The Full Cupboard of Life

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “Oh yes,” Mma Holonga continued. “You may not know it, Mma, but your reputation in this town is very high. People say that you are one of the cleverest women in Botswana.”

  “Oh that cannot be true,” said Mma Ramotswe, laughing. “There are many much cleverer ladies in Botswana, ladies with BAs and BScs. There are even lady doctors at the hospital. They must be much cleverer than I am. I have just got my Cambridge Certificate, that is all.”

  “And I haven’t even got that,” said Mma Holonga. “But I don’t think that I am any less intelligent than those apprentices out there in the garage. I assume they have their Cambridge Certificate too.”

  “They are a special case,” said Mma Ramotswe. “They have passed their Cambridge Certificate, but they are not a very good advertisement for education. Their heads are quite empty. They have nothing in them except thoughts of girls.”

  Mma Holonga glanced through the doorway to where one of the apprentices could be seen sitting on an upturned oil-drum. She appeared to study him for a moment before she turned back to Mma Ramotswe. Mma Ramotswe noticed; it was only a momentary stare, she thought, but it told her something: Mma Holonga was interested in men. And why should she not be? The days when women had to pretend not to be interested in men were surely over, and now they could talk about it. Mma Ramotswe was not sure whether it was a good idea to talk too openly about men—she had heard some quite shocking things being said by some women, and she would never condone such shamelessness—but it was, on the whole, better for women to be able to express themselves.

  “I have come to see you about men,” said Mma Holonga suddenly. “That is why I am here.”

  Mma Ramotswe was taken aback. She had wondered why Mma Holonga had come and had assumed that it was something to do with one of her businesses. But now it seemed it was going to be something rather more personal than that.

  “There are many women who come to see me about men,” she said quietly. “Men are a major problem for many women.”

  Mma Holonga smiled at this. “That is no exaggeration, Mma. But many women have problems just with one man. I have problems with four men.”

  Mma Ramotswe gave a start. This was unexpected: four men! It was conceivable that somebody might have two boyfriends, and hope that neither found out about the other, but to have four! That was an invitation for trouble.

  “It’s not what you may think,” said Mma Holonga hurriedly. “I do not have four boyfriends. At the moment I have no boyfriend, except for these four …”

  Mma Ramotswe raised her hand. “You should start at the beginning,” she said. “I am getting confused already.” She paused. “And to help you talk, I shall make some bush tea. Would you like that?”

  Mma Holonga nodded. “I will talk while you are making the tea. Then you will hear all my troubles while the water is boiling.”

  “I AM a very ordinary lady,” Mma Holonga began. “I did not do very well at school, as I have told you. When other girls were looking at their books, I was always looking at magazines. I liked the fashion magazines with all their pictures of bright clothes and smart models. And I specially liked looking at pictures of people’s hair and of how hair could be braided and made beautiful with all those beads and henna and things like that.

  “I thought it very unfair that God had given African ladies short hair and all the long hair had been taken by everybody else. But then I realised that there was no reason why African hair should not be very beautiful too, although it is not easy to do things with it. I used to braid my friends’ hair, and soon I had quite a reputation amongst the other girls at school. They came to see me on Friday afternoons to have their hair braided for the week-end, and I would do it outside our kitchen. The friends would sit on a chair and I would stand behind them, talking and braiding hair in the afternoon sun. I was very happy doing that.

  “You’ll know all about hair braiding, Mma. You’ll know that it can sometimes take a long time. Most of the time I would only spend an hour or two on somebody’s hair, but there were times when I spent over two days on a design. I was very proud of all the circles and lines, Mma. I was very proud.

  “By the time I was ready to leave school, there was no doubt in my mind what I wanted to do for a living. I had been promised a job in a hair salon that a lady had opened in the African Mall. She had seen my work and knew that I would bring a lot of business because I was so well-known as a hair braider. She was right. All my friends came to this salon although now they had to pay for me to do their hair.

  “After a while I started my own business. I found a small tuck shop that was closing down and I started off in there. It was very cramped, and I had to bring the water I needed in a bucket, but all my customers moved with me and said that they did not mind if the new place was very small. They said that the important thing was to have somebody who really knew about hair, and they said I was such a person. One of them said that a person who knew as much about hair only comes along once or twice in a century. I was very pleased to hear this and asked that person to write out what they had said. I then had a sign-writer paint it on a board and passers-by would stop and read that remark and look at me with respect as I stood there with my scissors ready to cut their hair. I was very happy, Mma. I was very happy.

  “I built up my business and eventually I bought a proper salon. Then I bought another one and another after that up in Francistown. Everything went very well and all this time the money was piling up in the bank. I had so much money that I could not really spend it all myself, and so I gave some to my brother and asked him to use it to buy some other businesses for me. He bought me a shop and a place where they make dresses. So I had a factory now, and this made me even richer. I was very happy with all that money, and I went into the bank every Thursday to check how much I had. They were very polite to me now, as I had all that money and banks like people with lots of money.

  “But you know what I didn’t have, Mma? I didn’t have a husband. I had been so busy cutting hair and making money that I had forgotten to get married. Three months ago, when I had my fortieth birthday, I suddenly thought: where is your husband? Where are all your children? And the answer was that there were none of these. So I decided that I would find a husband. It may be too late to have children now, but at least I would find a husband.

  “And do you think that was easy, Mma? What do you think?”

  Mma Ramotswe had by now made the bush tea and was pouring it into her client’s cup. “I think it would be easy for a lady like you,” she said. “I would not think you would find it hard.”

  “Oh?” said Mma Holonga. “And why would I not find it hard?”

  Mma Ramotswe hesitated. She had answered without thinking very much about it, and now she wondered how she would explain herself. She had probably thought that it would be easy for Mma Holonga to find a husband because she was rich. It was easy for rich people to do anything, even to find a husband. But could she say that? Would it not seem insulting to Mma Holonga that the only reason why Mma Ramotswe should think she could find a husband was because she was rich, and not because she was beautiful or desirable.

  “There are many men …” began Mma Ramotswe, and then stopped. “There are many men looking for wives.”

  “But many women say that it is not all that easy,” said Mma Holonga. “Why should they find it hard while I should find it easy? Can you explain that?”

  Mma Ramotswe sighed. It was best to be honest, she thought, and so she said, quite simply, “Money, Mma. That is the reason. You are a lady with a large chain of hair salons. You are a rich lady. There are many men who like rich ladies.”

  Mma Holonga sat back in her chair and smiled. “Exactly, Mma. I was waiting to see if you would say that. Now I know that you really do understand things.”

  “But they would also like you because you are an attractive lady,” added Mma Ramotswe hurriedly. “Traditional Botswana men like ladies who are more traditionally shaped. You and I, Mma. We remind men of ho
w things used to be in Botswana before these modern-shaped ladies started to get men all confused.”

  Mma Holonga nodded, but in a rather distracted fashion. “Yes, Mma. That may be quite true, but I think that my problem remains. I must tell you what happened when I let it be known that I was looking for a suitable husband. A very interesting thing happened.” She paused. “But would you pour me more of that tea, Mma? It is very fine tea and I am thirsty again.”

  “It is bush tea,” said Mma Ramotswe as she reached for the tea-pot. “Mma Makutsi—my assistant—and I drink bush tea because it helps us to think.”

  Mma Holonga raised her refilled cup to her lips and drained it noisily.

  “I shall buy bush tea instead of ordinary tea,” she said. “I shall put honey in it and drink it every day.”

  “That would be a very good thing to do,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But what about this husband business? What happened?”

  Mma Holonga frowned. “It is very difficult for me,” she said. “When word got round, then I received many telephone calls. Ten, twenty calls. And they were all from men.”

  Mma Ramotswe raised an eyebrow. “That is a large number of men,” she said.

  Mma Holonga nodded. “Of course, I realised that some of them were no good right there and then. One even telephoned from the prison and the telephone was snatched away from him. And one was only a boy, about thirteen or fourteen, I think. But I agreed to see the others, and from these I ended up with a list of four.”

  “That is a good number to choose from,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Not too large a list of men, but not too small.”

  Mma Holonga seemed pleased by this. She looked at Mma Ramotswe uncertainly. “You do not think it strange to have a list, Mma? Some of my friends …”

  Mma Ramotswe raised a hand to interrupt her. Many of her clients referred to advice from friends, and in her experience this advice was often wrong. Friends tried to be helpful, but tended to misadvise, largely because they had unrealistic ideas of what the friend whom they were advising was really like. Mma Ramotswe believed that it was usually better to seek the advice of a stranger—not just any stranger, of course, as one could hardly go out onto the street and confide in the first person one encountered, but a stranger whom you knew to be wise. We do not talk about wise men or wise ladies any more, she reflected; their place had been taken, it seemed, by all sorts of shallow people—actors and the like—who were only too ready to pronounce on all sorts of subjects. It was worse, she thought, in other countries, but it was beginning to happen in Botswana and she did not like it. She, for one, would never pay any attention to the views of such people; she would far rather listen to a person who had done something real in life; these people knew what they were talking about.

  “I’m not sure if you should worry too much about what your friends think, Mma,” she said. “I think that it is a good idea to have a list. What is the difference between a list of things to buy at a shop, or a list of things to do, and a list of men? I do not see the difference.”

  “I am glad that you think that,” said Mma Holonga. “In fact, I have been glad to hear everything that you have said.”

  Mma Ramotswe was always embarrassed by compliments, and rapidly went on.

  “You must tell me about this list,” she said. “And you must tell me about what you want me to do.”

  “I want you to find out about these men,” said Mma Holonga. “I want you to see which men are interested in my money and which are interested in me.”

  Mma Ramotswe clapped her hands in delight. “Oh, this is the sort of work I like,” she said. “Judging men! Men are always looking at women and judging them. Now we have the chance to do some judging back. Oh, this is a very good case to take on.”

  “I can pay you very well,” said Mma Holonga, reaching for the large black handbag she had placed by the side of her chair. “If you tell me how much it will cost, I shall pay it.”

  “I shall send you a bill,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That is what we do. Then you can pay me for my time.” She paused. “But first, you must tell me about these men, Mma. I shall need some information on them. Then I shall set to work.”

  Mma Holonga sat back in her seat. “I am happy to talk about men, Mma. And now I shall begin with the first of these men.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked into her tea cup. It was still half-full of bush tea. That would be enough to see her through one man, perhaps, but not four. So she reached forward, picked up the tea-pot, and offered to fill Mma Holonga’s cup before attending to her own. That was the old Botswana way of doing things, and that is how Mma Ramotswe behaved. Modern people could say what they liked, but nobody had ever come up with a better way of doing things and in Mma Ramotswe’s view nobody ever would.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MR J.L.B. MATEKONI HAS CAUSE TO REFLECT

  IT WAS some time before it dawned on Mr J.L.B. Matekoni that Mma Potokwane may have thought that he was agreeing to her proposition. His own recollection of what had happened was very clear. He had said, “I shall think about it, Mma,” which is very different—as anybody could see—from saying that one would definitely do something. It might have been better had he refused her there and then, but Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was a kind man and like all kind men he did not enjoy saying no. There were many who had no such compunction, of course; they would refuse things outright, even if it meant hurting another’s feelings.

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni thought very carefully. After the initial bombshell, when Mma Potokwane had revealed what she had in mind, he had remained silent for a moment. At first, he thought that he had misheard her, and that she had said that she wanted him to fix a parachute, just as she was always asking him to fix some piece of equipment. But of course she had not asked him that, as there would have been plenty of people around the orphan farm who would be much better placed to fix a parachute than he. Fixing a parachute was a sewing job, he assumed, and most of the housemothers were adept at that; they were always sewing the orphans’ clothes, repairing rents in the seats of boys’ trousers or undoing the hems of skirts that were now a little bit too short. These ladies could easily have stitched up a torn parachute, even if the parachute would end up with a patch made out of a boy’s trousers. No, that was not what Mma Potokwane could have had in mind.

  Her next remark made this clear. “It’s a very good way of raising money,” she had said. “The hardship project did it last year. That man from the radio—the well-known one with the funny voice—he agreed to jump. And then that girl who almost became Miss Botswana said she would jump too. They raised a lot of money. A lot.”

  “But I cannot jump,” Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had protested. “I have never even been in an aeroplane. I would not like to jump from one.”

  It was as if Mma Potokwane had not heard him. “It is a very easy thing to do. I have spoken to somebody in the Flying Club and they say that they can teach you how to do it. They have a book, too, which shows you how to put your feet when you land. It is very simple. Even I could do it.”

  “Then why don’t you?” he had said, but not loudly enough to be heard, for Mma Potokwane had continued as if he had not spoken.

  “There is no reason to be afraid,” she said. “I think that it will be very comfortable riding down in the air like that. They might drop you over one of our fields and I will get one of the housemothers to have a cake ready for you when you land. And we have a stretcher too. We can have that close by, just in case.”

  “I do not want to do it,” Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had intended to say, but for some reason the words came out as, “I’ll think about it.”

  And that, he realised, was where he had made his mistake. Of course it would be easy enough to undo. All that he would have to do would be to telephone Mma Potokwane and tell her, as unambiguously and as finally as he could, that he had now thought about it and he had decided that he would not do it. He would be happy to give some money to whomsoever she managed to persuade to do it for her, but that person, he was sor
ry to say, would not be him. This was the only way with Mma Potokwane. One had to be firm with her, just as he had been firm with her on the issue of the pump. One had to stand up to a woman like that.

  The difficulty, of course, with standing up to women was that it appeared to make little difference. At the end of the day, a man was no match for a woman, especially if that woman was somebody like Mma Potokwane. The only thing to do was to try to avoid situations where women might corner you. And that was difficult, because women had a way of ensuring that you were neatly boxed in, which was exactly what had happened to him. He should have been more careful. He should have been on his guard when she offered him cake. That was her technique, he now understood; just as Eve had used an apple to trap Adam, so Mma Potokwane used fruit cake. Fruit cake, apples; it made no difference really. Oh foolish, weak men!

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked at his watch. It was nine o’clock in the morning, and he should have been at the garage by eight, at the latest. The apprentices had plenty to do—simple servicing tasks that morning—and he could probably leave them to get on with it, but he did not like to leave the business in their hands for too long. He looked out of the window. It was a comfortable sort of day, not too hot for the time of year, and it would be good to drive out into the lands somewhere and just walk along a path. But he could not do that, as he had his clients to think of. The best thing to do was to stop thinking about it, and to get on with the ordinary business of the day. There were exhaust pipes to be looked at, tyres to be changed, brake linings to be renewed; these were the things that really mattered, not some ridiculous parachute drop which Mma Potokwane had dreamed up and which he was not proposing to do anyway. That could be disposed of—with a little resolve. All he had to do was to lift up the telephone and say no to Mma Potokwane. He imagined the conversation.