Tefuga by Peter Dickinson Page B

would like to do that scene last, really. It’s just a feeling I have. But if you force me I’ll show just why I’m going to make such a terrific Bernhardt one day. Go and tell Malcolm I’m being unreasonable. I’ve been as sweet as pie so far, haven’t I? That’s because I rather fancied you. But has anyone ever told you what I did when they were shooting Jade Lilies ? Remind Malcolm about that. Oh, I know what. Tell him I don’t feel I can do the departure scene till I’ve been and seen Tefuga. I do want to go. That’s honest. You can think of a reason for him to leave Trevor behind. Malcolm will have a lovely time switching his schedules round.”
    â€œHe’ll want Trevor for that.”
    â€œI need Trevor to play piquet with. Don’t be obstinate, Nigel. I’m going to get my way, can’t you see? Malcolm will love it, really. You aren’t a real director till you’ve got your very own Tressider story to tell people.”
    â€œYou would seriously prefer to shoot the departure scene last of all?”
    â€œI insist on shooting the departure scene last of all because I shall do it best. That’s true, Nigel. And it’s true it would help to have gone to Tefuga. Give my love to Major Kadu.”
    â€œI forgot,” muttered Fish. “He wants to nick one of the trucks.”
    Miss Tressider raised her eyebrows.
    â€œThe card-play is going to be of less than Olympic standard,” said Jackland. “I’ll tell Malcolm he’s got a touch of sunstroke, whatever that may mean.”
    Miss Tressider lifted her hand towards him. He touched it with his fingertips as he went past the bed. When he had gone she lay for a while, relaxed beyond languor. Only her face occasionally changed, as if in response to attitudes she was experimenting with in front of some inward mirror. At length she reached to the shelf beside the bed and took from a shallow metal case a volume like a school exercise book, but thicker and better bound. It was composed of sheets of sketch-paper interleaved with ruled pages. Both kinds were covered with large, slanting handwriting in pencil. Miss Tressider closed her eyes and slid a finger at random between two pages. The action was clearly a deliberate ritual. Keeping her finger in the place she put on a pair of large-lensed spectacles, then opened the book and began to read.

Four
    T hurs Jan 3, 1924
    I’ve had my first fever. Only six days but it seemed weeks. I missed Christmas completely! You get hot and then you get cold and that feels like a day and a night, you see. And the room’s dark, of course. It wasn’t too bad, actually, rather like flu, only now I’m quivering all through like a gong someone’s just finished hitting—that’s the quinine, Ted says.
    He was terribly worried, poor man. He can’t help thinking women are feebler than men but he didn’t really want to get the doctor all the way from Birnin Soko, ’cos that would let Mr de Lancey tell Kaduna I was being a nuisance. I told him he was better than a doctor—not just to please him—I really don’t want another white man here. Ted slept in his dressing-room and Elongo had a mattress in the dining-room in case I needed anything. They were both marvellous. Too tired to write any more.
    Oh, before I stop. KB must have heard somehow. He sent me a present. It was a fever fetish! A thin bone—part of a monkey, Ted thinks—with green feathers tied round one end and stained with something, blood, I think. Rather horrible. Ted says he’s going to keep it in his office for next time he has to work through a fever.
    Fri Jan 11
    We’ve started our language lessons. Ted says it’s a rotten idea me learning Kiti. He thinks I’d do much better learning Arabic, which a few educated people can speak all over the north, but no one talks Kiti except here. I don’t care. I’m a terribly