The View From: Inside Hackney Wick’s Death Cafe

The View From: Inside Hackney Wick’s Death Cafe

It’s an unusually hot afternoon in early summer and I'm on my way to meet with a group of strangers to talk about death. There’s a heatwave in London, and the buildings seem to sag under an angry, bubbling sun. I look to the road’s asphalt, baked and black, and think that it’s the type of heat that boils the blood. 

The group convenes in Hackney Wick’s old bathhouse, in front of the sauna’s, behind the cafe. I mount the steps towards the big, red double decker doors and see that the room inside is wide, open and dark. Big ceiling fans churn the heat, break it down, make it easier to swallow. 

I watch my reflection move through the gloss of darkened window panes; see my silhouette distort as the glass rounds to meet the wood. It’s mostly empty inside. A few people sit with empty coffee cups, pecking at keyboards. It smells of a mixture of eucalyptus and old coffee beans and I can hear faint giggles bounce through the plaster separating rooms. 

Behind the cafe’s counter, chairs and couches have been pulled together into a circle around a wooden coffee table. I take a seat on the edge of the couch’s cushion, unsure how to position my body to seem sure of itself. I watch the heavy wooden doors as they swing on their axis, drawing long planks of light and taking them away. Through the corners of my eyes, I study each new person as they shuffle in. I wonder who is here for coffee and who is here for death. 

I look towards the big, white clock hanging above the coffee machine and see its arms turn towards 6:00. Marsh, the session’s co-ordinator, moves from greeting people at the door, to taking a seat within the circle. More people shuffle through the doors, and soon chairs have to be stolen from neighbouring tables to accommodate the swelling circle. “Big turn out” I think, and the words feel sour.

The session begins, and after initial introductions, the big circle splinters into small clusters. I find myself on a plastic chair, tucked tightly against the mouth of a velvet couch. Next to me a man is sitting in the remnants of a suit.  His white button shirt is wilted from the day’s heat, and  I watch the cotton melt into his pale skin, as he leans forward to speak with a blonde girl. Her hair catches the light as she tilts up to smile at me. She tells him she’s hungry and he pulls a nylon blue backpack to his lap, to reveal a clingfilmed slice of cake.“It’s coconut and lemon” he tells the group, and his mouth spreads into a smile. I watch her blue nail polish, chipped and chewed, as she unwraps the cake from its plastic cover. “What brings you guys here?” She asks, her voice is soft, eyes are heavy. 

“My mum died six years ago,” the man in white goes first and the crinkles around his eyes go slack. He is leaning forward, balancing his elbows on his knees, and I watch as he fiddles with silver charm on his necklace. “It was really sudden.” He speaks slowly, as if the picture won't turn to words. He tells the group how when you lose someone, you lose a part of yourself, the part that only they knew. “She was the person who always cheered me on,” he says. He rubs at his facial features as if he could wipe away the feelings that come with the expression.  

A film of silence settles on the group. The girl offers the coconut cake to the rest of the small circle, and a man in all black breaks off a piece with his fingers. He is sitting with all of himself crossed; his legs, his arms, his headphones still wrapped around his neck. As he moves, I notice that the sun has drawn lines of rust along his shoulder blades, and I see where burn met with milky pink skin. “My mum died six months ago,” he says. The words dribble out of his mouth, slowly and unformed as if he didn't intend to let them go. His eyes swell and he tilts his head towards the yellowing roof in a desperate attempt to stop gravity from taking his tears. Refusing for another force to be beyond his control. 

He looks towards the man in white, a stranger with too much in common, and asks a question that no one has the answer to: “When does it start to get better?” The man scratches the side of his cheek, lets out a long exhale, thinks. “I used to think that there would be a moment after death, after I’ve scaled the great big wall of loss and gotten to the other side, that I’d be healed.” But death throws shadows on our lives, and the dark silhouette of grief is cut in the same shape as love. In the presence of its absence, love doesn't go away, it’s just turned inside out. So, you learn not to move away from grief, but to move with it. This is how we carry the people we have loved and lost forward with us, through time and space.

Beyond this circle, the world moves. People come and go, the revolving doors let the sun in and take it away again. Laughter filters in from adjoining rooms. The barista slings another coffee. 

I look around the room, at a jagged mix of people, and realise something I’ve always known. Death doesn't come with a target. “It’s gonna happen to all of us eventually” says the man in black, his voice matter of fact, but his eyes are wide and worn. The sun sinks lower into a darkening sky; stretches out the shadows on the floor. Tiredness pulls on my eyelids, and I think that tomorrow there is another sunset I’m yet to see. We hug. The circle loosens from a cluster back to individuals. I watch as people pluck plastic name tags from their chest. We say our goodbyes and become strangers again. 

—-----

The Hackney Death Cafe is a community-led space for open discussions around grief and loss. The group meets every month at Hackney Wick Bath House and is open to all. 

The Bath House is currently under threat from developers, read more and sign the petition to save it here: https://thebathhouse.co/save-the-bath-house

WRITTEN BY KARLA LATEGAN, FOR ‘TAKE A SEAT.’ @_TAKEASEAT__