“Oh, I’m not worried, Rra,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I have complete faith in Mma Makutsi.”
“Then you do not need to worry at all,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “For the next two weeks you can forget about work altogether. You can be like one of those pilots who put their planes on autopilot. They can read the newspaper if they like.”
“But there is a pilot,” said Mma Ramotswe. “There’s Mma Makutsi.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni smiled. “Well, she’s at the controls now, not you.” He paused. “And you’ll be pleased to hear that she’s taken on a major case.”
She spun round. “A major case? Did she say—”
He cut her short. “She didn’t tell me what it was. But she did say that something big has turned up.”
“That was all she said?”
“That was all she told me.” He seemed to recollect something. “But then she said something else.”
He looked at Mma Ramotswe as if he were assessing whether to pass on a piece of sensitive information. She was surprised; there were no secrets between them, but perhaps Mma Makutsi was trying to keep her in the dark and had asked him not to reveal whatever it was she had told him. She felt her face flush—really, it was too bad. Mma Makutsi had no business elbowing her out like this, even to the extent of recruiting Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni as an ally.
“I would not want you to break a confidence, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni,” said Mma Ramotswe. “If she told you not to tell me, then I would be the last person”—she paused for effect—“the very last person to persuade you to reveal something confidential.”
His reaction reassured her. “But, Mma, there is nothing I wouldn’t tell you. You know that!”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni usually spoke in quiet, considered tones. Now there was an emotional edge to his voice.
She immediately felt guilty. “I’m very sorry, Rra. I wasn’t thinking. I know that you would never keep anything from me.”
As she spoke, she imagined what it would be like to live with somebody who had secrets. Instead of a comfortable atmosphere of trust there would be a nagging insecurity, like a corrosive crust, eating away at the fabric of the marriage. Doubts would spread like weeds, making it impossible to relax, spoiling everything. She stopped her train of thought right there. She had already experienced all that during her earlier, disastrous marriage to Note Mokoti, ladies’ man, trumpeter, and bully. What had possessed her to marry that man? How could she have thought that she would be able to domesticate him? Of course she had been very young then, and when we are very young we think it will be different for us; we think the rules that apply to everything and everyone else do not apply to us.
She had closed her eyes while she thought of this, and she was brought back to the present moment by Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s touch on her arm. It was something he did at difficult moments—not that they had many of those—he touched her lightly on the arm as a hesitant child might do. It had always moved her, and it did so now.
“I know you think that, Mma Ramotswe,” he said. “I know that, just as I know…” He searched around for the best way of putting it. “Just as I know that the sun will come up tomorrow morning.”
She opened her eyes and smiled at him. “Sometimes I think things that I don’t really think, Rra.”
He laughed. “That sounds very odd, Mma. That sounds like something Mma Makutsi might say.”
He was right. Mma Makutsi, for all her ninety-seven per cent from the Botswana Secretarial College, could at times say impenetrable things.
“What I meant to say is that…,” she began, but did not finish.
“This thing that Mma Makutsi told me,” he said. “It is not very important, but she did say something that made me curious. She said that this new matter they are working on involves a very famous person.”
“Did she say who it was?”
He shook his head. “I think she was going to tell me, but then the phone rang and she had to take the call. She did not finish.”
The thoughts of trust were now forgotten. A very famous person? Mma Ramotswe was intrigued. There were different sorts of fame, of course, and it would be important to know what sort of fame Mma Makutsi had in mind. There was big famous, which was the sort of fame that surrounded the people one saw pictured in the magazines. She and Mma Makutsi had discussed this sort of thing on a number of occasions when Mma Makutsi had brought back a copy of Drum from the hair-braiding salon. “You see this man here, Mma—this one standing next to that woman? You see her shoes, Mma? I would never wear shoes like that—would you? But you see him and his big muscles making that shirt look as if the buttons are going to pop off at any moment? You see him? He thinks he’s big famous, but you go over to America and you show them this photograph and they’ll say, ‘Who is this nobody man?’ So he may think that he’s big famous because they know about him in Johannesburg or Nairobi or somewhere like that, but he really isn’t, you know, Mma.”
That was big famous. Then there was small famous, which was famous in Gaborone. There were many small famous people. They were usually people who had money, who drove large cars, and whose faces you saw in the Botswana Daily News. They were always there at the charity events; they were always there when there was some special party for this or that occasion. Sometimes they had done something special to deserve their fame, but usually it simply came with material possessions. If you had a big house, it seemed, then you were a big person.
Mma Ramotswe knew that was not true. The size of one’s house might bear a relationship to the size of one’s opinion of oneself, but it had nothing to do with one’s real worth. But then fame had nothing to do with worth, anyway, except when…She paused. There were at least some cases where great deeds had been done and fame had been the result. Seretse Khama was an example. He was a great man, and a famous one. Martin Luther King was another. Winston Churchill. Gandhi. Nelson Mandela.
“I am very intrigued, Rra,” she said at last. “We have not had many famous clients at the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.”
“Nor at the garage,” mused Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “I have had some well-known cars, but nothing famous.”
“I would like to find out, though,” said Mma Ramotswe, thinking aloud. “It is very frustrating knowing that there is something important like that happening when I am on holiday.”
“Should I ask her?” volunteered Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.
She did not think this a good idea. She did not want Mma Makutsi thinking that she was breathing down her neck during her holiday, and she explained this to him. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni understood, and the conversation turned to other things. She told him of her experience with the waif, and her encounter with the woman who was taking advantage of him. “He is happy now,” she said. “He has Mma Potokwane to look after him. He is settled.”
What she said amounted to so few words; so few words to describe what had happened at the Orphan Farm that morning when she had taken the boy out to Tlokweng and parked her van under the shade of the acacia tree beside the office. He had been silent for most of the trip and now she saw that he was shivering. She had reassured him that this was a good place and that he should not be frightened. “There is a very kind lady here,” she said. “She will be your mother. She is waiting for you.”
But this had not been enough to calm him, and when she went round to the other side of the van and opened the door for him to get out, he had remained cowering in his seat.
“You mustn’t be afraid, Samuel. There is nothing bad that can happen to you here.”
He had stared downwards, avoiding her eyes. After a moment she had reached out and taken his hand, and only then had he left the van, still reluctantly, and still shivering. And then she saw the wet patch on the front of the shorts he was wearing—the result of his fear—and her heart went out to him. He tried to cover this, but his little hands were inadequate to the task, and he began to sob. She took him to her, lifting him up, ignoring the damp against her skin, and began to carry him in
to the office. He seemed to weigh very little for his age, and she thought that this must be because he had not been given the food he needed. There was much that she wanted to say—angry words directed against that woman who had made such ill use of him—but she could not say these things, as now was not the time for recrimination. So instead she sang to him, a gentle, calming song that she remembered her aunt had sung to her in Mochudi when she had been a small girl and was frightened of something or other, as all children are from time to time. She felt the tension go out of him, and he clung to her tightly, his arms around her neck and his breath, the shallow breath of a frightened child, soft against her skin.
Mma Potokwane, of course, could tell immediately what was needed. On countless occasions over the years she had done just this, taking in a confused child, a child with nobody else to count upon, a child who had slipped through the mesh of that safety net of relatives, of aunts and grandparents that in Botswana, as elsewhere in Africa, had always coped with such circumstances. Recently she had been called upon to do this more and more, as disease stalked mercilessly through Africa and took from children all those who would normally provide them with the love and protection they needed. But Mma Potokwane did not flinch, and did what she needed to do, whatever the attendant difficulties.
“So,” said Mma Potokwane. “Here we have another young man to join our family. This is a very happy day for us.”
“This is Samuel,” said Mma Ramotswe, turning round so that the boy could look at Mma Potokwane.
Mma Potokwane smiled and gestured to Mma Ramotswe to put the child down. “I have something special for you, Samuel,” said Mma Potokwane. “I have some special cake here for you. It is just for you. A very big piece.”
She gave him the cake and then took out of a drawer some clean khaki shorts. “You take these, Samuel. They are just your size. Go out onto the verandah and put them on there. Then come back and I will give you more cake.”
With the boy out of the room, Mma Ramotswe looked apologetically at Mma Potokwane. “I know you’re under pressure with numbers, Mma. But this is a special case.”
Mma Potokwane wagged a finger playfully at her friend. “Everybody says that, Mma. I have never had somebody come in here and not say it.” She paused, her face breaking into a smile. “And you know what, Mma Ramotswe, they’re right. Every case is special.”
“You are very kind, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. Her eye had strayed to the tin from which Mma Potokwane had taken the slice of cake.
Mma Potokwane noticed. “Would you like a cup of tea, Mma?” she enquired.
Mma Ramotswe nodded. She continued to look at the tin.
“And perhaps a piece of cake?” continued Mma Potokwane.
It was not a question that required answering—looks, and body language, did it all.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE UNWISENESS OF DRIPPING
BY THE TIME Mma Ramotswe got out of bed the following day, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had already gone to work. Normally Mma Ramotswe would be up first and would make tea for her still somnolent husband. This she would place on the dresser at the side of the bed before going out into the garden to inspect the plants, savour the crisp morning air, and watch the sun float up over the horizon. So engrained was this routine that when she awoke that morning and found Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni no longer at her side her immediate reaction had been to assume that something terrible had happened. But then she had looked at the old Westclox alarm clock, with its shaky hands and its scratched dial, and it took only a moment or two to realise that she had slept in. Now she remembered that she was on holiday and could get up when she wished. Indeed, there was no need to get up at all: if she wished to stay in bed all day, nobody would have been any the wiser.
She thought of the children. With their growing independence, both Puso and Motholeli had been keen to show themselves capable of getting themselves off to school on their own. This had been particularly true of Puso, who almost two years earlier had mounted a successful campaign to be allowed to make his way to school without adult supervision. In pursuit of this goal he had agreed to help Motholeli with her wheelchair each morning, and he had been as good as his word. For her part, Mma Ramotswe was proud to see the boy managing to hold his own against one or two rather spoiled and unhelpful older boys who felt threatened by Puso’s sporting prowess and his easy mastery of the curriculum. She had harboured some misgivings about sending such a young child off to school by himself, but she had been persuaded by a friend that refusing a child permission to stand on his own two feet could bring difficult consequences later on. “They do that in the villages,” the friend had said. “The moment they learn to walk out there, they are ready to go.”
Mma Ramotswe knew that was fundamentally true. The sight of tiny children by themselves was a familiar one in a village, but that, she thought, was only because there were many eyes in a village, and most of them, if not all, were watching out for other people. You were never alone in a village, even if you thought you were; somebody would notice if you tripped and fell down, somebody would see you if you needed help. But was that true of Gaborone, which had grown so much, and now looked so much like any bustling city? Obviously not, although there was still an intimacy to the place that marked it out from other towns: you did not change the soul of a place by simply making it bigger; you diluted its qualities, yes, but the heart of a country would still beat in this same way no matter how many new houses and shops and roads you chose to build.
She rose from her bed and went into the children’s bedrooms to check that they had, in fact, left for school. Then, in the kitchen, with the kettle beginning to huff and puff itself to the boil, she saw the note that Motholeli had left her. I have sent the Daddy to work. I made him sandwiches to take to the garage. I have made Puso change his socks. We shall not be back until five because I have garden club and Puso has to play football. He would not clean his teeth although I told him to six times. Love from Motholeli.
She held the note to her. She thought she would keep it, putting it away in a box of papers she treasured, filing it alongside the deeds to the house, her marriage certificate, the words of a Setswana song her father had once written out for her—a haunting little song about the wedding of two baboons; the baboon bride and groom wear clothing they’ve stolen from humans—rags, really—but they are worn with pride. There would come a time when this crumpled piece of paper would remind her of what she would by then otherwise have forgotten—the innocent words of a child.
It seemed strange to be eating her breakfast by herself, and she did not linger long at the table. A bowl of meal porridge, drowned in milk and sweetened by a spoonful of syrup, was followed by a piece of toast spread with dripping and then sprinkled with salt and pepper. The toast was an indulgence—even by Mma Ramotswe’s standards—but it was the one culinary treat she felt unable to give up, even in the face of evidence that it was really not very good for you.
“We must not eat dripping any more,” warned Mma Makutsi from behind a healthy-living magazine. “We must give up such things, Mma.” This advice had been accompanied by a stern look in Mma Ramotswe’s direction.
Mma Ramotswe had not taken that lying down. “Soon they will be telling us not to eat anything,” she countered. “They will say that only air is good for you. Air and water.”
Mma Makutsi had not approved. “You cannot fight science, Mma. Science is telling us that many of the things we like to eat in this country are not good for us. They say that these things are making us too large.”
“I am not fighting science, Mma,” replied Mma Ramotswe. “I am just saying that we have to have some things that we like, otherwise we shall be very unhappy. And if you are very unhappy you can die—we all know that.” She allowed that to sink in before she continued. “There are many people who have been thinking a lot about science who are now late. It would have been better for them to spend more time being happy while they had the chance. That is well known, Mma—it is very well k
nown.”
Mma Makutsi had become silent. One could not argue against something that Mma Ramotswe claimed was well known, just as you could not argue against any view she attributed to the late Seretse Khama. She had learned that—indeed, it was well known—and so she had returned to her magazine with nothing more being said about the unwiseness of dripping.
Mma Ramotswe finished her piece of toast, licking the last of the dripping off her fingers. It was the most delicious foodstuff imaginable; there was nothing, she thought, to beat dripping. You could order the most expensive dish on the menu at the President Hotel and it would not taste anywhere near as delicious as dripping. Bread and dripping, preferably eaten outside, in the shade of an acacia tree, with the lowing of cattle not far away—what could be more perfect than that?
She stopped the reverie. I must get on, she thought. And then she asked herself: Get on where? She had nothing to do—unless, of course, she were to satisfy the curiosity that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had piqued the previous evening with his tantalising snippet of information about Mma Makutsi’s new case. She deliberated, but not for long. She would find a pretext to drop into the office. It would not be a lengthy visit—she was not going to interfere—but if she timed her visit to coincide with the making of the mid-morning cup of tea, then she could stay for a chat and possibly find out what was going on.
The visit to the office would have another purpose too. Ever since she had seen the new college and spoken to the painter, she had been wondering what she should do about it. The realisation that had come to her outside the college was a starkly uncomfortable one: it was Violet Sephotho who was behind the new venture. That fact might have been of very little interest to most people, but to Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi it was of considerable significance. Violet Sephotho was Mma Makutsi’s arch-enemy, the enmity between them dating back to their time together at the Botswana Secretarial College, where Violet had been a half-hearted student, keener on men than on shorthand and typing, and arrogantly dismissive of the college and its staff. Thereafter their paths had crossed on a number of occasions, when Violet, bitterly envious of Mma Makutsi’s marriage to a man as well off as Phuti Radiphuti, had not missed any opportunity to sow discord and disparage everything that Mma Makutsi stood for. The news that Violet Sephotho was planning to open a college of secretarial studies would infuriate Mma Makutsi and would probably distract her from other, more important issues. So she would have to raise the matter carefully, or perhaps leave it unmentioned altogether. No, she thought, I cannot do that. I shall have to tell her—gently.