The Handsome Man's De Luxe Café (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency)

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Mma Ramotswe was now only minutes away from the gate that marked the entrance to the Orphan Farm. The farmlands were protected by a cattle grid that clattered in protest as she drove over it. And then there was the painted sign that said: Please remember that children live here – drive carefully. She had often thought that she might erect such a sign on Zebra Drive, warning drivers that people lived there and asking them to drive with consideration. But drivers would pay no attention, she feared, because they always seemed to be in such a hurry. There was no real reason to be in a hurry, when one came to think about it; important people, she had noticed, did not walk fast, but seemed to amble, and if they were not in a hurry when they had all those things to do and to worry about, then why should the rest of us imagine that we needed to be in any sort of rush?

  She drew up beside the tree under which she always parked when she came to see Mma Potokwani, and sounded her horn, as she always did to notify the matron of her arrival. This worked, and Mma Potokwani’s window was flung open and a hand emerged, beckoning her in.

  By the time Mma Ramotswe had reached the veranda of Mma Potokwani’s office, the matron had appeared at the doorway to welcome her. ‘So, Mma Ramotswe, you always come at a convenient time. As it happens, I have just put on the kettle and I baked a cake this very morning.’

  ‘You know my weakness,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘You know that I cannot resist your fruit cake.’

  ‘And your husband is as bad,’ said Mma Potokwani with a smile. ‘Mr J. L. B. Matekoni will fix anything if you offer him a piece of fruit cake. My husband can no longer be bribed with such offers. I cannot make him do things any more.’

  Mma Ramotswe laughed. ‘It is a very bad situation when we can no longer get our husbands to do what we want them to do.’ She paused, and became serious. ‘Of course there are also those times when they do something that you don’t want them to do. Those times are also difficult.’

  Mma Potokwani knew immediately that this was what Mma Ramotswe had come to talk about. Her friend did not always visit her for a specific reason, but when she did, it did not take Mma Potokwani long to work out what it was.

  ‘So,’ began Mma Potokwani. She stared at Mma Ramotswe with astute eyes. ‘So Mr J. L. B. Matekoni has done something – am I right, Mma?’

  Mma Ramotswe did not beat about the bush. ‘He’s fired Charlie.’

  This was unexpected news for Mma Potokwani. The two apprentices had been at the garage for so long now that it was difficult to imagine how it would be without them.

  ‘Charlie’s the good-looking one. Isn’t he?’ she asked. ‘The one who’s always getting into trouble.’

  ‘That’s him,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘The other one is Fanwell. He’s completed his apprenticeship exams now and so he’s a sort of assistant mechanic – something like that. Charlie never wrote his exams, He’s still an apprentice – or was, should I say.’

  Mma Potokwani looked thoughtful. ‘He’s fired him for a good reason, I suppose? These days you can’t get rid of people just like that, you know. There is one of the cooks I’d dearly love to replace – a very lazy woman – but I know that if I tried to do that there would be letters from lawyers, and a tribunal, and money to pay and so on. Everybody would say: that Mma Potokwani goes round firing people left, right and centre. You know how people are, Mma.’

  Mma Ramotswe explained why Charlie had to go. ‘I don’t think that Mr J. L. B. Matekoni was looking for an excuse,’ she said. ‘The garage has not been making much money recently and there hasn’t been enough work. I think that this really is the case.’

  Mma Potokwani shook her head sadly. ‘We had to do the same thing last year,’ she said. ‘We had one too many men working on the farm. We couldn’t sell enough produce to justify his salary. I was very unhappy about it, but we had no choice, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Charlie took it very badly,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘He burst into tears and then…’

  ‘Yes, Mma?’

  ‘Then he said something about dying.’

  Mma Potokwani sat back in her chair. ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘They do that.’

  ‘Who does it?’

  ‘Teenagers. They often say things like that.’

  ‘It made me very anxious,’ said Mma Ramotswe.

  ‘But they rarely do anything about it,’ went on Mma Potokwani.

  ‘Charlie isn’t really a teenager,’ pointed out Mma Ramotswe.

  ‘Not technically, Mma, but men can be teenagers until well into their twenties. I have read all about that.’ She paused. ‘And seen it, too.’

  ‘Well, he is very sad,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘So sad that I want to do something for him.’

  Mma Potokwani now reached forward to cut the cake that her secretary had placed on a large plate on her desk. She cut two slices – a large one for herself, and a slightly larger piece for Mma Ramotswe.

  ‘You do not have to give me the biggest piece,’ said Mma Ramotswe.

  ‘But I do,’ said Mma Potokwani. ‘I have to give a good-sized piece of cake to a woman who is my guest. That is the rule.’

  Mma Ramotswe toyed with the cake on her plate. Mma Potokwani noticed this and it told her that Mma Ramotswe was really troubled. ‘I’m going to give him a job,’ she blurted out.

  Mma Potokwani’s eyes opened wide with surprise. ‘Charlie? Employ Charlie?’

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. ‘There will always be some small piece of work to do in the agency.’

  Mma Potokwani was incredulous. ‘For clients? But what will they think when they see you’ve put a young man like that on to their case?’

  Mma Ramotswe shrugged. ‘He will be in the background.’

  Mma Potokwani answered her own question. ‘I can tell you what they’ll think, Mma. They’ll say to themselves: we could get somebody like him just by going into some bar and picking the first young man we see. That’s what they’ll say, Mma Ramotswe. And then your business will become a joke.’

  ‘But —’

  Mma Potokwani ignored her friend’s attempt to defend herself. ‘I think you’re making a big mistake, Mma. Your own business barely makes any profit – you’ve told me that yourself. What if it has another mouth to feed? You’ll go bankrupt, Mma. You and Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, and then where will you be?’

  Mma Ramotswe said nothing for a few moments, and Mma Potokwani might well have concluded that her point had been taken to heart. But then she came up with her plan. ‘I know that we have very little money in my business account,’ she said. She paused. Somewhere outside, a go-away bird uttered its plaintive cry. ‘But you are forgetting, Mma, that I have many cattle.’

  It was now Mma Potokwani’s turn to lapse into silence. This was dangerous territory; in Botswana, cattle mattered above all things: one did not talk lightly about disposing of a herd one had inherited, and even if Mma Ramotswe had sold a number of cows in order to set up her business, those that had been sold had soon been replaced by calves. Now, with good management and prudence, her herd was considerably larger than it had been. That did not mean, though, that cattle should be sold for so risky a venture as employing Charlie; nobody would see the merits in that.

  Mma Ramotswe decided to anticipate Mma Potokwani’s objections. She knew these would come – and would be forcibly expressed unless she dealt with them in advance. ‘I know you disapprove,’ she said. ‘And I understand why.’

  Mma Potokwani struggled with conflicting views. Mma Ramotswe was her friend and could not be allowed to do anything unwise without at least being warned in advance. On the other hand, her cattle were her affair and if she chose to use them to help somebody – even Charlie – then she should be allowed to do that. She closed her eyes. ‘They are your cattle, Mma. They are not mine. So you should do what you think is the right thing.’

  Mma Ramotswe was staring at her friend. ‘I wondered…’ she began.

  ‘Yes, Mma?’

  ‘I wondered whether you might like to buy some of my cattle,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘May
be five.’

  The offer was met with a frown. ‘Me, Mma?’

  ‘You have some cattle, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mma Potokwani hesitantly. ‘I do not have many. But there are some that my brother gave me.’

  ‘You could expand your herd,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘But only temporarily.’

  ‘Temporarily? I don’t think I understand, Mma.’

  She explained her plan. ‘I would sell you these cows, and then, later on, I would buy them back. Two of them will have had calves by then. You keep the calves and I pay you back the money you paid for the cows in the first place.’

  Mma Potokwani looked puzzled. ‘But why, Mma? This sounds like… almost like a loan.’

  ‘You could call it that.’

  Mma Potokwani pressed for an explanation.

  ‘There isn’t enough money in the business to pay Charlie,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘And I think we have to do something for him.’ She paused. ‘Of course, you may not have the money to do this…’

  She knew that this was unlikely. Mma Potokwani may not have been wealthy, but Mma Ramotswe knew that in the background there was a rural store of which she owned a half share, inherited from her mother. Those stores were profitable.

  ‘I do have a little spare cash,’ said Mma Potokwani. ‘And the way you put it, I can’t really lose, can I?’

  ‘I do not think so, Mma.’

  ‘But I will not take both calves,’ went on Mma Potokwani. ‘That would not be the right thing to do. You are my friend, Mma Ramotswe.’

  ‘And you are mine, Mma.’

  ‘Yes, and that is the reason why I cannot take both calves. I shall take one to pay for the grazing. You will get the other one back, with all the others – after you have paid me back the money, of course.’

  ‘Of course. You will get the money. And if I do not have it, then you keep the cattle.’

  They shook hands on the arrangement and Mma Ramotswe prepared herself to leave.

  ‘You know, Mma,’ said Mma Potokwani as they walked back to the tiny white van. ‘There are two ways of looking at our problems in this life. One is with our head…’ And here she tapped her forehead. ‘And the other is with our heart.’ Her hand went to her bosom.

  ‘I know that,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘And I know that I am making this decision with my heart. I know it is the wrong thing to do.’

  ‘No,’ said Mma Potokwani. ‘It is never the wrong thing to do. Never.’ She reached out and stopped her friend. ‘You know something, Mma Ramotswe? Every decision I’ve made in this job – every single one – has been made with the heart rather than with the head.’

  Mma Ramotswe smiled, and touched the matron’s hand gently. ‘I think I knew that, Mma,’ she said.

  She went round to Charlie’s house that evening. The young man lived with an uncle and the uncle’s girlfriend in a two-room house in Naledi, the shabbiest part of town. The local council had done its best to provide basic services for the people of this straggling suburb: there was some lighting on the streets and stand pipes had been set up to give everyone water, but some of the houses were barely better than shanties, with tin roofs patched up here and there with tarpaulin or bits of salvaged timber. The uncle’s house was one of the better ones, being constructed of unpainted breeze blocks, but it was a world away from Mma Ramotswe’s home on Zebra Drive, and even further away from the spanking new establishment built by Mma Makutsi and Phuti Radiphuti.

  Charlie shared the room at the back with two male cousins, slightly younger than he was, and a ten-year-old boy who was the son, by another man, of the uncle’s girlfriend. The room was just big enough for the two narrow beds and two sleeping mats, but when the sleeping mats were unrolled there was no space left to negotiate one’s way round the room. Clothing was hung on four pegs knocked into the wall and what few belongings the young men and the boy possessed were stored on a rough-timber shelf that ran the length of the room. There was one window, high up at the back, which afforded a small amount of natural light, and additional lighting was provided by a single naked bulb dangling from the ceiling. From the cable that she saw coming into the house and then leading off into a bush, Mma Ramotswe could tell when she arrived that the electricity supply was stolen. This happened: people found the wires that the electricity board tried to bury and cut their way into the supply with crudely rigged arrangements. This theft of electricity had its dangers, and occasionally people were electrocuted or badly burned in the process; houses could be destroyed, too, by amateur wiring unequal to the load imposed on it.

  When Mma Ramotswe announced her presence with the usual Ko, ko!, the uncle and his girlfriend were sitting in the front room, along with Charlie’s two cousins. She had met the uncle before – he worked in the supermarket patronised by Mma Ramotswe – but she had not met his girlfriend. Now he introduced her and the two cousins; the polite enquiries that form dictated were made – You are keeping well, Rra? Yes, and you, Mma? There were no surprises in the answers such questions elicited – there never were – but these conversations still had to take place: it was not what was said that counted, but the fact that it was said.

  ‘I am looking for Charlie,’ said Mma Ramotswe.

  The uncle smiled. ‘He is not far away, Mma.’ He made a movement of his head towards the second room. ‘But then in another sense he is far away.’

  The girlfriend laughed. ‘Drowned his sorrows,’ she said. ‘He lost his job today.’

  ‘I know that,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘And I am sorry. That’s why I’ve come to see him.’

  The girlfriend smirked. ‘To tell him you’re sorry for what your husband has done? There are many women who have to say sorry about what men have done.’

  The uncle clearly did not approve of this tone. You were not rude to visitors in Botswana; he would tell her that later, in private. ‘I’m sorry, Mma,’ he said, rising to his feet and making towards the connecting door that led to the other room. ‘Charlie has drunk too much beer. Look for yourself.’

  He pushed the door open to reveal the pitiful surroundings of the second room. The woman’s young son was on his sleeping mat, naked but for a pair of briefs, his skinny arms folded back to make a pillow for his head. On the larger of the two narrow beds lay Charlie, fully clothed, but with his shirt half opened. The air was fetid with exhaled beer fumes.

  The uncle closed the door again. ‘You see, Mma? I don’t think you’d get much sense out of him until tomorrow morning.’

  Mma Ramotswe lowered her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Rra. He has been very upset.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the uncle. ‘Charlie doesn’t normally drink much. Today was unusual.’

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. ‘I’m not blaming him. It is a hard thing for a young man to lose his job. Charlie is a good young man – at heart.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the uncle, hesitating slightly. ‘At heart.’

  Mma Ramotswe reached into her handbag. ‘May I leave him a note, Rra?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘He can read it in the morning, when he can think straight again.’

  The uncle laughed. ‘His head may be a bit sore then, but I’m sure he will understand it.’

  Mma Ramotswe tore a page out of the notebook she always carried with her. She accepted the uncle’s invitation to sit down at the table and she began to write.

  Dear Charlie, I am sorry that you were sound asleep when I came to see you. I am sorry, too, that you have been so upset by what happened at the garage. I do not want to see you without a job and so I am making a special position for you at the agency. You will be an apprentice detective – if that is what you wish. You will be paid the same wage that Mr J. L. B. Matekoni paid you. The job will be for eight months, and then we shall see.