On Visiting a Market Town with Mother

London's pernicious influence is felt even here

I don’t know whether it was because she sensed that I was about to leave, or if it was simply to fill the conversation, but as I was preparing to announce my return to London after a weekend at Mother’s house, she said: “I think I might be gender fluid,” and then, immediately afterwards, “What does gender fluid mean?”

This came apropos of nothing, and I thought it best to interrogate her lightly on the subject before I jumped to any conclusions, especially given that she had expressed, in one breath, both the affirmation of and confusion she felt towards her term. Since Mother has moved to the country she tends to watch more of the television and listen to more of the radio than she is used to, and certainly more than she is designed for. I suspect that this new piece of vocabulary had excited her, and to use it as she had given her the sensation that she was participating, in her small way, in the grand dialogues which proceed from the more important parts of the country. 

I suggested that we go for a walk in the local market town to discuss it, extending my stay somewhat and thinking that a little light exercise and fresh air might ease whatever pressure upon Mother’s brain had caused her to say what she had. I was quite right, and we had no sooner arrived but the subject was quite forgotten. The retired or semi-retired people who live in this part of the country, of which mother forms a part, are inclined to this sort of whimsical behaviour. They live in a sort of reverie, drifting from one brunch to another, fixing themselves upon nothing for more than a moment and idling through life in a pleasant limbo. It remains hidden from much of the younger English population, but whole provinces of our country have been converted into enormous, open retirement homes, in which the residents are free to drive around, visiting antique shops and eating tasteless, packaged calamari from Waitrose without supervision.

This town puts Mother in mind of a fairy-tale, she says, and I should think that it has something to do with the narrow streets and the various black and white timbered houses. The effect is largely a façade. A 19th century building which Mother referred to as an old church, but which was actually a town hall, and which sits in the very centre of the town, has been hollowed out and converted into a cafe. The merchants’ stalls in the market square sell not fruits or meats, not weaved baskets or furs, but Indian street food and meal replacement powders. The rest of the town is full of the ugly shops which one finds in the big city, only they have the charm of being stuffed into buildings older than consumer capitalism itself.

Almost everyone on the street here is in late middle age or elderly. Even eighty years ago the population of this little market town would not have been so large, nor so uniformly old and rich. There would have been a population of native inhabitants, both young and old, who bought their produce from these stalls rather than the enormous supermarket further up the high street. They would have worked either here in the market or elsewhere in the town, coming here in order to attend church, or to take part in a meeting at the town hall. As awful as that sounds to you and I, the town would have been, at least, a living community with a purpose, rather than a series of hollowed out old buildings now designed to service the pleasures of an increasingly aged clientele. These are retired or semi-retired Londoners, fair-weather friends who have come for the cheap property and may well take off if they should find a nicer property elsewhere. 

All of this I tell Mother, being careful to only imply the word “parasite.” But it is too late, and nothing much now penetrates her mind. She is in her reverie, thinking of Pilates classes and ceramic cafes. I return to London the next day.

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