to let you know that I’m going in to see Sammy again today – wondered if you wanted to come with me?’
‘Why?’
