Regret

My regrets are of an unusual kind. Unusual from the point of view of Others. Even pathological, from the point of view of their Normal. They are incidental, minor things. They are things that do not affect the great narrative of life, so-called. Perhaps the exact opposite. I will offer an example. A regret. But first there is a background. A background in two parts.

There used to be a bar at the corner of Greek and Bateman street. Perhaps it’s still there, I don’t know. But it opened very early in the morning for coffee and pastries. The barista was a surly stick-like Norwegian man and, in my view, one of the best in London. The coffee was superb. Outside was a bench. I would go there in the morning before work, or at the weekends with my wife. I would sit on the bench and gradually feel the coffee quickening my thoughts. Or we’d sit there at the weekends and the coffee would quicken our talk. It was a great place to sit and see the cast of characters that only Soho can offer. One morning, the comedian Arthur Smith, who’d been out all night on a “bender” popped in for a cappuccino. The manager of a local private members club was there every day before opening.

The second bit of background is that I was working in an office in North London, right at the top of the Northern line. I’d break the journey by going to the bar when it opened at 7.30 and then get the Northern Line from Tottenham Court Road. The office had a small kitchen for people to prepare their lunches, with two microwave ovens. Every lunch time I’d microwave a bag of quinoa as part of my lunch. One day both microwaves were out of order. One of them still continued cooking after the door was opened. And so the management placed tape over the door and instructed us not to use it. That lunch time everyone went out for lunch. Except me. I thought I could get away with turning the microwave off at the wall so as not to open the door. Whilst the quinoa was cooking I stood next to the microwave. And afterwards, not immediately but gradually, I began to feel ill. Dizzy and lightheaded. Unable to think. When the manager arrived, I told him that I was feeling unwell and needed to go home. I was sure that the radiation had entered my head. I was convinced that I had been fatally affected by radiation and that I must seek medical attention urgently. The only walk-in clinic I knew of was in Soho. So I got on the Northern line and went into town. The nurse at the clinic didn’t really know what to say. She said if I was concerned, I should go to A&E. And so I began walking down Bateman street towards Soho square and up to Tottenham Court Road on my way the UCL hospital.

You might think that my regret is to do with using the oven. But that is no part of it. Or only a part in the story. On my walk I passed the bar on the corner. It was a warm summer day and there was one or two people on the bench outside. The Norwegian barista was on his phone behind the Marzocco machine. I sped past, anxious and afraid on my way to the hospital. But how lovely it would have been to just stop, to pause, to order a coffee and sit on the bench. That is my regret. That I did not stop and have a coffee outside. That I did not stop and sit on the bench in the warm air and sip a coffee. It is not just the coffee of course. It is the unexpected pocket of freedom. Of time cut loose from the working day. Time somehow stolen and exceptional. There are moments, intensities, grace-notes and supernumerary events which we should always savour, which we should always embrace if they offer themselves to us. And the occasions when I have passed these by are the objects of my regret.