Most days I’m not feeling anything. I’m just driving there, day after day, driving there and finding somewhere to park. Parking and walking up the street, crossing at one of the crossings. I know all of the side streets. I know what it feels like to walk up each street and come to the main road, to see the footpath occupied by nurses in their blue uniforms.
I’ve walked up those streets since it was cold, and I would bring my jacket and cold hands inside. Now it’s getting hot, and today I walk with relief through the high arched doors and into the hallway with the wooden seats down each side, littered with people slumping and spreading, bags beside them spilling out cardigans and bottles of water. There are people in wheelchairs, drips hanging from a pole, or in hospital gowns gaping at the back. The containers of sterilising agent beg you to clean your hands.
I stop at the café to get Phillip a coffee. He wants one every day now, and I’m getting to know the people behind the counter. I take the coffee over to the lifts, a place of confusion where people are always milling, wondering where they’re going, trying to watch each lift to see which one will take them there. I press the button. It hasn’t been pressed yet despite the number of people. The lift arrives and people get in, hesitantly, look at the buttons with peering eyes. Have these people never been in a lift before? I press 11 and we ascend, stopping to let the hesitant ones out. I get out at the top, level 11, and walk down the sterile corridor, around to his bed and there he is, head in hands.
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