mangozeen: THE SEASON FOR GIVING by Peter Nolan Smith

Wednesday, December 27, 2023

THE SEASON FOR GIVING by Peter Nolan Smith

Early on the morning of December 24, 1985 Vonelli, Lizzie and I entered the Gard Du Nord. We walked down the platform to our train. Our breath hung in the frosty winter air. Lizzie exhaled a thick cloud of smoke. The singer loved her Gaulloises.

"So tell me again why we are going le Ile de Wight?"

"To spend Christmas with Lord Ventnor."

"Will there be snow?"

I turned to Vonelli. The art dealer knew in island well.

"Probably not, but it will be cold."

"I hate the cold." Lizzie came from Lyon. Winters were winter there. She blew on her fingers and I held her hand. The tips of her fingers were frozen.

"It'll be cold, but not like New York."

She and I knew each other from that city. The petite Parisienne singer had been a hit on the punk scene. Richard Hell had been her 'friend'.

"I wish we were on a plane to the Bahamas." She had recorded her LP MAMBO NASSAU there. "Nassau has beaches and warm weather."

"We all do, but we are where we are, besides the Isle of Wight is the Riviera of England," I replied and hurried onto our car, as the conductor called 'tout abord."

"Palm trees?"

"Yes, a few," I answered, since the only palm trees on the island were in pots.

The train ran straight across the northern basin of France to the sea. We arrived at Boulogne-Sur-Mer and strolled across to the terminal. Hovercraft was running a special holiday service to Portsmouth. Everyone at the bar were panting cigarettes and I waited the arrival of the PRINCESS MARGARET on the tarmac. The cold was even damper on La Manche.

I turned to the waiting room. Lizzie laughed with a cigarette in her hand. The bearded art dealer must have told the singer a joke. Lizzie was a good audience.

At noon the SR.N4 hovercraft roared into the harbor. The air hummed with the power of the four gas turbine engines. Lizzie exited from the terminal. Vonelli followed buttoning up his camel hair coat and said, "The beauty of the modern world."

"This is the modern world," Lizzie quoted the Jam.

"I guess it is." I put an arm around her. She smelled of tobacco.

Gitanes to be exact.

I checked the sky. There was no sun. Only the damp cold.

"Looking for snow?" asked Lizzie.

I shook my head.

The grey clouds bore no threat of snow and we boarded the Hovercraft for the 'flight 'across the English Channel.

An hour later we landed at Portsmouth and I carried Lizzie's bag over my shoulder. The three of us boarded the ferry to the Isle of Wight. I told her a story about how terrified my Irish grandmother was on crossing the Atlantic. She laughed at the right moments. Like I said she was a good audience.

The ship pulled out of the harbor past the Round Tower and we stood at the stern railing. Portsmouth became small and Lizzie held my hand. It warmed within minutes. Crossing the Solent took less than forty minutes.

"You said it is like the Riviera. This doesn't look like Nice," complained Lizzie.

"Wait till you see Cowes. It's the yachting capitol of Europe."

Vonelli extolled our destination's other assets.

"Queen Victoria lived at Osbourne House. During her reign The Empire was ruled from this island."

"So the Isle of Wight is like Rome after the Goths burned it." Lizzie was a virulent anti-royalist.

"Only here there are no ruins." Vonelli had left the USA in the early 60s. Many people suspected that his art dealer calling was a cover for a more clandestine career. No one knew for sure and Vonelli wasn't betraying the truth or the myth.

We got off the ferry and walked to the Cowes Floating Bridge. The chain-drawn ferry was idling on the other side of the Medina. Vonelli suggested a drink at the Navy Bar. The narrow drinking establishment had been built to service quick drinkers. The barkeep was a relic of the glory years of the British Empire.

Time stopped and we missed two crossings of the Floating Bridge.

Lord Ventnor waited on the opposite bank in a white Irish sweater. His hair was regally coifed by the wind. He shook my hand and embraced Vonelli.

"Welcome to the Isle of Wight."

Aristocrats have good manners and Lord Ventnor kissed Lizzie's hand.

She attracted admirers with ease.

"I love your song OU SONT PASSES LES GAZELLES."

"I am recording a new LP about Soweto" The chanteuse had been in a Paris studio for the last two months. We slept together whenever it was convenient for us.

"Maybe you will sing us a song."

"Only if Vonelli plays piano."

A good left hand on the ivories was of one of Vonelli's hidden talents and we walked to a VW camper.

Ventnor drove along the coast to his expansive house in Ryde.

A Christmas tree was in the corner. Logs blazed in the fireplace.

Bob's wife installed Lizzie and me in the same room.

She was ancien regime from the Sud du Loire and that haute class knew how to read relationships.

I opened the windows. Lizzie didn't mind the cold. She knew I hated the smell of tobacco, especially from her Gaulloises.

After a long lobster dinner accompanied by a deluge of wine Lizzie entertained us with Vonelli at the piano. They were a good combo and at the end of OU SONT PASSES LES GAZELLES Lord Ventnor announced, "Our Christmas morning tradition is the Tennyson Walk. We're rising bright and early."

"Nous partons vers le 10." Ventnor's elegant wife had a better hand on the time. "A polite hour to be on the Walk, so bonne nuit."

We retreated to our rooms.

"Your friend Vonelli is funny," she said in bed.

"And a nice man."

I shut the windows, which quickly steamed up from the heat generated from our lustful celebration of XXXmas Eve, but something was off and I had a fairly good idea what it was.

In the morning we woke to the tantalizing scent of bacon, beans, mushrooms, eggs, toast, and tea. Lizzie and I exchanged gifts. I gave her a silver lighter and she wrapped a cashmere scarf around my neck.

"Une petite dejeuner anglais." Bob's wife served us a sumptuous breakfast.

The clatter of knives and forks were not interrupted by conversation. Talking could come later in the day. Lizzie and I helped clear the table. Bob's wife waved us from the sink.

"The faster you reach the Walk, the sooner you will return to dinner."

A roast beef was in the oven. Vegetables cooked on the stove. Bottles of wine lined the table. There was more than enough for everyone and I smelled an apple pie cooling on the window sill.

Lord Ventnor was in no condition to drive and his loving wife said, "I'll take you to the trailhead."

His teenage son, Anthony, was joining us on the walk. He had a favorite Lizzie song, but wouldn't say which one.

His wife dropped us at the Needles.

Wind-spawn waves crashed on the sandy shore. Atlantic gusts gushed across the gorse.

"I don't see any Needles." Lizzie fingered back her hair. I had never seen her use a comb or brush on her mop. She liked to look natural.

Lord Ventnor tramped up the grassy slope to the edge of a chalk cliff and pointed into a fog bank. "They are out there. Let's get going. We don't have all day."

"Tennyson made this walk every day. He said it was worth six pence a pint," Anthony explained, as Lizzie and I followed his father.

"When will you English join the modern world?" Lizzie loved the metric system, since its math was easy for the workers.

"Get back, you fool," I shouted to Vonelli.

A sudden gale off Watcombe Bay swept over the rim and Vonelli stood against its force. He held her close, as she used his body to shelter to light for her cigarette.

"This is the life." His other words were lost on the wind.

We descended to Freshwater Bay. A fox hunt party was gathering for "What Ho' before the pub.

"The unspeakable chasing the uneatable." Lizzie was familiar with Oscar Wilde's description of The Hunt.

The horses clopped into the field. They left shitclumps on the parking lot. We stepped inside for a pint. They cost more than six pence.

After downing them we set off again on the muddy trail. There was no sun in the sky and a savage surf rose over emerald kelp belts.

The previous summer I had swum at Brightstone. The ocean had been calm as a sedated clam.

"Now we are on the Military Trail." Anthony was at Lizzie's side and explained, "Once revenue gangs patrolled these cliffs for smugglers. But the black gangs knew the coast."

"Wine from France. No tax." Lizzie was a devout anarchist. "Or tobacco."

"Now drugs." Ventnor and Vonelli exchanged a knowing glance.

As we tramped along the trail, the five of us shifted allegiances in companionship according to the pace.

A little before noon we reached Blackgang Chine.

A smugglers' tunnel funneled to the beach.

"Anyone claustrophobic?"

Lizzie plunged into the darkness.

I followed the cherry of her cigarette.

Wild Atlantic waves crashed on the shore and submerged the beach in the froth of the sea. Lizzie and I were alone and she said, "I think I like Vonelli."

"What's there not to like?"

"I mean I like him."

"Oh." I had been expecting her leaving me for someone else, but not on Christmas.

We returned to the trail and the party turned inland from the Atlantic.

"You're not angry?" Lizzie stood an arm's distance from me.

"No." I had lost to the oddsmakers in Paris. "You have my blessing."

"Tonight?" She wasn't wasting time.

"You do what you want. It's another Christmas gift to you."

Lizzie kissed my cheek, then dashed ahead.

Vonelli watched her approach. He shrugged his shoulders, as she passed him to join Lord Ventnor and his young son.

"Do you think she likes him?"

"No, she likes you and by 'like' I mean like."

"Really?"

You are a master of so many things, but strangely not a lie."

"So you are not angry?"

"Angry about what? Boy meets girl is the simplest story in the world." Vonelli and Lizzie were Romeo and Juliette. I accepted loss better than Romeo Montague and noticed Vonelli eying my cashmere scarf, "Have a Merry Christmas and by the way you have no chance of getting my scarf."

I lingered behind my friends and allowed them to walk out of view.

Losing Lizzie didn't seem like a loss, but it wasn't a win either.

And it wasn't anything in between either.

I walked a little faster and caught up with Lord Ventnor's son.

"I think Vonelli has designs on Lizzie." The young teen was astute in the ways of love as would be expected from the son of Lord Ventnor.

"He cut me out like a bird dog."

"Bird dog."

"Barking at someone else's quail." I sang the chorus of the Everley Brother's BIRD DOG, then clapped Anthony on the shoulder. "It's no big deal. Lizzie and I are just friends."

Anthony was gracious enough to not question the truth of my statement and we picked up our pace.

We caught up with Ventnor and Vonelli.

Lizzie and Anthony set out ahead of us.

"Watch out, Vonelli." My green light to the arch-CIA agent had given hope to the teenager. "This is a strange island for romance."

Vonelli was in his thirties. Anthony was a young man. The art dealer hurried to Lizzie. I heard her laughter. His jealousy must have seemed funny to the singer. Vonelli fell back.

"She told me not to worry."

"Then you've eliminated your rivals." I felt drops of rain. "They taught you well."

"They?" Vonelli was a specialist at being visibly perplexed by the simplest accusation.

"Your bosses in Washington." Ventnor smiled at his longtime friend's discomfort.

"You mean Langley." A big building on the other side of the Potomac housed the Agency.

"I have no idea what you mean." Vonelli walked onto the grass.

The mud on the trail was too slippery to make good time.

I knew that his ignorance was an act.

Ventnor too. We walked together for a half mile.

"Are you alright?"

"Fine."

"I have some special wine for dinner."

"Great." I had forgotten the date. "Hopefully a lot of special wine."

When we arrived at the end of the trail, Lord Ventnor's wife was in the parking lot.

She looked at the new couple and then at me.

I shrugged with understanding.

It was a Gallic gesture.

Her smiling eyes promised me the best slice of roast beef.

I couldn't have been happier.

It was Christmas Day and I had no place to go other than to eat a good meal with friends.

That evening I filled myself to the brim and ate two slices of apple pie.

Later I danced on the table to Lizzie singing FEVER. Everyone had a good laugh and while Lizzie and Vonelli might not last forever, I wished them luck.

We all drank to that.

After all there is no time for giving like Christmas.