‘He has done nothing,’ said Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. ‘But I cannot keep him on. There is less work than there used to be and I have to make a choice. Fanwell has got his qualification now and he is a far better worker than Charlie. One of them has to go, and it must be Charlie.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘It has to be.’
She felt an immediate rush of sympathy for her husband. Mr J. L. B. Matekoni was a soft-hearted man, and she knew how painful it was for him to have to get rid of the young man whom he had trained and nurtured. Charlie was not easy – everybody knew that – but he was essentially a good young man. His obsession with girls and fashionable clothes was no worse in him, she thought, than in so many other young men, and he would surely grow out of it in the fullness of time. She had read somewhere that some young men did not really mature until they were in their late twenties; she had been surprised by this, but she had decided that it was probably true. She could think of several young men who had been her contemporaries who had not settled down until then, or even later in some cases. Charlie was probably one of those, and would become a respectable, settled citizen in due course, escorting his children to school and doing the sort of round-the-house tasks that husbands were now expected to do.
She squeezed Mr J. L. B. Matekoni’s shoulder. ‘Are you sure, Rra? Are you sure there’s no alternative?’
‘I have been thinking and thinking,’ he said. ‘But I cannot come up with any alternative. I have had a letter from the bank manager. He said that I have exceeded my overdraft limit again this month and he will freeze my account if I do it one more time.’ He paused, and looked up at her. She could see his anguish. ‘How am I going to pay anybody if the account is frozen? I won’t be able to pay Fanwell. I won’t be able to pay the petrol people for the petrol and oil. I won’t be able to pay the insurance premium and that means that if Fanwell’s hurt in an accident at work we could be sued and they could take the house. I cannot risk that, Mma; I just can’t.’
She knew he was right: there was no alternative. ‘When are you going to do it?’ she asked.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I shall tell him tomorrow morning. I will give him one week’s wages, which is all I can afford. He’s entitled to more, but I’ll ask him to give me time to pay those. He will get half at the end of this month and the other half next month.’
She said nothing because she felt that there was nothing she could say. Charlie, for all his faults, had been part of their life for many years. He would never get another job as a mechanic because he did not have the formal piece of paper he needed. This meant he would have to do something quite different, but in a world in which jobs were few and far between for young men without any qualifications, it was difficult to see what he could do.
‘He’ll have difficulty finding something else,’ she said. ‘It would have been different if he had finished his apprenticeship.’
‘I know,’ said Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. ‘But what else can I do?’
‘You can do nothing else, Rra,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘This is one of those cases where being a boss is not easy.’
‘It is never easy,’ said Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. ‘People don’t realise it, but it is never easy being a boss, no matter how well things are going.’
And so it proved. The following morning, Mma Ramotswe decided not to close the door between the office of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and the workshop of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. This was unusual, as the door was normally kept firmly closed to keep out mechanical noises emanating from the garage.
‘I shall close the door, Mma,’ said Mma Makutsi, glancing up from the statement of expenses she was preparing. ‘We do not want all that banging and clattering to distract us.’
Mma Ramotswe raised a hand. ‘No, Mma. Please don’t.’
Mma Makutsi frowned. ‘But the noise, Mma Ramotswe. Bang, bang, clatter, clatter, and so on. How can anybody work with that going on? And if somebody telephones us, what will they think? They’ll hear all that going on and they’ll wonder what sort of office we have. It could be bad for business.’
Mma Ramotswe shook her head. ‘I want to hear what happens out there,’ she said. ‘Mr J. L. B. Matekoni may have a crisis on his hands and we may need to help.’
Mma Makutsi was intrigued. ‘There’s something going on?’
Mma Ramotswe rose from her chair and crossed the room to stand beside her colleague. She bent down and whispered into Mma Makutsi’s ear. ‘Mr J. L. B. Matekoni has to fire Charlie this morning. He cannot keep him. He cannot pay him.’
There was a sharp intake of breath from Mma Makutsi. She and Charlie had had a tempestuous relationship over the years, but she would never have wished this on the young man. She thought that he was silly, but then most young men were silly to a greater or lesser extent, and Charlie would grow up – eventually. She started to say something to Mma Ramotswe, but at that moment they were aware that there was silence next door; the banging and the clattering had suddenly stopped.
‘I think he may be talking to him now,’ whispered Mma Ramotswe.
The silence was broken by the sound of voices, low at first, but gradually rising. And then, quite suddenly, there was a shout – a wail, rather. Mma Makutsi gasped. She had heard a wail like that before, when she had been obliged to break some bad news to a cousin – news of the loss of the cousin’s father in a road accident up near Francistown. There had been that same, heartfelt scream; that raw cry of pain which cut and cut, and could not be assuaged by the balm of human comfort.
‘It’s done,’ muttered Mma Ramotswe.
And then the door was flung wider and Charlie came into the room, an adjustable spanner in his hand. He stood there for a moment before dropping the spanner on the floor. It hit the concrete with a sharp, clanging sound.
‘You cannot let this happen, Mma Ramotswe,’ Charlie shouted. ‘Please, Mma. Please don’t let him fire me.’
Charlie looked imploringly first at Mma Ramotswe, and then at Mma Makutsi.
‘Mma Makutsi,’ he began, the words pouring out in an anguished torrent, ‘I’m sorry. I promise you, Mma, I promise. I will do my best now. That’s all over, all that nonsense. Over. I am not rude any more – that was another person speaking, not me, Mma – not me. I will try to take the exams again. Please tell the boss I’ve changed, he will have no trouble now. No trouble. I’ll work all the time. Six o’clock in the morning, first thing, I’ll be here and then…’ He faltered. He was choking on his words, and now they were replaced by sobs.
Mma Makutsi looked across the room at Mma Ramotswe. ‘Mma…’ she began.
‘No,’ sobbed Charlie. ‘It is true. I am different now. There’s a new Charlie, and he’s begging you to speak to the boss. Tell him I’m different now. He’ll believe you. If you say it, then he’ll believe it.’
Mma Ramotswe could not sit still. Everything within her went out to Charlie; she could not sit and watch a grown man cry as he now was crying; no woman could. But as she stood up and tried to put an arm around the distraught young man, he evaded her embrace and fell to the floor. For a few moments he was motionless, and Mma Ramotswe feared that he might have hit his head on the concrete and knocked himself out; but then he writhed, and began to scrape at the floor with his fingernails as if to dig himself in.
‘Don’t do that, Charlie,’ shouted Mma Makutsi. ‘You’ll break your nails.’
Charlie’s eyes had been shut, but now he opened them and stared at his hands. The interruption to his agonised display was the signal for Mma Makutsi to get up from her desk and cross to the young man’s side. ‘Here,’ she said, reaching down to pull him to his feet. ‘Take my hand.’
Charlie complied somewhat sheepishly and was soon standing at Mma Makutsi’s side. He brushed at the dust on his overalls.
‘Now you can sit down and get your breath back,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘Then we can talk about the future calmly.’
‘There is no future,’ muttered Charlie. ‘I’m finished.’
Mma Makutsi led him to her chair. He hesitated; he had once been found sitting in her chair while she was out of the office, and there had been a terrible row: grease from his overalls, she had said, would ruin the upholstery. But now that was not mentioned: it was not a time for concern about grease and the stains that grease brought. ‘You sit down right there,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘I’ll make you a mug of tea.’
This was another first.
Charlie sunk his head in misery. ‘I have to go home now,’ he muttered. ‘There’s nothing for me to do here.’
Mma Makutsi shook her head. ‘Losing your job is not the end,’ she said. ‘They taught us that at Botswana Secretarial College. Losing your job is a challenge. That’s what they said. It’s a challenge to go and get something better.’
Charlie said nothing.
‘Mma Makutsi’s right,’ said Mma Ramotswe gently. ‘There is always something else. It may take a little time, but somebody who wants to work will always find something.’
‘Such as?’ grunted Charlie.
‘There are jobs in the paper,’ said Mma Makutsi brightly. ‘There are jobs at the labour exchange. There are always people looking for intelligent young men like you.’
Charlie looked up. ‘But you said I was stupid – remember?’
Mma Makutsi drew back. ‘When did I say that?’ she snapped. ‘When did I call you stupid?’
Charlie shrugged. ‘Many times, Mma. All the time, in fact.’ He paused. ‘Three days ago, for instance. You said I was stupid when I asked you whether Itumelang was talking yet. Remember? You told me that babies of six months cannot talk and then you laughed and called me stupid.’
Mma Makutsi made light of the accusation. ‘But I was only joking, Charlie. Don’t be so stu —’ She stopped herself, but not in time.
‘There,’ said Charlie. ‘You see. You still think I’m stupid.’
Mma Ramotswe decided that it was time to intervene. ‘I don’t think there’s much point in talking like this,’ she said. ‘Sometimes people say things they don’t really mean. It’s the way they talk, Charlie, surely you should know that by now.’
‘And you too, Mma Ramotswe,’ said Charlie. ‘You think I’m stupid, too.’
‘I do not, Charlie,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘You’re not stupid. You have a very good brain in your head – if only you’d use it…’
‘There you go,’ said Charlie. ‘You think I’ve got no brain.’
‘I didn’t say that,’ protested Mma Ramotswe. ‘All I said was, I wish you’d use your brain. That’s all.’
‘Yes,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘We’re on your side, Charlie. So is Mr J. L. B. Matekoni.’
‘Then why did he fire me?’ asked Charlie. ‘If he’s on my side, why did he get rid of me?’
‘There’s no money,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘A business can’t keep people on if there’s not enough money coming in. It’s hard, but that’s the way it is.’
Charlie listened in silence. He had not touched the tea that Mma Makutsi had made him, and Mma Ramotswe reminded him of it. ‘Don’t let your tea get cold, Charlie. You should drink it. It will make you feel better.’
Charlie looked down at the mug that Mma Makutsi had placed on the table beside him. For a moment or two he did nothing, but then, quite suddenly, he swept the mug off the table with a sharp sideways motion of his arm. The tea sprayed out, some of it splashing his overalls.
Mma Makutsi shrieked.
‘I don’t need tea if I’m going to die,’ muttered Charlie as he rose to his feet and began to leave the room.
Mma Ramotswe caught her breath. ‘Charlie!’
‘I’m going to die,’ repeated Charlie. ‘Soon soon. You’ll see.’
Chapter Seven
Pilates with Cake
Mma Potokwani, matron of the Orphan Farm, and substitute mother, over the years, to almost eight hundred children, each of whose young life had had such a bad beginning, took most things in her stride. Mr J. L. B. Matekoni had once remarked that she was the only woman in Botswana who could be struck by lightning and make the lightning blow a fuse. ‘And I wouldn’t want to be the lion who tried to eat her,’ he had added. ‘That lion would learn a lesson, I think.’ An exaggeration, of course, but Mma Potokwani had certainly never let the world put obstacles in her path. She had survived the intrusions of bureaucrats, and the indifference and selfishness of those who, having made their money, refused to share it. She had begged and borrowed and scraped in order to provide for the orphans in her care, and prided herself on the fact that none of them, none at all, had gone out into the world without knowing that they were loved and that there was at least one person who wanted them to make something of their lives – one person who believed in them.
‘Maybe I can’t give them everything they need,’ she once said to Mma Ramotswe, ‘but at least they know that I have tried.’
And Mma Ramotswe, who was well aware of the heroic efforts that Mma Potokwani made, had replied, ‘They know that, Mma. They definitely know that.’
As did many others. Everybody now was aware of the scheme that Mma Potokwani had cooked up with Mr Taylor at Maru-a-Pula School to give orphans what amounted to the best education available in Botswana. The children chosen for that scheme had done every bit as well as the pupils who came from backgrounds of comfort and privilege, and had gone on to train for jobs that would otherwise have been way beyond their wildest dreams. A child who had nothing, who had been passed from pillar to post among struggling relatives, or who had not even had such relatives and had been completely abandoned because there was no grandmother to shoulder the burden – something that went against every fibre of Botswana traditions – such a child might find himself or herself training as a scientist, a doctor, an agronomist. And in the audience at such a graduation would be sitting Mma Potokwani in pride of place, in a sense – even if she were not physically there.
It was mainly for this determination that Mma Ramotswe admired her friend. But it was also for her wisdom, which had shown itself time and time again. It was this wisdom that had helped her so much during Mr J. L. B. Matekoni’s illness or at those times when Mma Makutsi had been unsettled or demanding. It was this wisdom that had helped her in cases where she had found herself pursuing a line of enquiry that seemed to be getting nowhere; a question from Mma Potokwani, perhaps on the surface somewhat opaque, had turned her in a direction that had ultimately proved fruitful.
That afternoon, with the painful memory of Charlie’s outburst still fresh in her mind, she left the office early in order to go out to the Orphan Farm. She liked the drive, which took her along dusty back roads that twisted this way and that around people’s houses and yards, past small islands of scrubland that had survived encroachment and were now claimed by itinerant herds of cattle. The cattle picked their way through thorn and acacia scrub, making a living somehow, prized by somebody for whom they represented the hard-earned savings of a lifetime. She sometimes slowed down to look at these cattle and judge the state they were in. Her late father had always done this; he could not drive past cattle without stopping and commenting on how well or how badly they were doing. He might say something about the cattle’s ancestors, if he recognised some handed-down characteristic that only a cattle man would know about: a way of holding the head; unusual markings; a special shape to the hump of a Brahmin bull. These meant nothing to those who did not know cattle, but were there to be read by those who did.
Now, as she made her way out to see Mma Potokwani, she stopped the van for a few moments to gaze at a cow that was standing under an acacia tree chewing the cud, her calf at her side. She imagined that her father was in the van beside her, and she could hear his voice as clearly as if he had been there. The cow was thin, he said, but would put on weight when the rains came and there was grass again, rather than only hardened earth; and after that her calf would grow as it should and the owner would be content. And then he said something about the place where the rain-bearing clouds came from, and she did no
t hear it properly because the voices of late people were hard to make out sometimes and there were many of them wanting to talk to us, and the sound became like the sound of a swarm of bees, or the chatter of birds in the high branches of a mopani tree; not like words at all, but reminders nonetheless of how we shared the world with people who were no longer with us, but were in that other Botswana that cannot be seen, to which each of us would go in due course, when our time came, as it surely would.
She left the cow and calf; they would be there, she imagined, in exactly the same place when she came back; there was no reason for them to move, just as there was often no reason for any of us to move, if we only thought about it. We could stand under trees, too, and look about us, and think about things. Not only could we do that, she thought, but we should. It was called meditation – she knew that – but she did not consider that we needed a special word for standing under a tree and thinking. People had been doing that well before meditation was invented. There were many things, she reflected, which we had been doing as long as anybody could remember and which had suddenly been taken up by fashionable enthusiasts and given an unnecessary new name. Mma Ramotswe had been invited to a Pilates class in a local church hall; it would be of great benefit to her, she had been told. But when she had gone to the class and seen what Pilates was, she had realised that she did not need to pay fifty pula a session to do the things that she had been doing for years anyway: lifting and pushing and stretching your muscles was nothing new; she did all of these things when she worked in her garden, and Mr J. L. B. Matekoni did Pilates, too, when he fiddled about under cars or struggled to mend a bit of old machinery at the Orphan Farm. In his case he was doing what might be called Pilates with Cake, as Mma Potokwani unashamedly bribed him to undertake the repairs for which she would otherwise have to pay.
The Handsome Man's De Luxe Café (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency) Page 8