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

by Alexander McCall Smith

  ‘I think I can see that,’ said Mma Ramotswe.

  Miss Rose had something to add. ‘Yes, Mma Ramotswe – my brother is a very big hero indeed. You may not know it, but he was even prepared to ignore your assistant crashing into him in order not to cause you inconvenience. He thought that since you were being kind to us he would be kind to you.’

  Mma Ramotswe was baffled. ‘I beg your pardon, Mma?’

  ‘Your assistant… that young man. He was following our car and he collided with my brother. Your young man was not paying attention to the traffic. That young man and his girl were lucky.’

  ‘His girl?’

  ‘There was some floozy with him in the van, my brother said.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mma Ramotswe.

  She rose to take her leave. She would walk out of the house and out of the tragic life of this poor woman. Her fate would be decided by others now, and there was nothing Mma Ramotswe could do to influence the direction of that decision; she wished that there were, but it was not the case. One could not set all the wrongs of the world right; one could not do anything about even a tiny proportion of those wrongs. It was a hard conclusion to reach, and she did not feel happy about it. But she could hardly make a report that she knew would be used to mislead the officials of her own government. Botswana was a well-run country – such things belonged to the corrupt side of Africa, and that, she was determined, would never gain a toehold in her Botswana. Never.

  As she left, Lakshmi came up to her and took her hand. ‘Thank you, Mma,’ she said.

  Mma Ramotswe returned the pressure on her hand. ‘I hope all goes well for you, my sister,’ she whispered.

  She meant it. Sometimes such words are uttered as a matter of course; we wish people well when we have not really reflected on it and may even be indifferent to what happens. But she meant this – with all her heart she meant it. And even now she was thinking of what else she could possibly do to help, having declined to give her assistance in one respect. She wondered whether she would come up with something. Sometimes ideas came at totally unexpected times – when you were walking in your garden looking at Mr J. L. B. Matekoni’s beans, or when you were sitting on your veranda watching the sun sink over the tops of the acacia trees, or when you were simply looking up at the sky, so high, so pale, so empty. Ideas could come to you completely unbidden; suddenly they were there, ready to be invoked, ready to solve a problem that you thought was quite intractable. So it might be that an idea could come to resolve this rather sad situation; an idea that might seem improbable but might just work – such as getting in touch with Billy Pilane over in Johannesburg and saying to him: ‘Billy, would you be able to get somebody off the wanted list if you knew the true story and you knew that she did not deserve to be there…?’

  Chapter Sixteen

  You Don’t Want Handsome Men

  When Mma Ramotswe arrived at the office the following morning, Charlie was already there, sitting on the empty oil drum at the side of the building, his eyes closed, sunning himself, humming a tune that she had often heard him hum before – an annoying little tune that had wormed its way into her mind too and would not be shooed away.

  He opened his eyes when he heard her open the door of the tiny white van. ‘You see, Mma,’ he called out, ‘I am first here. I am Mr Keen, first class, one hundred per cent dedicated.’

  She laughed. ‘I am glad that you are enjoying being…’ She was about to say ‘a secretary’, but she stopped herself. And anyway he said it.

  ‘I like being a secretary, Mma. It is a very cool thing to be.’

  ‘Oh, yes? Cool?’

  Charlie lowered himself from his drum, dusted off his trouser legs, and joined her at the office door. ‘I have discovered that girls like men who are secretaries,’ he said. ‘I was speaking to one last night at a dance and when I told her that I was a secretary, she said, “Ow, you must be one of these new men.” So I said I was, and she said, “New men are very sexy – everybody knows that.” And so I said, “Yes, that is true. Everybody knows that.”’

  Mma Ramotswe rolled her eyes. ‘I see. So you’re pleased.’

  ‘Very pleased.’

  They entered the office together.

  ‘I have something to discuss with you, Charlie,’ said Mma Ramotswe.

  ‘Any time, Mma. A filing problem? Let me sort it out. A letter to dictate? I can write quite quickly even if I can’t do those stupid signs with a pencil that Mma Makutsi goes on about.’

  ‘Shorthand.’

  ‘Yes, shorthand. I do not need that rubbish. I can write quickly.’

  Mma Ramotswe sat down at her desk and reached for a pencil. It was easier to talk about difficult things, she found, if she had a pencil in her hands. The pencil could be twirled between fingers and, if necessary, tapped on the desktop. She cleared her throat, gesturing for him to sit in the client’s chair in front of her desk.

  ‘Charlie, I wanted to talk about that accident the other day.’

  Charlie’s eyes narrowed. ‘What accident?’

  ‘You know what I’m talking about. The dent my van received. That one.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Charlie. ‘That accident.’ He paused, concern passing over his face. ‘Has the van not been repaired properly? Do you want me to take it back?’

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘You can’t tell that it has been damaged.’

  ‘Good,’ said Charlie, and then added quickly, ‘So, no problem then.’

  He was about to get up, but she signalled for him to remain seated. ‘You never really told me exactly what happened.’

  Charlie shrugged. ‘There’s not much to say, Mma. The other driver didn’t stop at a stop sign.’

  ‘Yes, but it would be interesting to hear your report on it. Why don’t you tell me what happened? In your own words, of course.’

  He clasped his hands together. She could see him squirm.

  ‘My words, Mma?’

  Mma Ramotswe looked into his eyes. He looked away, his gaze falling to the floor.

  ‘Yes, Charlie?’

  He drew in his breath. ‘I was driving along…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I was driving along, you see…’

  ‘By yourself?’

  He hesitated. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Maybe not. No, maybe I wasn’t by myself.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I think I was with a friend. Yes, I remember now: I was with a friend. I was giving him a lift somewhere.’

  ‘Him?’

  Charlie’s hands tightened their grip on each other. ‘Maybe it wasn’t a him. Maybe it was a lady. Yes, I think it might have been a lady.’

  ‘Or even a girl?’

  He frowned. ‘Ladies, girls – all the same, Mma. One word covers both.’

  ‘So you had a girl in the cab.’

  ‘I was trying to help her, Mma. She had a long way to walk.’

  Mma Ramotswe conceded the point. ‘That was kind of you, Charlie. And then what happened.’

  He stared up at the ceiling, as if trying to dredge information from the furthest recesses of his memory. ‘It was a long time ago,’ he said.

  ‘Five days?’

  ‘That’s a long time when so much is happening, Mma. Five days is almost a whole week.’

  She tapped the pencil on the desk. ‘Try to remember. I know it was a long time ago.’

  He turned his gaze to meet hers. ‘I came to an intersection,’ he said flatly. ‘Then Mr Sengupta didn’t stop, and he hit me. So…’ He hesitated. ‘So, I lost sight of where the other car went. I didn’t really see the exact house.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I had picked up that girl, you see, Mma, and I was showing off to her.’

  They looked at one another in silence. She noticed that his lower lip was quivering, and she made up her mind.

  ‘Then that’s all right, Charlie. You’ve told me the truth, and now we can forget about it.’

  He had not expected this. When he spoke, his voice faltered. ‘You’re
not angry, Mma?’

  She shook her head. What was the point of anger? There were occasions when Mma Ramotswe, like all of us, could feel angry, but they were few – and they never lasted long. Anger, Obed Ramotswe had explained to her once, is no more than a salt that we rub into our wounds. She had never forgotten that – along with the things he said about cattle, and Botswana, and the behaviour of the rains. ‘I was, Charlie,’ she said quietly, ‘but not for long. I wanted to give you the chance to tell me yourself that you weren’t on your own, and now you have done that.’ She paused, allowing herself the faintest of smiles. ‘And as for accidents – there are so many things in Botswana that are in the wrong place. So we can’t help being involved in accidents, can we? And we can’t help being nice to young women, can we?’

  The young man was almost too astonished to speak. But he just managed, ‘Yes, Mma, that is true.’

  ‘And now you can take a letter, Charlie. I shall dictate and you can write it down – then you can type it up.’

  Charlie rapidly busied himself with his preparations. ‘Fire away, Mma,’ he said. ‘I am ready.’

  And he thought: I would do anything for this woman – anything.

  If the day started well for Charlie, it did not for Mma Makutsi. She was late arriving at work; Mma Ramotswe had dictated her letter and Charlie, inordinately proud of his handiwork, had typed it, handed it over for signing, and addressed the envelope by the time she came into the office.

  She lowered herself dispiritedly into her seat. ‘It is all over,’ she said, her voice flat and without emotion. ‘Everything is finished now.’

  Mma Ramotswe, who had been examining a set of suspect receipts passed on by a client, pushed the papers aside. ‘Mma?’ she said with concern. ‘What is it, Mma?’

  There was defeat in Mma Makutsi’s voice. ‘This. The paper. Today.’ She held out the folded newspaper, which Charlie took and passed on to Mma Ramotswe.

  She knew what it was before she read it. This would be the review of the Handsome Man’s De Luxe Café by the self-appointed restaurant critic and markedly undistinguished graduate of the Botswana Secretarial College, Violet Sephotho. Mma Makutsi was right; this was the end.

  Our renowned restaurant critic visits a new establishment! shouted the headline on the front page. See page 6 for the full story.

  With the air of one who dreads what she is about to read, Mma Ramotswe turned to page six.

  De Luxe? the review began. Not in my dictionary! Of course anybody can call a business anything these days and get away with it. Anything at all. There’s a place in town that calls itself the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Says who? What about the CID? What about the FBI? They may have something to say about that claim. So when an outfit sets up calling itself the Handsome Man’s De Luxe Café, the warning bells sound loud and clear. Who are these handsome men? Where’s the luxe? When I went there, there were certainly no handsome men – and I even looked under the tables to make sure. There were a few men around, but even their mothers would not have described them as handsome. So that was a bad start – in my view, at least.

  And then it got worse. The waiter appeared and took my order. I’m not sure if you can write things down correctly when you’re drunk, but at least he tried. I had to help him to spell sausage, which is not a good sign. If there’s one thing a waiter should be able to do, it’s to spell s-a-u-s-a-g-e.

  I looked around the place. The less said about the décor, the better. Next time I go there – not that there’s likely to be a next time – I’ll take a tin of paint with me and try to sort out the places where the painter forgot to go: all part of the service!

  My food took thirty-eight minutes to arrive – I timed it. I was hungry by then, but not hungry enough to eat what was put before me; you’d have to be starving to eat anything at this place. Better to go hungry than to spend the next few days sick, I always say!

  I looked at the food and smelled it. Ladies and gentlemen, don’t go there – just don’t go there! So here are my scores (out of ten) for the Handsome Man’s De Luxe Café: atmosphere: zero; décor and cleanliness: zero; service: minus one; food: minus ten. Believe me – give this place a very wide berth (five miles, to be on the safe side)! VS.

  Mma Ramotswe finished reading and laid the newspaper down on her desk. She looked at Mma Makutsi, whose large round glasses were flashing out a message that was hard to interpret but could hardly be cheerful.

  ‘Not a good review?’ asked Charlie.

  Neither answered him. Then Mma Ramotswe said, ‘That woman is full of venom, Mma. She is like a snake.’

  ‘Snakes do not write in the newspapers,’ muttered Mma Makutsi. ‘That is the difference. Snakes cannot harm you by what they write.’

  Charlie had now picked up the newspaper and was working his way through the review. ‘Ow!’ he exclaimed. ‘This is one big lie, Mma. People will see that. They’ll know who this VS is.’

  ‘No, they won’t,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘They won’t know who she is and they’ll believe every word of it.’ She paused before continuing. ‘I am finished now. I have wasted all that money of Phuti’s and for nothing. I have discovered something about the chef and the waiter. And the waitress, too.’

  Mma Ramotswe suspected what was coming, but waited to hear it.

  ‘They are all related,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘He dropped his omang on the floor when he went out to the stores and I picked it up. I saw his real name. I asked the waiter, and he told me everything. He was drunk and had had a fight with his father. He told me everything. He is not a real chef. My lawyer is his brother and always tries to help him, but it never works… And now they have all handed in their notice and said that they have had enough, and so there is nobody to run the restaurant. It’s the end, Mma Ramotswe – it’s the end.’

  Mma Ramotswe grimaced. It was difficult to see what could be done and she felt at a loss as to what to say to Mma Makutsi. Should she recommend that she simply walk away from the business; that she close it down and cut her losses rather than letting them mount up? What if she advertised for replacements and found another set of these types, every bit as bad as the last lot?

  Mma Makutsi needed help, and she could not provide it. Her thoughts turned to Mma Potokwani. Catering was something she knew about, and was good at. Was there a chance – just a chance? She glanced at her watch. It would take them twenty minutes or so to get out to the Orphan Farm and when they arrived she imagined Mma Potokwani would be ready to serve tea and fruit cake. Mma Makutsi and Mma Potokwani had had their differences in the past, but there was no doubt of Mma Potokwani’s ability to deal with a crisis.

  ‘I think we should go for a drive,’ she said to Mma Makutsi. ‘There’s no point sitting here and brooding.’

  ‘I’m finished,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘There’s no point in doing anything.’

  Mma Ramotswe rose to her feet. ‘Never say that, Mma.’

  ‘But it’s true,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘I am a big failure, Mma.’

  Charlie, his sympathy engaged by the outrageous review, shook his head vigorously. ‘No, Mma, you are not a failure. Ninety-seven per cent – remember?’

  ‘That was a long time ago,’ she muttered. ‘This is different. This is a… a whole new area of failure.’

  There was no point in wallowing in misery, thought Mma Ramotswe. ‘Come on, now, Mma,’ she coaxed. ‘Let’s go somewhere where we can look calmly at what you might do.’

  Mma Makutsi rose from her desk. ‘A big failure,’ she muttered, to nobody in particular. ‘That’s me.’

  Nobody else heard it – but she did: from down below, at floor level, came the voice of her shoes, a voice that was at the same time tiny and crowing.

  We warned you, Boss. Did you listen to us? You did not. Result? Failure – big time!

  The children were singing when they arrived. That’s something, thought Mma Ramotswe – the sound of children’s voices was a reminder that however bad things might look, they were not as ba
d as all that. Children’s singing is like the light; or like the much-needed rain at the end of a drought. It is the thing that will comfort us and remind us that there is good in the world, and hope, too.

  ‘Listen to that,’ said Mma Ramotswe, as they got out of the van. ‘Listen to that lovely song, Mma Makutsi. That is one that we sang ourselves, isn’t it? All about a bird that looks after the fields when the people are away and warns them when the locusts try to eat the crops.’

  Mma Makutsi made a non-committal sound.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mma Ramotswe breezily, ‘it is the same song. That was a very helpful bird, that one.’