In another universe, Gerda has landed. Yes, she feels lucky as they bounce, lightly, roar down the runway, come to a halt. She has made it to America! This is more or less as far as she has let herself think. As she plink-plonks down the metal walkway, other thoughts creep into the waiting void –
– this forest of signs: Arrivals, Transfers, Baggage Claim, Immigration Control – when she’d come with Dad, she clung on to his hand and he made all the hard decisions –
yes, the young self she was with Dad, getting piggy-backs when she was tired, trying out her rollerblades in Central Park – seven years old, Mum and Dad had just got married, life was brilliant, both her parents adored her –
where had she lost that Wonder Child?)
Gerda has a worry – thirteen-year-olds have worries, but she hopes fourteen-year-olds would not – that every day she is growing less brilliant, further from the toddler she’s seen in photographs, pink and rosy, snub-nosed and sturdy, with carrot-red hair that shone in the sun, who, she was told, announced to the world as she was lifted out of the bath, not yet two, ‘I’m a person.’
Is she becoming less of a person? Has the grownup world nibbled her edges?
Certainly not. She steps on to the escalator and keeps on going, overtaking other people off the same plane, trying to look like a person in a hurry. Dad had told her – what had Dad told her? ‘Never take a case on an escalator.’ But it’s OK, she’s only got a backpack.
Their trip to New York had been the best trip ever, but any trip with Dad would be the best trip ever. He had bought her a Swiss Army knife at the airport (this was before everything good got banned.) The hasp was red and shiny with a small Swiss shield. ‘That shield will always keep you safe, Gerda.’ He’d explained to her what each part did – the bottle-opener, the corkscrew, the file. The bit that she wanted to use the most was the gizmo for getting stones out of hooves, which seemed to promise an adventurous life (though she always meant to live with Dad, and Mum could live nearby with a washing machine, and come in to bin the pizza boxes). This pleasant thought carried her with her backpack safely down the moving stairs.
Dad’s knife was sitting in her case right now, being whizzed towards her in Baggage Claim. She was feeling happy to think of it, though oddly, the case was otherwise empty, 1) because in general, Gerda didn’t need things, once she had her book, and socks, and money, but 2) because she’d done magical thinking, which she knew in general was a Bad Idea …
It had all happened at the very last minute this morning, she was leaving home, the cab was waiting – surely Mum would be delighted to pay for her cab? – when she remembered her phone, still charging in the kitchen, so sweating, panting, ran back up the steps to get it – saw the dirty knife and fork in the sink, and thought of her Swiss Army knife – Dad’s knife! – fetched it, stuffed it in her backpack, but stopped mid-stuffing, cos of course, it wasn’t legal!
‘It will always keep you safe, Gerda’
She nearly put it down, then the worry assailed her, if you don’t take the knife, something bad’s going to happen, if you do take the knife, the knife will save you,
and although she knew this was Magical Thinking she grabbed Mum’s Prada suitcase to put it in, which was shell-pink, ditsy and elegant, with bits of glittering gold on it. She knew her mother would be angry about it, but it was the only case she could see, so she’d bumped it down the stairs in a frantic hurry and rushed out of the door to find the cab still waiting and didn’t forget to double lock, well done Gerda, she told herself –
– but something was missing in the sequence, she realised as she stepped off the escalator, something struck her no, no, make it not true a cold sweat prickled from her neck, her back
had she forgotten it no she would never
no, no but yes, yes
had she got distracted, and forgotten her phone???!!!
Was it still plugged in to the kitchen wall???!!!
Gerda stood at the entrance to Baggage Claim patting all her pockets again and again, repeating the sequence, then varying it, her level of hopelessness slowly rising.
SHE COULDN’T RING MUM TO TELL HER SHE WAS COMING.
Mum and Dad were both suddenly far away. She stood very alone, shrinking into herself.
Baggage Claim was enormous and full of strangers. When you arrive, people should meet you – the thought popped angrily into her head. Which carousel would the luggage be on? She looked around for passengers from the same plane. No, not a soul. Then she saw a sign: LONDON. Most of them must have already gone.
Unwanted bags still circled sadly, dwarfed by the spaces left by luckier ones. They all looked slightly shabby and ugly. ‘Look, they forgot us,’ they seemed to say. Gerda watched their slow dance in gathering worry (Mum only bought that case a few months ago, she claimed to cheer her up when I started boarding school). But finally, a jolt of pink, and glory – at least she still had her mum’s pet piece of luggage, at least Dad’s knife would be inside. The catches and the ‘P’ flashed gold as she swung it, light as air, to the floor. She felt loads better, instantly.
Millions of people forgot their phones. It didn’t matter, since she knew where Mum was. In a funny way, as she pulled out the handle which slipped like expensive silk into position, as the pink case followed her like a pink poodle or like a pink nut-shell with a rattling kernel, both her parents were with her now – not that she needed them, of course.
Gerda had googled public transport from the airport. She knew in theory where to go, where the airport line met the New York subway, but she havered, briefly, when she got to ARRIVALS, and TAXIS seemed to be written in sunlight, big yellow taxis bearing her away, and after all, it was her mother’s money.
Soon the yellow taxi was swooping her onward through the dazzling early afternoon. (Had she seen this – ordinary bit of it, with Dad? These roads didn’t look American enough.)
‘You did say Wordsmiths Hotel, Manhattan?’
‘Fifty-fourth Street,’ Gerda said, and felt better for the confidence of that, because streets had numbers, and she knew hers.
‘Fifty-fourth and Fifth,’ the man agreed.
Soon the towers were growing up all round them, and it was easily American enough. She saw a rabble of religious nutters with signs, bobbing. PRAISE, one said. HE IS RISEN. Briefly, it spoke to the cheerfulness in her heart. Gerda was excited; Gerda was afraid; Gerda refused to be afraid.
But what if Mum had gone out for lunch?
‘Are we nearly there yet?’ she asked the driver.
‘You’re nearly there.’ Gerda swallowed hard. What if Mum wasn’t pleased to see her?