I do miss the fields though. in Flaming June

I do miss the fields though. Most days I used to walk up through the churchyard and a few miles across the fields to where the river forges, taking in clusters of oaks and elders.
Here, I have a waste ground, quite charmless really. I know, ’see the beauty in everything’ and I do admire the way Spain is so nonchalant and and scruffy. This patch of land is just half a mile from my house, it’s been zoned for housing and they’ve put in the roads and pavements. I suppose to drive some public sector employment a few years ago when the crisis was at its deepest.
There’s nothing in between the unused roads, bare patches of ground and heaps of rubbish left behind by construction, broken pipes, pallets, piles of earth.

Apart from those green fields, I’m not missing England. Especially at this time of year, when darkness falls at 5pm.

I wonder about my mother. I do wonder about her, and what will happen. The last 4 years, she just wore me down. My emotional resources used up, her manipulation and game-playing and attention seeking nonsense. It’s so good to be far, far away from that. When every twist and turn of daily living has to be negotiated. How will she feel about x, what will she say about y. We went to so much trouble and expense to turn that house into two separate living spaces.
It just shouldn’t have been that hard to share a space that big, but her narcissism expanded, of course, to fill up all the available space. That’s what it does,

When they get older, it gets harder for narcissists. In the past they relied on beauty, or mental dexterity, or professional acumen. But with age those things fade away and there’s nothing left to replace them.

She’s 83 now, everything takes her such a long time. Making sense of a bank statement, even making a shopping list is daunting.
That must be terrifying and I wish I had more compassion. But it’s all been used up.

As her mood swings became more frequent, I became accustomed to her excesses of anger and tears. Actually I realised that I was falling back onto a strategy from childhood. To just shut down, nod insolently while my mother raged in front of me, strutting like a peacock, her emotions its gaudy feathers.
Towards the final escalation, each day I would go in and attempt conciliation, but I knew there was no way forward. I could sit, calmly, and watch her weeping, staggering theatrically across the room to add brandy to her coffee. Although not actually adding any, it was all for effect, the tears, the brandy, the quavering voice, and I could sit there and watch it, unmoved. As if it were a workshop in method acting for geriatrics. Kitchen sink melodrama for the third age.
I suppose she’s still acting those scenes out, somewhere, if she can find an audience.

I do miss the fields though.