Tefuga by Peter Dickinson Page B

them up and came over with a straight-spined marching step. He snapped up a salute, disciplined but not deferential, one power waiting formal confrontation with another. The effect was partly spoilt by his having put on a cap belonging to a colleague with a quite different skull-shape. Its brim only touched in two places, so that it teetered at every move.
    The Major glanced down at him, but before descending to his level raised his right arm palm-forward to the crowd, a gesture which clearly showed that he too recognized and accepted his role as the expected saviour. A cheer rose, criss-crossed as it died away with shouts of anger. The crowd began to move again as the Major climbed down. As soon as he was clear Jackland slipped into the driving-seat and nudged the truck forward through the mob. This was only in fact a few hundred people and the road was wide enough to allow some movement, so that after the first twenty yards he was almost clear, though one or two late-corners to the crush insisted on leaning into the truck and shaking his hand to congratulate him on the part he had played in the epiphany.
    â€œGod,” he said. “I didn’t mean to start anything like that. I must apologize for dragging you in.”
    â€œBut it was marvellous, wonderful,” said Miss Boyaba. “Everything in this country has been so … You know, Mr Jackland, often I have felt positively sick to be Nigerian.”
    She pushed her spectacles up on to her forehead and stared at him with large and earnest eyes. She was younger than she had seemed at first approach, very appealing in her naïve vehemence. Before Jackland could answer, the hubbub at the top of the avenue was pierced by two shots. It died away, then rose on a sharper note.
    â€œQuick,” said Miss Boyaba. “They will shut the gates.”
    Indeed as Jackland drove towards the Old Town entrance two men in loose white cotton robes were dragging one leaf of the main gate across the archway. Jackland sounded his horn. They did not look up. Miss Boyaba rose and shouted in Hausa. The word “Sarkin” was part of the phrase. The men stopped and waved the truck urgently through, but now apparently recognizing Miss Boyaba called a greeting to her as she passed. Jackland braked in the clear arena inside the gateway and looked back at the closing door.
    â€œI suppose the Major’s all right,” he said. “I feel a bit responsible …”
    â€œOh, they won’t hurt him ! He’s what they’ve been waiting for. We’ve all been longing for something like this to happen.”
    â€œYou’re a local, then?”
    â€œI meant everyone in Nigeria, but actually I am sort of quarter-local. We used to come up often for holidays. The Sarkin is my great-uncle, you see.”
    â€œIs he indeed? These things have their uses. Um, I take it your selection to do this interview is not an entire coincidence?”
    Miss Boyaba had pulled her spectacles down, but now, despite the hazy but powerful glare of mid-morning, pushed them up again and looked at Jackland with deliberately widened eyes.
    â€œI’m afraid I haven’t been quite straight with you, Mr Jackland,” she said. “I’m only a trainee, really. Our head reporter wanted to do an interview with Mary Tressider but your publicity people turned her down. This was when you were at Ilorin. But when I heard you were up in Kiti I went to my boss and said because of the Sarkin being my great-uncle I might be able to wangle an interview here. It’s how things work in Nigeria, you see.”
    â€œAnd elsewhere.”
    â€œBut really it was you I was longing to meet.”
    â€œSpeaking as an old hand to a trainee I’d say you’d started off on the right foot but now you’re overdoing it slightly.”
    â€œOh, no. I promise. Ever since I first saw your name—it was on a programme you did about President Marcos,