The Fever Tree and Other Stories Read Free

father when he has forbidden something she nevertheless longs and means to do.
    They hadn’t had sight of a big cat or an elephant, they hadn’t even seen a jackal. Ford lifted his shoulders.
    â€˜O.K. But if a ranger comes along and catches you we’ll be in dead trouble.’
    She got out of the car, leaving the door open. The grass which began at the roadside and covered the bush as far as the eye could see was long and coarse. It came up above Tricia’s knees. A lioness or a cheetah lying in it would have been entirely concealed. Ford picked up the binoculars and looked the other way to avoid watching Tricia who had once again forgotten to put the camera strap round her neck. She was making overtures to the monkeys who shrank away from her, embracing each other and burying heads in shoulders, like menaced refugees in a sentimental painting. He moved the glasses slowly. About a hundred yards from where a small herd of buck grazed uneasily, he saw the two cat faces close together, the bodies nestled together, the spotted backs. Cheetah. It came into his mind how he had heard that they were the fastest animals on earth.
    He ought to call to Tricia and get her back at once into the car. He didn’t call. Through the glasses he watched the big cats that reclined there so gracefully, satiated, at rest, yet with open eyes. Marguerite would have liked them, she loved cats, she had a Burmese, as lithe and slim and poised as one of these wild creatures. Tricia got back into the car, exclaiming how sweet the monkeys were. He started the car and drove off without saying anything to her about the cheetahs.
    Later, at about five in the afternoon, she wanted to get out of the car again and he didn’t stop her. She walked up and down the road, talking to mongooses. In something over an hour it would be dark. Ford imagined starting up the car and driving back to the camp without her. Leopards were nocturnal hunters, waiting till dark. The swelling around his eyes had almost subsided now but his neck and arms and hands ached from the stiffness of the bites. The mongooses fled into the grass as Tricia approached, whispering to them, hands outstretched. A car with four men in it was coming along from the Hippo Bridge direction. It slowed down and the driver put his head out. His face was brick-red, thick-featured, his hair corrugated blond, and his voice had the squashed vowels accent of the white man born in Africa.
    â€˜The lady shouldn’t be out on the road like that.’
    â€˜I know,’ said Ford. ‘I’ve told her.’
    â€˜Excuse me, d’you know you’re doing a very dangerous thing, leaving your car?’ The voice had a hectoring boom. Tricia blushed. She bridled, smiled, bit her lip, though she was in fact very afraid of this man who was looking at her as if he despised her, as if she disgusted him. When he got back to camp, would he betray her?
    â€˜Promise you won’t tell on me?’ she faltered, her head on one side.
    He gave an exclamation of anger and withdrew his head. The car moved forward. Tricia gave a skip and a jump into the passenger seat beside Ford. They had under an hour in which to get back to Thaba. Ford drove back, following the car with the four men in it.
    At dinner they sat at adjoining tables. Tricia wondered how many people they had told about her, for she fancied that some of the diners looked at her with curiosity or antagonism. The man with fair curly hair they called Eric boasted loudly of what he and his companions had seen that day, a whole pride of lions, two rhinoceros, hyena and the rare sable antelope.
    â€˜You can’t expect to see much down that Hippo Bridge road, you know,’ he said to Ford. ‘All the game’s up at Sotingwe. You take the Sotingwe road first thing tomorrow and I’ll guarantee you lions.’
    He didn’t address Tricia, he didn’t even look at her. Ten years before, men in restaurants had