The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon

by Alexander McCall Smith

  She drove past the traffic circle at the university and then along the road towards the part of town known as the Village. Although she remembered it when it was a sleepy collection of meandering, tree-lined streets, it was less of a village now, since several large blocks of flats had been built on its periphery. Blocks of flats could change everything, thought Mma Ramotswe. They were designed for people, but people were not necessarily designed for them. These flats at the edges of the Village, though, were made more human by the washing that was hung out to dry from their balconies; by the children who congregated in their doorways, or played with skipping ropes and dogs on their pathways; by the music that the residents listened to, melodies that drifted out of the open windows and throbbed with life. All of this made it harder for large new buildings to deaden the human spirit. It was like the bush: you could clear it and build something where once there had been nothing but trees and grass and termite mounds, but if you turned your back for a moment, Africa would begin to reclaim what had always been hers. The grass would encroach, its seeds carried by the wind; birds would drop the seeds of saplings that would then send tiny shoots up out of the ground; the termites would marshal their exploratory troops to begin rebuilding their own intricate cities of mud in the very places they had claimed once before. And sooner or later the bush would have covered all your efforts and it would be as it was before, the wound on nature completely healed.

  By the time she reached the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, Mr J. L. B. Matekoni had already arrived for work at his garage, Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, with whom the agency shared premises. He was talking to a client who had brought in a car for repair – one of his regular clients, Mma Ramotswe noticed; one of that unfortunate category of people whose cars always seemed to be breaking down but who could not bring themselves to part with them and buy a new model. Mma Ramotswe understood that attitude only too well; she loved her van and had resisted every effort on the part of Mr J. L. B. Matekoni to trade it in for something newer. And when he had eventually succeeded, she had pined for her late van until it had been recovered, restored and given back into her ownership, where it was surely destined to be.

  She nodded a greeting to the client, whom she knew slightly, before making her way into the office. Mma Makutsi was sometimes in before her. Good time-keeping, she had often pointed out, was one of the lessons learned in the Botswana Secretarial College – at least by those who were willing to learn, and that did not include people like Violet Sephotho, who learned nothing except, perhaps, how to distract men. This morning, though, it was Mma Ramotswe who opened up the office, pulling up the blind on the main window, filling the kettle, and brushing the ants off the top of the filing cabinet. The presence of the ants on the cabinet was a mystery; they were there every morning, a long line of pinheaded creatures, marching obediently across the painted metal wastes on some quite unfathomable mission. Mma Makutsi had suggested that the ants were there before the filing cabinet or the building itself; that this was some ancient ant highway that they still felt compelled to follow. She had been opposed to ant powder, as had Mma Ramotswe. These insects did not bite, nor did they have that curious unpleasant smell that the larger Matabele ants had – and they had none of the aggressive instincts of those warriors. Every child had been bitten at one time or another by a Matabele ant and, remembering the pain, learned to leave a wide berth when those determined black ants were on the march.

  She filled the kettle and prepared her first cup of tea. It was, in fact, her third of the day, but she did not count the two that she had at home before she reached the office; those cups were merely preparatory and therefore exempt from tally. Her cup of tea in her hand, she stood by the window looking out at the acacia tree behind the office. She had not given much thought to yesterday’s conversation with Mma Sheba, but now she wondered whether there was much that she could do. It seemed to her to be very odd that Mma Sheba should doubt the word of Rra Edgar’s sister. She was, after all, the boy’s aunt and if she said that Liso was the same boy who had been coming to stay on the farm every school holiday since he was very young, then that should be the end of the matter. Surely it would be easy enough to talk to the people who worked on the farm, or to the neighbours, and ask them whether Liso was the same boy. And if they said yes, which they no doubt would, then that would be the end of it. Why, she wondered, could Mma Sheba not have done that herself? And what interest, for that matter, would the aunt have in telling lies?

  She was distracted from these considerations by the arrival of Phuti Radiphuti’s car. He usually dropped off Mma Makutsi on his way to the Double Comfort Furniture Store, and that was what he would be doing now. Phuti was getting out of the car, yet she noticed immediately that he was not wearing his normal working outfit of neatly pressed black trousers, white shirt and tie. Instead, he was wearing a pair of denim jeans and an open-necked shirt. And where was Mma Makutsi, Mma Ramotswe wondered. Was she ill? She had rarely missed a day’s work since she started; she came in even when she was beginning to go down with flu and had to be sent back to her bed. Something must be wrong or… She saw Phuti’s expression. This was not a man about to deliver bad news, and at that moment she knew what he had come to say.

  She opened the door as Phuti approached.

  ‘Dumela, Rra. This is a surprise…’

  ‘Mma Ramotswe, Mmmmmma…’

  His mouth was open; he was stammering.

  ‘It’s all right, Rra, I am not in a hurry. I’m listening.’

  ‘Itttt… it’s…’

  She reached out to take his hand. There was a momentary doubt that this was bad news rather than good, but his expression belied that. No, this man was a father. Any new father, whether or not he was given to stammering, might be expected to be nervous and to behave just like this.

  She decided to take the initiative. ‘Has she had it?’

  He nodded, almost gratefully. ‘Yes. Yes. She is now a father.’ He shook his head and corrected himself. ‘No, she is a mother and I am a father. It is a boy child. One boy.’

  Mma Ramotswe smiled. It would have been much more difficult, she thought, for Mma Makutsi to have said nothing about twins. ‘That is very good news, Rra! Very good. When did the baby arrive?’

  ‘Seven days ago,’ said Phuti. ‘No, what am I saying? Seven hours ago. He is now seven hours old – my first-born.’ He closed his eyes, as if uttering some sort of prayer. ‘And it is three weeks earlier than we thought, Mma. Three weeks!’

  She was still holding his hand, and she squeezed it. It was moist with heat and excitement. ‘That is wonderful, Rra! Your first-born – a new Radiphuti.’

  She saw that there were tears in his eyes.

  ‘My father would have been very proud,’ he said. ‘But he is late now.’

  Mma Ramotswe spoke gently. ‘I think that there are some things that late people know,’ she said. ‘Wherever they are. This is the one bit of news that they get, I think.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Phuti.

  ‘And they will be very happy up in Bobonong,’ went on Mma Ramotswe. ‘It will be good news for all those Makutsi people up there.’

  Phuti was now beginning to calm down. He gestured to a chair and asked whether he might sit.

  Mma Ramotswe smiled. ‘Of course, Rra. You will be very tired. Having a baby is very tiring – even for men, I think.’

  Phuti extracted a handkerchief and mopped at his brow. ‘That’s true, Mma Ramotswe. Of course, it is the woman who has the hard work to do.’

  Mma Ramotswe struggled not to laugh. ‘I think that is probably true, Rra.’ She paused. ‘I am very happy for you, Rra – for both of you. This is very good. Well done.’

  He acknowledged her tribute. ‘Thank you, Mma. And do you know something? When I was at the hospital – at the Princess Marina – there were some men there who…’

  She looked at him expectantly. ‘Doctors?’ she prompted.

  ‘No, not doctors. Ordinary men. Husbands. And they were go
ing to be there in the room when the baby came. Right in the room.’

  Mma Ramotswe shrugged. ‘There are men who believe in that, Rra. They like to be with their wife when she has their baby. I can understand.’

  Phuti Radiphuti frowned. ‘It is not part of our culture,’ he said gravely. ‘Not in Botswana.’

  ‘Traditionally,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘But things are changing, Rra. I think there are some men who want to be there when their child comes into the world.’

  Phuti Radiphuti shook his head in wonderment. ‘I take the traditional view, Mma. You know, there was a big row when I was there – not involving me, of course.’

  Mma Ramotswe could not imagine Phuti being involved in any sort of row – big or otherwise. He was a mild man, and she had never heard him raise his voice. She had heard that this could be problematic at the Double Comfort Furniture Store, where he was sometimes required to deal with difficult staff. Awkward employees could be quick to sense when the person in authority over them was unprepared to be forceful.

  ‘A row, Rra? In the hospital itself?’

  Phuti nodded. ‘Yes, there were three nurses on duty, you see. There was a senior nurse, who was a lady like you, Mma…’ He made a gesture to indicate size, and then, realising what he was doing, he quickly dropped his hands.

  ‘Traditionally built?’ prompted Mma Ramotswe.

  He looked sheepish. ‘Yes, Mma. Traditionally built. And then there were two more junior nurses. And there was one of the fathers – or a man who was about to become a father – and he had asked one of the junior nurses whether he could go into the labour ward with his wife. He said that this is what she wanted, and he wanted it too. The nurse said that she thought this was a good thing to do. But then the older nurse started to shake her finger. She said to him that men had never been allowed anywhere near a woman who was having a baby and that he should be ashamed of himself for asking.’

  Mma Ramotswe was not surprised. ‘People have different views. Certainly she was right about the old Botswana views – that is the position. My late father would never have imagined that any man would ask such a thing. He was a child of his time – as we all are, Rra.’

  Phuti Radiphuti went on to describe what had happened. The man had begun to shout, he said, and had asked whose baby it was anyway. ‘The senior nurse shouted even more,’ he said. ‘She told him that the baby belonged to his wife and that he was just the father. He would be able to see the baby in due time, when his wife invited him to do so.’

  ‘And how did he react to that?’ asked Mma Ramotswe.

  ‘He was not very happy,’ replied Phuti. ‘And then the other junior nurse, who had not said anything, started to support him too. That made it two nurses and one man against one senior nurse. There was a lot of shouting.’ He paused. ‘Then more shouting started – this time from one of the ladies who was having a baby. And that stopped the man.’

  ‘He didn’t like it?’

  ‘No. He suddenly stopped shouting and he stood very still. I think he became frightened. Then he turned round and walked quickly away.’

  Mma Ramotswe laughed. ‘He’d changed his mind?’

  ‘He decided that it was not a good idea after all,’ said Phuti.

  Mma Ramotswe looked out of the window. She was remembering. She tried not to think about it, but every so often it came back to her – the birth of her only child all those years ago. Her baby by Note Mokoti; her baby who had lived for such a short time before being taken away from her. Her child, her baby – the only baby that she would ever have. She closed her eyes, trying to fend off the memory of how she had held the tiny baby, uncertain whether life had gone yet, and how they had taken the bundle from her, restraining her in the raw depth of her grief, because they said that she could not hold the child’s body for ever and would have to say goodbye. We all had to say goodbye, sooner or later, to those we loved – or they had to say goodbye to us. Those were the only two possibilities that this world allowed. But no matter how much we tried to face up to it, it never became easier.

  She struggled to bring herself back. ‘So you waited outside?’

  He nodded. ‘There is a place for fathers to go, but I think that most of us wanted to go outside. There were three other men there – the man who had changed his mind, and two others. One of them was a man who knew my cousin – a man who works in the Bank of Botswana. He has something to do with money.’

  Again, Mma Ramotswe suppressed a smile. Phuti Radiphuti was just like Mma Makutsi, really: they both had a tendency to make odd, sometimes rather obvious, remarks. Married couples often reinforced one’s another’s quirks, she thought. Of course anybody who worked in the Bank of Botswana would have something to do with money. That, she thought, went with the job, although, to be fair to Phuti, there would be people there who were in charge of personnel, or the staff café, or some such thing, and they might be described as people who had nothing to do with money.

  ‘And your son, Rra?’ asked Mma Ramotswe. ‘Have you seen him yet? Have you held him?’

  Phuti’s eyes glowed with pride as he answered. ‘I saw him. He was in a special room for babies. There were a lot of cots and the babies were in those.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘They look after babies very well there.’

  ‘Many of the babies were crying,’ Phuti continued. ‘But my son was not one of them. He was behaving very well.’

  Mma Ramotswe reached out to pat Phuti on the shoulder. ‘He will be a very well-behaved boy, Rra. He is starting as he intends to carry on.’

  Phuti seemed pleased with the compliment, but then he frowned. ‘My aunt…’

  ‘Ah.’ Mma Ramotswe knew all about Phuti’s aunt, whom she had met on more than one occasion. This was the aunt with the reputation for jealousy and interference, the owner of that unattractive brown car with its mean-spirited windows, the aunt who had tried to come between Phuti and Mma Makutsi.

  ‘My aunt came round to the hospital. I don’t know how she knew that Grace had been taken there, but she was there half an hour after we arrived. I think she has many spies throughout the town and one of them must have phoned her and told her.’

  Mma Ramotswe summoned up as much sympathy as she could manage. ‘I suppose she was very proud of you, Rra. I think it is always nice for an aunt when her nephew’s wife has a baby. That can be a very big thing for an aunt.’

  Phuti understood this. ‘I am not saying that she should not have been there, but I do not agree with what she said. She said that Grace should go with her to her house and stay there for a month or two before they came back to my place. She said that is the traditional way and my father would have wanted it.’

  Mma Ramotswe knew the custom to which the aunt was referring – and yes, that was the way it once was. The mother and baby would be secluded with female relatives until it was thought safe to let the baby out into the world. But things were changing and fewer and fewer people followed that custom these days. Babies might be kept inside for a matter of days, but it would be rare for them to be kept out of sight for months, as happened in the past.

  ‘Simply tell her that this is not possible,’ advised Mma Ramotswe. ‘Tell her that you are not going to observe the old custom. Tell her that you and Grace are a modern couple and you are going to take the baby straight home – to your home – and that he will be taken out of the house whenever you want to do so.’

  Phuti shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘It is not always easy to tell my aunt things,’ he said. ‘She believes that she knows everything already. She does not think there is anybody who can tell her anything.’

  ‘You didn’t agree, did you?’

  Phuti’s discomfort appeared to grow. ‘Not in those actual words. I did not say yes, but…’

  There were many different ways of saying yes and no, thought Mma Ramotswe.

  ‘I see,’ she said. ‘So the baby is going to the aunt’s place?’

  ‘Only for a very short time,’ said Phu
ti.

  ‘And has Mma Makutsi agreed?’ asked Mma Ramotswe.

  ‘At first she did not say anything – I think that she felt too tired or too weak. But then she said that it would be all right if that was what I wanted.’

  ‘You should have told her that it was not what you wanted,’ said Mma Ramotswe.

  ‘It is difficult to tell her something like that,’ said Phuti.

  She did not want to detract from his pleasure, and so she said nothing more on the subject. Instead, she asked about a name – had they decided?

  ‘We discussed it,’ said Phuti. ‘We discussed it many times before the baby arrived.’

  ‘It is not always easy to choose a child’s name,’ agreed Mma Ramotswe. ‘I sometimes think that we have too many names in Botswana, with people inventing all these names all the time. In other places you do not have so much choice – you only have to pick from a very small list.’

  ‘But that makes it better for us,’ argued Phuti. ‘If you have a name that nobody else has, then you feel more special. You know that there is only one of you.’ He hesitated. ‘There is no other Phuti Radiphuti in the whole world, I think.’

  ‘Nor Precious Ramotswe,’ ventured Mma Ramotswe, adding: ‘As far as I know.’

  ‘We are very fortunate,’ said Phuti.

  ‘And your son?’ asked Mma Ramotswe.

  Phuti Radiphuti looked down at the floor. ‘We were wondering about Clovis,’ he said hesitantly. ‘Clovis Radiphuti.’

  Mma Ramotswe was silent for a moment. Clovis Andersen was the author of The Principles of Private Detection, the book that had served her and Mma Makutsi so well for so many years. And then he had arrived unannounced in Botswana and introduced himself as a matter of professional courtesy. Their meeting with him had been one of the heights of her professional career – indeed, of her life.

  Phuti was waiting for her reaction.

  ‘I think it is a very good name,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘And we could tell Mr Andersen that the baby is named for him. That will make him very happy, I think.’