Gerda saw her father on every corner. The pink suitcase, though light, was a nuisance. It didn’t feel right on a walk in the park, and the wheels made a self-important fol-de-rol of chattery, stuttery noise on hard surfaces (and yet, Dad’s army knife was inside, which he had told her would keep her safe, and Mum’s gold bracelet was on her wrist, gleaming in the late golden sunshine).
Then she actually saw him – a tall, skinny figure with a quiff of pale hair like a ruff of feathers, fifty metres ahead in the last of the sunlight, an egret-father, yes it was Dad, a magical presence, I have made him come by sheer longing, a voice whispered in her ear, it must be true, such things can happen –
Bending over his bike at the turn of the path, yes, his red jacket, his big boots – but as she started running, he actually vanished; she looked again, he had disappeared, he had slipped away up through the dark trees.
She could feel the air cooling as she left the path, but through the trees, she saw the sun still glinting on the islands of granite that broke through the grass, and hope broke through, because there, oh joy, the red of his jacket, there, surely …
She started to run, and nearly stumbled on a grey rootball that clutched at her foot, and she broke her nail as she stopped herself from falling, but she mustn’t lose him. Gerda ran on.