The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon

by Alexander McCall Smith

  ‘Including death,’ interjected Mma Soleti. ‘If that bird comes to your house then…’

  Mma Ramotswe wagged a finger. ‘Hush, Mma! That is complete nonsense. It is untrue. How can an innocent bird bring death? That is nonsense.’

  ‘It is not innocent,’ said Mma Soleti. ‘It is a wicked bird.’

  ‘A bird cannot be wicked. It cannot.’ She paused. ‘Birds don’t think, Mma. Look at their heads – they are very small. All that a bird can think about is food and things like that. They do not think about harming people.’

  Mma Soleti was not convinced. ‘Even if a bird can do nothing, a person can. And there is some person somewhere who wants to frighten me, who would like me to be late.’

  Mma Ramotswe became firmer. ‘No, Mma, you cannot say that. You cannot say that there is anybody who wishes you to become late. There is some person – some very foolish and childish person – who wants to frighten you, yes. But what power has that person got if you refuse to be frightened? A rock rabbit, a tiny little dassie, can laugh at a leopard. Even he will not be frightened if he does not let himself feel that way.’

  ‘Until the leopard eats him,’ said Mma Soleti.

  ‘I think my example was not very good,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘But look at…’ She racked her brains for a more suitable example. Surely there were instances of small and plucky people standing up to larger bullies and facing them down, but now that she needed them she could not bring any to mind. Meerkats were plucky, no doubt about that, but when they saw the shadow of a hawk they ran for cover.

  ‘So what do I do, Mma Ramotswe?’

  ‘Ignore it,’ she answered. ‘If you ignore stupid people, they lose interest. That is very well known, Mma.’

  ‘Is it, Mma?’

  Mma Ramotswe was adamant. ‘Definitely, Mma. It is definitely well known throughout Botswana and, I’m sure, elsewhere.’

  Then her example came to her: Sir Seretse Khama, the first President of Botswana. People had tried to frighten him when he declared his intention of marrying Ruth, the woman from a very different background whom he loved. Everybody had leaned on him, scolded and cajoled him, including the tribal elders of the Bamangwato people, for whom he was royalty; the British and the South Africans had done the same. But he had refused to be cowed and had triumphed in the end, creating modern Botswana, with all that it stood for in terms of decency and courage.

  ‘Think of Seretse Khama,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘What would he say to you, Mma?’

  Mma Soleti looked nonplussed.

  ‘I’ll tell you, Mma,’ supplied Mma Ramotswe. ‘He would say: Do not be afraid of people who lurk in the shadows. Stand up for what you believe in. The people in the shadows are no match for people who are not afraid of light. That is what he would say, Mma. I am sure of it.’

  She watched the other woman and thought: Yes, she is becoming stronger. But then she thought – strictly to herself and without saying anything about it – what sort of enemies has this Mma Soleti acquired, and how?

  Mma Soleti was watching her, a look of disappointment on her face. Noticing this, Mma Ramotswe understood that she would have to say something.

  ‘You may be wondering what to do, Mma,’ she said.

  ‘I was. Yes.’

  Mma Ramotswe nodded her head. ‘At the moment, nothing,’ she said. ‘There are some situations where it is best to wait and watch.’

  ‘Is this one of those?’ asked Mma Soleti.

  ‘Yes,’ answered Mma Ramotswe. ‘This is one of those cases where doing nothing is doing something, if you see what I mean, Mma.’

  Mma Soleti hesitated, but then she said, ‘If that’s what you say, Mma.’

  ‘It is,’ said Mma Ramotswe.

  Chapter Six

  That is My Baby, Mma

  Later that day Mma Ramotswe received word from Phuti Radiphuti that Mma Makutsi had returned home from hospital, and was back on her feet and looking forward to a visit in the afternoon. She sent a message back saying that she was very happy to hear all this and that she would be at the Radiphuti house shortly after four. She said that she would not stay long, as she knew how tired people could be after childbirth, and that it would not be necessary even to make so much as a cup of tea for her.

  The hours before four dragged. Without Mma Makutsi, the office was a disturbingly quiet place, and although Mma Ramotswe had a number of reports to write, she found that she could not settle to the task. Shortly before three, she rose from her desk, put aside a barely begun report, and made her way into the garage workshop next door.

  Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, her husband and by all accounts the finest mechanic in Botswana, was busy attempting to instruct his two assistants, Charlie and Fanwell, on an obscure point of engine tuning. They had broken off from their technical discussion and turned to an issue that Mma Ramotswe believed was causing a degree of friction – how they should be referred to at work. They had both been taken on as Mr J. L. B. Matekoni’s apprentices, but Fanwell had now qualified and so had to be addressed as an assistant mechanic. Charlie had failed his examinations, several times, and seemed doomed to perpetual apprentice-status, but did not like to be described as such.

  ‘I know as much as Fanwell,’ he protested, ‘and you do not call him an apprentice. So why should I be called that?’

  Mr J. L. B. Matekoni tried to explain that there were formalities in life that had to be completed, and examinations were just such formalities. ‘Take Mma Makutsi, for instance,’ he said. ‘She did not get her job just like that – she had to write exams and get her ninety-seven per cent, or whatever it was.’

  Charlie sniggered. ‘Ninety-seven per cent of nothing is nothing, boss. Or it used to be.’

  ‘You may laugh, Charlie,’ warned Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, ‘but ninety-seven per cent is ninety-seven per cent more than you ever got. You got no marks at all for the last exam – they sent me the result. Nought per cent. Nothing. Nix.’

  Charlie shrugged. ‘What counts is this: can you fix a car? Exams are nothing beside that. Would you want Miss Ninety-seven Per Cent to fix your car? No? Neither would I, boss.’

  ‘She has a baby now,’ remarked Fanwell. ‘She will not have the time to fix any cars.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charlie. ‘A baby! A ninety-seven per cent baby! And that baby will be sitting there with big round glasses like his mother’s. A secretary-baby!’

  Mr J. L. B. Matekoni glanced at Mma Ramotswe, who was following this conversation from the sidelines. ‘You were a baby once, Charlie. Don’t you forget that.’

  ‘Ha!’ said Fanwell. ‘An apprentice-baby! Trying to fix a little toy car…’

  Mma Ramotswe decided to go back into her office. There was a curious thing about male conversation that she had noticed – men often ended up poking fun at one another. Women did this only rarely, but men seemed to love insulting one another. It was very strange. Mr J. L. B. Matekoni followed her into the office, wiping his hands on the ubiquitous lint that he kept for the purpose.

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said. ‘Those boys…’

  ‘They are young men,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘They’ll grow up one of these days.’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. He looked at her enquiringly. ‘Did you want to discuss anything with me back there?’

  ‘No,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘I was killing time. I’m going to see Mma Makutsi at four.’ She paused, fiddling for a moment with a manila file that was sitting on her desk. ‘May I ask you something, Rra?’

  Mr J. L. B. Matekoni stuffed the lint into his pocket. ‘You may ask me anything, Mma – anything at all. You know that.’ He thought it unlikely that there was anything that he knew that she did not – unless, of course, it was about cars. But on all other subjects, he deferred to his wife.

  ‘What would you do if somebody sent you a ground hornbill feather?’

  For a moment Mr J. L. B. Matekoni did not answer. Then, when he did, his voice was strained. ‘Those birds are very
bad luck.’

  Mma Ramotswe waited for him to say something more.

  ‘If I were sent a feather like that, I would know that there was somebody who wanted me dead.’ He looked at her severely. ‘I would say that it was very serious, Mma. I would say that sending somebody a feather like that would not be a joke at all.’

  ‘Who does that sort of thing these days? It’s so… so old-fashioned.’

  Mr J. L. B. Matekoni snorted. ‘That thing never goes away, Mma. There will always be somebody prepared to pay those people to put a curse on his enemy.’

  ‘Don’t the police do anything about it?’

  Mr J. L. B. Matekoni scratched his head. ‘If they hear about it; but nobody wants to report it to them. It is always the same. Fear works.’

  Mma Ramotswe agreed, but her fundamental question remained unanswered. What sort of person would do such a thing?

  ‘Let me put it this way, Rra,’ she said. ‘If you received a feather or something like that, whom would you suspect?’

  He answered quickly. ‘My enemies.’

  ‘But you have none, Rra.’

  He looked puzzled. ‘Perhaps not. But if I did, then they would be the suspects.’ He paused. ‘Or a rival, I suppose. Anybody can have rivals.’

  They were silent for a while, and Mma Ramotswe stared out of the window at the acacia tree. A small bird – not one of the doves who made their home there, but something altogether more modest – was arguing with another bird about the possession of a few inches of branch. The prize was nothing much, and there were plenty of unoccupied branches nearby, but for the birds it was worth fighting for. She watched the birds in their tiny rage, and was joined by Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, who stood at her shoulder.

  ‘Ridiculous birds,’ he said. ‘They are always squabbling with one another.’

  ‘Like people,’ muttered Mma Ramotswe. ‘We are always fighting too – over the same things that animals fight over. Land. A place to live or work.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Yes, we are. And the people who are in a place first think that this means that everybody else can be shooed away. Like that bird over there. He was there first, he says. The other bird is the intruder.’

  He was thoughtful. They both knew what was being discussed. ‘But don’t people have the right to protect their place? This Botswana of ours – everybody would want to come and live here. All those people from countries where things don’t work, or where they are in a big mess – they would want to come here. And we couldn’t manage that, Mma Ramotswe…’

  She understood the point he was making. You could not open your doors to everybody because you would go under if you did. So you had to harden your heart; you had to be selfish, which she did not like. But you cannot turn another away, she thought; you cannot.

  ‘It is very hard,’ she said. ‘But I suppose you’re right. We cannot take on all the problems of Africa. Nobody can.’ That was true, she realised, though she wished that it were otherwise.

  She looked again at the birds. Mma Soleti was the bird that had come to the tree more recently. The other bird, the defender, was the bird that was already there.

  She drove to the Radiphuti house in her tiny white van. Because the new house that Phuti Radiphuti had commissioned from the This Way Up Building Company was on the very edge of town, in an area yet to be adopted by the council, the road was rough and bumpy, and the van threw up a cloud of fine dust that seemed quite out of proportion to the vehicle’s size. It would be impossible for anybody to approach the house by stealth, thought Mma Ramotswe, as long as they drove and as long as they came by day.

  She saw that Phuti’s car was parked beside the house, which did not surprise her as he had told her that he was taking a few days off while Mma Makutsi and the new baby settled. It would be good to see him; she had grown to like Phuti Radiphuti immensely, and she looked forward to witnessing his joy in his new son. There was another car, though, that Mma Ramotswe recognised, and this was a less welcome sight. It was a low-slung, rather old brown car – the colour of cattle dung, she could not help but observe – and had small, mean-spirited windows. It was a car, she thought, for a person who did not want to be looked at by the world, and wanted, in turn, to gaze out at the world only through narrow and defensive slits. It occurred to her that it might even have previously been a military vehicle, and that the purpose of the small windows was to stop people shooting at the occupants within.

  The car belonged to Phuti’s contrary aunt, and for a brief moment she imagined the aunt driving off to the shops under the fire of her enemies, of whom there surely were many. She smiled at the picture.

  She began to park the van next to the unpleasant brown car, but then she thought better of it. She was by no means as ready as Mr J. L. B. Matekoni was to attribute emotions to cars, but she did not like the thought of her van being so close to the brown car. It was ridiculous, she knew that, but she would feel more comfortable if she found another parking place. Very slowly, she drove round the side of the house. There was no real driveway there, but there also seemed to be no garden – yet.

  She stopped the van and got out, remembering to take with her the small parcel of baby shoes. As she approached the house, she had a feeling that she was being watched. Trust your feelings, Clovis Andersen had written in The Principles of Private Detection. If the back of your neck tells you that you’re being watched, listen to it!

  The back of Mma Ramotswe’s neck now told her that there was somebody looking at her. She turned and glanced at the windows that were slightly above her. She thought she saw a movement, but she could not be sure. She continued on her way to the front of the house.

  As Mma Ramotswe feared, it was the aunt, rather than Phuti, who opened the door to her.

  ‘Yes?’ said the aunt. ‘Who are you, Mma?’

  Mma Ramotswe was certain that the aunt must remember who she was. ‘We have met before, Mma. Perhaps you have forgotten. I am Mma Ramotswe.’

  The aunt feigned sudden enlightenment. ‘Oh, that woman. The one from that garage.’

  ‘From the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency,’ corrected Mma Ramotswe. ‘It is next to a garage, but it is not a garage itself.’

  The aunt ignored this. ‘I’m sorry that there is nobody in,’ she said abruptly. ‘Come back some other time.’

  Mma Ramotswe caught her breath. She had never been able to understand how some people could lie like this when it was so obvious that their lies would be exposed. ‘But, Mma, Mr Radiphuti’s car is here.’

  The aunt hesitated. ‘Is it? Well, he must have come home, but I think he must be asleep. We cannot wake him. Sorry about that – you must go now.’

  ‘No,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘I have been asked to come here by Mma Makutsi herself. She will want to see me.’

  She began to push past the aunt, who resisted for a few moments, but, in military terms, it was light armour against heavy, and heavy armour won, as it always does. A final push was all that was required, and Mma Ramotswe was in the living room. From deep within the house she could hear Phuti’s voice, and she made her way towards that.

  Phuti was in the kitchen, as was Mma Makutsi, wearing a loose pink housecoat. They were both seated when she entered. Phuti rose to his feet, while Mma Makutsi remained in her chair. Mma Ramotswe gave a small cry of joy and crossed the room to embrace her assistant.

  ‘This is good news, Mma,’ she said. ‘This is very good news.’

  Mma Makutsi adjusted her glasses. She was beaming with pleasure.

  ‘I am very happy too,’ she said. ‘It is a boy, Mma, as I think Phuti told you.’

  Mma Ramotswe turned to smile at Phuti Radiphuti. ‘He did. He is a very proud father. Where is the baby?’ asked Mma Ramotswe. ‘I have brought him a present.’

  Mma Makutsi nodded in the direction of the corridor that led off the kitchen. ‘He is sound asleep. He has just been fed, and now he is sleeping.’ She paused. ‘Would you like to see him, Mma?’

  A v
oice came from behind them. The aunt had entered the room and was standing in the doorway. ‘It is not good for babies to be seen by too many people,’ she said, shaking her head in disapproval. ‘You should know that.’

  Mma Ramotswe turned to face the aunt. ‘I’m not going to touch him, Mma. Only look.’

  The aunt shook her head again. ‘There are traditions,’ she said. ‘You people may have forgotten them, but I haven’t.’

  Phuti Radiphuti had been silent, but now he spoke. ‘We all know about those, Auntie. But these days —’

  ‘These days makes no difference,’ the aunt spat out. ‘These days, these days. That is all that people say when they don’t want to follow tradition. And then…’ She made a gesture to suggest the collapse of everything.

  ‘I am the mother,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘I am the one who must decide.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Phuti Radiphuti. ‘Grace is the…’ He was silenced by a look from the aunt.

  The aunt addressed herself to her nephew. ‘It is not men’s business, Phuti. This is women’s business and men should not put their noses into it.’

  Mma Ramotswe looked anxiously at Mma Makutsi. She did not think it a good thing for somebody who had just given birth to be subjected to strain.

  ‘I think that I can see the baby a little bit later,’ she said. ‘This is not the time. Now is the time for me to talk to Mma Makutsi.’ She looked first at Phuti Radiphuti and then at the aunt. ‘And I think we should talk in private. These are business matters, you see.’

  Phuti Radiphuti crossed the room to stand by his aunt. ‘You’re quite right, Mma Ramotswe,’ he said. ‘Auntie and I will go and sit on the veranda – it’s cooler there.’

  ‘Well!’ said Mma Ramotswe. And then, because she could not think of anything else that would adequately express her feelings, she said again, ‘Well!’

  Mma Makutsi rolled her eyes. ‘She is the senior aunt, as you know. I have no family down here – all my people are up in Bobonong.’