BACK TO WORK! A cockerel’s dawn crowing had woken me from my slumbers. This glorious morning sound was powered by an AA battery and delivered through a tinny speaker, and was brought about by my setting my alarm clock the previous evening, rather than, as is the case in our avian friends, raised levels of testosterone and sunlight. It is fair to say that my bedroom is a testosterone and sunlight-free zone at present. But winter does pass, I told myself – remember that, Eleanor. Glen was slumped over my feet on top of the duvet, keeping them warm as she did her best to ignore the alarm.

Excited at the prospect of the day ahead, I dressed in a new white blouse, a new black skirt, black tights and the boots I’d got a while ago for a gig I should never have gone to. I looked smart, practical, normal. Yes, I was going back to work.

Years ago, one of the foster families I lived with had taken me, alongside their own children, on a ‘back-to-school shopping trip’. All three of us were allowed to choose new shoes and a new schoolbag, and were kitted out with a brand-new uniform (even though my skirt and blazer from the previous year still fitted perfectly well). Best of all, the trip culminated with a visit to WHSmith, where the riches of the stationery aisle were ours to plunder. Even the most recondite items (set squares, butterfly pins, treasury tags: what were these for?) were permitted, and this booty was then zipped into a large, handsome pencil case which was mine, mine, mine. I am not generally a wearer of perfume, preferring to smell of plain soap and my natural musk, but, were it possible to purchase a bottle in which the scent of new pencil shavings and the petroleum reek of a freshly rubbed eraser were combined, I would happily douse myself with it on a daily basis.

I ate breakfast (porridge and a plum, as usual) and left in good time to catch the bus. Glen was still asleep, having moved under the duvet to occupy the warm space as soon as I vacated it. I left her some fresh water

and a big bowl of kibble but I doubted she’d even notice I’d gone until she heard my key in the lock again tonight. She was very easygoing that way (although not, it had to be said, in lots of other ways).

The walk to the bus stop was more interesting than I remembered, perhaps because I was seeing it with fresh eyes after such a long absence. There was an excessive amount of litter and no litter bins; these two facts were surely correlated. This part of the city was aggressively grey, but green life still struggled into being: moss on walls, weeds in guttering, the occasional forlorn tree. I have always lived in urban areas, but I feel the need for green as a visceral longing.

Just as I was about to reach the junction where I cross to catch the bus, I stopped dead, my eye drawn to a sly movement, a measured dash of brownish red. I breathed in, the morning air cold in my lungs. Under the orange glow of a streetlight, a fox was drinking a cup of coffee. He wasn’t holding it in his paws – as has been clearly established, I’m not insane – but, rather, had dipped his head to the ground and was lapping from a Starbucks cup. The fox sensed me watching, looked up and stared assertively into my eyes. ‘What of it?’ he seemed to be saying. ‘A morning cup of coffee, big deal!’ He went back to his beverage. Perhaps he’d had a particularly late night out by the bins, was finding it hard to get going on this cold, dark morning. I laughed out loud and walked on.

While I’d been off, Bob had told me to pop into the office any time, or phone for a chat whenever I wanted. Last week, a few days before my sick note was due to expire, I was still undecided as to whether to revisit the doctor and seek an extension, or else return to work on the following Monday, so I had called him, not wanting to go into the office for fear of encountering intrusive questions from my co-workers without having prepared some appropriate responses first.

‘Eleanor!’ Bob had said. ‘Great to hear from you! How are things?’ ‘Thank you for the flowers,’ I said. ‘I’m fine … that’s to say, I’m

much better, thank you, Bob. It’s been difficult, but I’ve been making good progress.’

‘Brilliant,’ he said, ‘that’s brilliant news! So, do you know when you’re, eh, when you’re likely to be back?’ I heard an intake of breath as he worried about what he’d just said. ‘No rush, now … no rush whatsoever. I’m not pressuring you – take as long as you need. Not until you’re absolutely ready.’

‘Don’t you want me to come back, Bob?’ I said, daring an attempt at humour.

He snorted. ‘Eleanor, the place has been falling apart without you! Jesus Christ, Billy hasn’t the first clue how to raise an invoice, and as for Janey …’

‘Bob, Bob, I was joking,’ I said. I smiled, and I must admit to feeling slightly gratified at how poorly my colleagues had coped in my absence.

‘A joke, Eleanor! Well, that’s a great sign – you must be on the mend, then,’ Bob said, sounding relieved, either because of the joke or because I was getting better – or both, I supposed.

‘I’ll be back on Monday, Bob,’ I said. ‘I’m ready.’ My voice was firm, confident.

‘Great! And you’re sure it’s the right time? Och, that’s grand, Eleanor,’ he said. ‘I’ll look forward to seeing you on Monday, then.’ I could tell he was being genuine because of all the warmth that was coming down the phone. Your voice changes when you’re smiling, it alters the sound somehow.

‘Thank you very much for being so understanding about all of … about everything, Bob,’ I said, a lump forming in my throat. ‘Thank you for your support. I’ve been meaning to say … I’m sorry if I haven’t always been a very … enthusiastic employee over the years …’

‘Ach, away you go,’ he said, and I could almost picture him shaking his head. ‘The place wouldn’t be the same without you, Eleanor, it really wouldn’t. You’re an institution.’

I heard his mobile phone ringing. He tutted.

‘I’m so sorry, but I’ve got to get this, Eleanor – it’s a new client. Now, you take care of yourself, and we’ll see you on Monday, right?’

‘Right,’ I said.

I remember thinking, as I put the phone down, that I really, really hoped that Janey wouldn’t bring in one of her homemade cakes to mark my return, as she often did when people had been off. Dry doesn’t even come close to describing the arid desert texture of her coffee-and-walnut sponge.

When I arrived at work, the exterior of the office was as unenticing as ever, and I hesitated outside. I had been absent for almost two months, and heaven alone knew what sort of unsubstantiated rumours had abounded as to the reasons behind it. I had not given – had not been

capable of giving – a thought during that time to my spreadsheets, to accounts receivable, purchase orders and VAT. Could I still do my job? I wasn’t confident that I could remember anything. My password? Of course. Three words, Ignis aurum probat. ‘Fire tests gold.’ The rest of the phrase: ‘… and adversity tests the brave’. How true. A strong password, strong indeed, exactly as required by the computer system. Thank you, Seneca.

Ah, but I felt the beginnings of a fluttery panic in my chest. I couldn’t do it. Could I? I wasn’t ready to face it. I would go home and telephone Bob, let him know that I would be taking another week’s leave. He’d understand.

There was a shuffling sound behind me on the path, and I quickly wiped away the tears that had formed while I was staring at the squat building before me. With no warning, I was pulled one hundred and eighty degrees around and crushed into an embrace. There was a lot of wool (hat, scarf, gloves) and scratchy bristles, and a smell of apples, soap and Marlboro Reds.

‘Eleanor!’ Raymond said. ‘So that’s what you meant when you said you’d see me soon.’

I let myself be held, moved closer into the embrace in fact, because, I was forced to admit, at that particular time and in those particular circumstances, and feeling the way I did, the sensation of being held by him was nothing short of miraculous. I said nothing, and, very slowly, my arms crept up, tentative as winter sunlight, so that they were placed around his waist, the better to bury myself into the embrace. My face rested against his chest. He said nothing either, intuiting, perhaps, that what I needed most at that moment was that which he was already providing and precisely nothing more.

We stood this way for some moments, and then I stepped back and rearranged my hair, wiped my eyes. I looked at my watch. ‘You’re ten minutes late for work, Raymond,’ I said.

He laughed. ‘So are you!’ He stepped forward again, peered closely at me. I stared back at him, rather like the fox had done earlier.

He nodded. ‘Come on,’ he said, holding out his arm, ‘we’re both late now. Let’s go in. I don’t know about you, but I could really do with a cup of tea, eh?’

I linked my arm through his and he walked me inside, all the way to the door of the accounts office. I disengaged from him there as quickly

as I could, anxious that someone might see us together like this. He bent down and put his face close to mine, speaking in rather a paternal manner (at least, I assume that’s what it was – fathers are hardly my area of expertise, after all).

‘Now then,’ he said, ‘here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to walk in there, hang up your coat, put the kettle on and get started. No one’s going to make a fuss, and there won’t be any drama – it’ll be like you’ve never been away.’

He nodded once, as if to reinforce his point. ‘But what if—’

He spoke over me. ‘Honestly, Eleanor – trust me. It’s going to be absolutely fine. You’ve been unwell, you took some time off to get better, and now here you are, back in the fray. You’re great at your job, and they’ll be over the moon to have you back. End of,’ he said, earnest, sincere. Kind.

I did actually feel better after he said this – quite a bit better. ‘Thank you, Raymond,’ I said quietly.

He punched me on the arm – gently, not a real punch – and smiled. ‘We’re so late!’ he said, eyes wide in faux horror. ‘Meet you for lunch

at one?’

I nodded.

‘Go on then, get in there, give ’em hell!’ he said, smiling, and then he was off, lumbering upstairs like a circus elephant learning a new trick. I cleared my throat, smoothed down my skirt, and opened the door.

First things first: before I went to my desk and faced everyone, I had to have the dreaded back-to-work interview. I’d never had one before, but I’d heard the others muttering about them in the past. Apparently, HR forced you to have a meeting with your boss if you’d been off for more than a couple of days, ostensibly to make sure you were fully recovered and fit for work, and to see if any adjustments needed to be made to ensure you stayed well. In reality, however, the popular view tended towards this process having been designed to intimidate, to discourage absence, and to check whether you’d been – what was the word? – ah yes, skiving. Those people didn’t have Bob as a boss, however. Only the section managers reported to Bob. I was one of them now, the Praetorian Guard, the elect. Bob was an odd kind of emperor, though.

He stood up and kissed me on the cheek, and while he hugged me, his little pot belly pressed against me and made me want to laugh. He patted my back a few times. The whole thing was excruciatingly embarrassing, but really, really nice.

He made me a cup of tea and fussed around with biscuits, making sure I was comfortable.

‘Now then, this interview. It’s nothing to worry about, Eleanor, a formality – HR give me a hard time if I don’t do these things, you know what it’s like.’ He made a face. ‘We just need to ticky boxy’ (what?) ‘and sign the form, and then I’ll let you get back to it.’

He was slurping from a mug of coffee and had spilled some down his shirt front. Bob wore thin shirts, a vest visible beneath, which added to the overall impression of an overgrown schoolboy. We went through a list of insultingly banal prescribed questions from a form. It was, to the visible relief of us both, a painless if somewhat tedious process.

‘Right then,’ he said, ‘that’s that done, thank Christ. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about? It’s a bit soon to get into specifics, I know,’ he said. ‘We can meet again tomorrow when you’ve had a chance to get up to speed with everything, if you like?’

‘The Christmas lunch,’ I said, ‘is it all arranged now?’

He screwed up his little round face, and swore in a most uncherubic fashion.

‘I totally forgot about that!’ he said. ‘There were so many other things to sort out, and it just kind of, I don’t know, slipped off my radar. Shit

…’

‘Fear not, Bob,’ I said. ‘I shall address it post haste.’ I paused. ‘I mean, after I’ve caught up with all the accounts, of course.’

Bob looked worried. ‘Are you sure? I really don’t want to put any extra pressure on you, Eleanor – you’re just back, and I’m sure you’ll have more than enough on your plate …’

‘No problemo, Bob,’ I said confidently, giving him a double thumbs- up sign, thereby trying out a favourite phrase and gesture of Raymond’s for the first time. Bob’s eyebrows shot up. I hoped I had used them correctly, and in the appropriate context. I’m very good with words as a rule, but this sort of thing does, I must confess, trip me up sometimes.

‘Well, if you’re one hundred per cent sure …’ he said, not, it must be noted, sounding particularly sure himself.

‘Absolutely, Bob.’ I nodded. ‘Everything will be confirmed and arrangements put in place by the end of the week. You can count on it.’

‘Ah, well, that’d be brilliant,’ he said, scribbling on the form, which he then passed to me. ‘I just need you to fill in that section at the bottom, and that’s us done,’ he said. I signed with a flourish. I don’t have much opportunity to use my signature in day-to-day life, which is rather a pity, as I have a very interesting ‘John Hancock’, as our cousins across the pond would have it. I don’t mean to boast. It’s just that almost everyone who’s seen it has remarked on how unusual, how special it is. Personally, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Anyone could write an ‘O’ as a snail shell spiral if they wished to, after all, and using a mixture of upper and lower case letters is simply good sense – it ensures that the signature is difficult to forge. Personal security, data security: so important.

When I finally sat down at my desk, the first thing I noticed was the flowers. They’d been obscured by the monitor as I’d approached, but now I saw the vase (well, it was actually a pint glass; the office never had enough vases, cake knives or champagne flutes, despite employees celebrating life events on what seemed to be a weekly basis). It was filled with blooms, sea holly and agapanthus and iris, and it was glorious.

An envelope was propped against the arrangement, and I slowly opened the seal. There was a card inside, a stunning photograph of a red squirrel eating a hazelnut on the front. Inside, someone (Bernadette, I suspected, from the childlike scrawl) had written WELCOME BACK ELEANOR! and a multitude of signatures, accompanied by Best Wishes or Love, were scattered across both sides. I was somewhat taken aback. Love! Best wishes! I wasn’t at all sure what to think.

Still mulling this over, I switched on my computer. There were so many unanswered emails that I went straight to today’s, thinking that I’d simply delete all the others. The senders would get in touch again if they were important, surely. The most recent one, sent only ten minutes ago, was from Raymond. The subject heading read: READ ME!!!

Thought I’d better put that as u probs have about ten billion unread messages in your inbox right now LOL. I meant to say the other afternoon, I’ve got two tickets to a concert, it’s classical music, I dunno if you like that sort of thing but I kind of thought you might? It’s two weeks on Saturday if you’re free – maybe go for something to eat afterwards?

See you @ lunch

Rx

Before I had a chance to reply, I realized that my colleagues had assembled in a circle around my desk without my noticing. I looked up at them. Their expressions ranged from bored to benevolent. Janey looked mildly concerned.

‘We know you don’t like a fuss, Eleanor,’ she said, having clearly been nominated as spokeswoman. ‘We just wanted to say that we’re glad you’re feeling better, and, y’know, welcome back!’ There were nods, murmured assent. As speeches went, it was hardly Churchillian, but it was yet another very kind and thoughtful gesture.

I wasn’t one for public oratory, but I sensed that they would not be satisfied without a few words.

‘Thank you very much indeed for the flowers and the card and the good wishes,’ I said, eventually, eyes on my desk while I spoke. There was a bit of a silence that no one, and certainly not me, quite knew how to fill. I looked up at them.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I don’t suppose those overdue invoices are going to process themselves, are they?’

‘She’s back!’ Billy said, and there was laughter, including my own.

Yes. Eleanor Oliphant was back.