Vincenzia by Himring

Vincenzia

Read Vincenzia

Ginevra knew about Niggle's Parish from way back. It had been Alan who gave her a volume of Tolkien's stories years ago, when she was feeling particularly run down. It came with a bookmark that was, she thought, carefully and deliberately inserted at the beginning of Leaf by Niggle.  She spotted the intention straight away: he had seen that things were getting to her and was attempting to share something that he found uplifting and comforting himself. She tried to read the stories in the spirit they had been offered, without letting the gift put up her back. Sympathy was not to be confused with pity.

‘How did you like the stories?’ he asked her, after a decent interval in which she could have been expected to have found time to read one or two.

He looked so vulnerable, suddenly, that she would have liked to be able to give him a more enthusiastic answer.

‘Well enough. But it all feels a bit Northern, doesn’t it?’ she said, trying to speak lightly.

He opened his mouth to protest. But then he cast a glance at the reproduction of Van Gogh’s Olive Trees in a Mountainous Landscape above the sofa and nodded once, a little unhappily.

The wintry London gloom seemed worse, once she had inadvertently admitted how homesick she was for another country.

 

She could have sworn she had forgotten all about Leaf by Niggle, although not about Alan, who she regretted having lost touch with. But when, years later, they came to collect her as described, she was not surprised at all, just a little startled how polite they were. They were firm, of course—it did not even cross her mind to resist. But they assisted her into the van and out of it, once they arrived, even though they did not explain very much.

Hesitantly, she walked out onto the jetty. She did not recognize this part from Tolkien’s story. The sky was surely brighter? And there was a small ferry, seemingly ready to go. Puzzlingly, it seemed to be called the Arlésienne.

‘Come on, get aboard! We were just waiting for you!’ said the Porter.

‘Wasn’t I supposed to be doing hard labour, at this point?’ she asked.

‘Oh, my dear,’ said the Porter kindly. ‘Just think back a bit. You have already done that, haven’t you?’

She supposed he might be right, at that, and stepped onto the gangplank without any further hesitation.

The sea was mild, the waves gentle, and…

‘Oh, Alan!’ said Ginevra, leaning against the railing, forgetting he was not there.

‘Next stop, Vincenzia. Coming up!’ came the call from above.

It was all there, as Vincent van Gogh had painted it, only very real, somehow: gnarled olive trees you could evidently walk among, blue slopes you could climb.  She was the only one to get out at this stop and for a while—but she could not have told how long—she just walked among Vincent’s trees, not needing any other company, listening to the rustle of their leaves, breathing, soaking in the southern air with her whole skin, familiar, long-forgotten, entirely new.

After a while, a scent on the breeze lured her farther in among the orange trees and the cypresses. She lingered a little more in the grove, collecting oranges. She was steadily growing stronger, she thought. Soon she would be ready to try and find Alan and compare notes.

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for Hidden Paths 2024 prompts:
Visual Prompt from Set 1: Van Gogh , 'Olive Trees In A Mountainous Landscape.' Supplied image id: There are gnarled green and brown olive trees in the foreground; behind is a mountain range and sky in navy blue, with a cream and yellow cloud above.
Audio Prompt from Set 1: Crosby, Stills and Nash - Guinnevere (see YouTube link)
Thematic Prompt from Set 2: Gifts. (Coinciding with the current tolkienshortfanworks prompt: gift or gift-giving)