A Cup of Coffee in a Hospital Cafe
At the start of what seems to be Winter already, I emerge from the physiotherapy pre-fab hut into grey mizzle. I put up my umbrella and huddle beneath it as I make my way around the outside of the main hospital building. I have been discharged from physio. I just need to keep doing the exercises and then, full movement should be restored to my once frozen shoulder. It’s taken nearly a year, a steroid injection, sleeping on my ‘wrong’ side and six sessions with the physiotherapist to get to this point. When I think about how much pain I used to be in and the stiffness that meant I couldn’t raise my arm fully, I am very grateful to have reached this stage.
As I approach the bus stop outside the main entrance, I am thinking about how fragile and vulnerable human bodies are. No-one else is waiting, which I take as a bad sign. Sure enough, when I check the timetable, it seems I have missed the bus by about 4 minutes and there won’t be another for half an hour. An elderly man with white hair and a slight limp appears beside me.
“Have we got long to wait?” he asks cheerily.
I tell him we’ve just missed the bus and he informs me we will have to chat. I tell him the weather is too bad to stay out here and wonder whether we should go to the cafe.
We walk towards the main entrance and swap ailments. Peter has been to have his pacemaker checked. It’s his second one and so far, so okay. He tells me he is 86 and I marvel at how young he looks.
When we get inside the cafe, it is warm and there is an echo of crockery clinking and drinks machines hissing. We avoid the Starbucks counter and head back towards the coffee machine in the main cafe. I get a black americano and Peter gets a flat white. He hands me a sugar and a stirrer and tells me he is buying them.
The server looks tired and tells us he’s had a busy day.
“It’s all very well giving public workers pay rises, but what about us?” he poses. We are sympathetic as we go to sit at a nearby table.
Peter tells me it is two years to the day that his wife died in this very hospital. They were married for 61 years - the same length of time as my grandparents - and he clearly misses her desperately.
“It’s not so bad when I’m out and about,” he tells me. “But when I’m in the house alone, ooh, then it’s really difficult.”
We talk about pets and children. He has family nearby and his cat moved in 20 years ago from a neighbouring house. I tell him about Jasmine and her vampire eye - the left one that never closed even when she was sleeping. About how little she was and how huge and loud her voice.
Other people are sitting alone at nearby tables and I wonder what their stories are. Peter and I mention Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. He did National service in Cyprus many years ago and clearly remembers some of the horrific sights as if it were now. We wonder how the world can still be so brutal and I feel utterly inept.
He bought his house several decades ago - the one in which he still lives - when it was newly built. He went and put a downpayment on it before it was finished. It reminds me of the post war experiences of my grandparents and their siblings. I wonder how they felt in the latter part of the 1940s, whether everyday life felt futile and pointless after all they had witnessed, or whether it was a relief to have some semblance of peace.
Peter and I sit next to each other on the bus back. The grey, damp air clings to the window as we weave our way through the streets. I thank him for the coffee as I prepare to get off. He says maybe we will meet again and I tell him that I will inform M that a nice man bought me a coffee today. He grins.
We wave through the window as I walk away.