In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

by Alexander McCall Smith

  It had been his favourite room when he had lived in the house, as it had a good view of the back yard with its pawpaw trees, and beyond that of a small hill in the distance. Now, as they entered, there was no view, as curtains had been drawn across the window and the only light was provided by two red-shaded lamps that had been placed on a low table in front of the curtains. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked about him in astonishment. He knew that people had different tastes, but it seemed extraordinary that somebody would wish to plunge a room into darkness—and waste electricity—when there was perfectly good natural light available outside for nothing.

  He turned to Mma Makutsi. Perhaps she had seen this sort of thing before and would be unsurprised. He looked at her for an explanation, but she was just smiling at him in a curious way.

  “What have they done to my dining room?” he whispered. “This is very strange.”

  Mma Makutsi continued to smile. “It is very interesting,” she said, her voice lowered. “Of course you know that …”

  She did not finish what she was saying; the woman in the red blouse had returned with a tray bearing a beer and a glass of cola. She placed the tray on the table and pointed to a large leather-covered sofa at one side of the room.

  “You can sit down,” she said. “I will put on some music if you would like that.”

  Mma Makutsi picked up her glass of cola. “You join us, Mma. It has been a hot day and I think that you might like a beer. You can charge it to us. We will buy you a beer.”

  The woman accepted readily. “That is kind of you, Mma. I will fetch it and come back.”

  Once she had left the room, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni turned to Mma Makutsi. “Is this …” he began.

  “Yes,” Mma Makutsi interrupted. “This is a shebeen. Your house, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, has been turned into an illegal bar!”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni sat down heavily on the sofa. “This is very bad,” he said. “Everybody will think that I am involved in it. They will say that man is running a shebeen while he pretends to be a respectable person. And what will Mma Ramotswe think?”

  “She’ll understand that it has nothing to do with you,” said Mma Makutsi. “And I’m sure that other people will think the same.”

  “I do not like such places,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, shaking his head. “They let people run up big bills and spend all their money on drink.”

  Mma Makutsi agreed. She was amused by the discovery, which she had not expected to make, but she knew that there was nothing very funny about shebeens. Although people could easily go to legitimate bars, there were those who needed to drink on credit, and shebeens exploited such people. They encouraged people to spend too much and then, every month, they would end up taking a larger and larger portion of the drinker’s salary. And there were other things too: shebeens were associated with gambling and again in this respect they preyed on human weakness.

  The woman returned, an opened bottle of beer in her hand. She raised the bottle in a toast, and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni half-heartedly reciprocated, although Mma Makutsi’s response was more convincing.

  “So, Mma,” said Mma Makutsi brightly, “this is a nice place you have. Very nice!”

  The woman laughed. “No, Mma. It is not my place. I am just somebody who works here. There is another woman who runs this place.”

  Mma Makutsi thought for a moment. Of course: a woman like that, a woman who drove a large Mercedes-Benz, would not go to a shebeen as a mere customer—she was the shebeen queen herself.

  “Oh yes,” Mma Makutsi said. “I know that woman. She is the one who drives that big Mercedes-Benz and has that young boyfriend, the new one. I think he’s called Charlie.”

  “That is her,” said the woman. “Charlie is her boyfriend. He comes here with her sometimes. But there’s a husband too. He is in Johannesburg. He’s a big man there. He has some bars, I think.”

  “Yes,” said Mma Makutsi. “I know him well.” She paused. “Do you think that he knows about Charlie?”

  The woman took a swig from her bottle of beer and then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Hah! I think that he will not know about Charlie. And if I were Charlie I’d be very careful. That man comes back to Botswana to see her every few months and then Charlie had better be away for the weekend! Hah! If I were Charlie I’d go right up to Francistown or Maun when that happens. The further away the better.”

  Mma Makutsi glanced at Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, who was following the conversation closely. Then she looked back at the woman and asked her question. “Does that man, the husband, help to run this place? Does he come here ever?”

  “Sometimes,” said the woman. “He phones us sometimes to leave messages for her.”

  Mma Makutsi took a deep breath. Mma Ramotswe had told her that when one asked the important question—the question upon which an entire investigation might turn—one should be careful to sound calm, as if the answer to the question really did not matter all that much. This was the moment for such a question, but Mma Makutsi found that her heart was beating loud within her and she was sure that this woman would hear it.

  “So he phones? Well, you wouldn’t have his telephone number over there, would you? I’d like to speak to him about a friend we have in Johannesburg who wants to see him about something. I had his number, but …”

  “It is here,” said the woman. “It is through in the kitchen on a piece of paper. I can fetch it for you.”

  “You are very kind,” said Mma Makutsi. “And when you go through to the kitchen, you can get yourself another beer, Mma. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni will pay.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  REMEMBER ME?

  M MA RAMOTSWE had tried very hard to contain the feeling of dread which stalked her now, like a dark shadow. She had tried to put Note Mokoti out of her mind; she had told herself that just because Mma Potokwane had seen him this did not mean that she would do so. But none of this had worked, and she found herself unable to take her mind off her first husband and the meeting that she knew he would seek with her.

  Her immediate inclination had been to tell Mr J.L.B. Matekoni what Mma Potokwane had said, but then she found that she simply could not do this. Note Mokoti belonged to her past—to a painful part of that past—and she had never brought herself to speak to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni about this. She had told him, of course, that she had been married before, and that her husband had been a cruel man. But that was all that she had said, and he had sensed that this was something that she did not wish to discuss, and he had respected that. Nor had she discussed it to any great extent with Mma Makutsi, although they had touched upon it once or twice when the subject of men, or husbands in particular, had come up.

  But no matter how firmly she had relegated Note to this wished-for oblivion, in real life he was a flesh and blood man who was now back in Gaborone and who would cross her path sooner or later. It happened in the mid-morning, just two days after her meeting with Mma Potokwane, when Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi were working in the office of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was off fetching spare parts from the motor trades distributor with whom he dealt, and Mr Polopetsi was helping the younger apprentice to fix the suspension on a hearse. It was a very ordinary morning.

  Mr Polopetsi made the announcement. Knocking on the door that led from the garage into the agency office, he looked cautiously in and said that there was somebody to see Mma Ramotswe.

  “Who is it?” asked Mma Makutsi. They were busy and did not want to be disturbed, but one always had to be ready to receive a client.

  “It is a man,” said Mr Polopetsi, and with this answer Mma Ramotswe knew that it was Note.

  “Who is this man?” asked Mma Makutsi. “Has he given his name?”

  Mr Polopetsi shook his head. “He would not give me his name,” he said. “He is a man wearing dark glasses, and a brown leather jacket. I did not like him.”

  Mma Ramotswe rose to her feet. “I will come and see him,” she said quietly. “I think I know who this
is.”

  Mma Makutsi looked at her employer quizzically. “Could you not get him to come in here?”

  “I will see him outside,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I think that he has private business with me.”

  She made her way out of the office, avoiding Mma Makutsi’s gaze. It was bright outside—a day on which the sun cast hard, short shadows; a day on which there was no shelter from the growing heat; a day on which the air seemed heavy and sluggish. As she went out through the wide door of the garage, leaving Mr Polopetsi to return to his labour, she saw the petrol pumps and the acacias and a car driving down the Tlokweng Road, and then, just to the left of the garage, standing under the shade of an acacia tree, looking in her direction, Note Mokoti, thumbs tucked into his belt, standing in that pose that she remembered so well.

  She took the few steps that would bring her up to him. She raised her eyes and saw that his face was fleshier, but still cruel, and bore a small scar to the side of his chin. She saw that he had developed a slight paunch, but that this was almost hidden by the leather jacket which he wore in spite of the heat. And she thought, suddenly, how strange it was that one would notice these things when one was frightened of another; that the prisoner facing execution might notice, in those last terrible moments, that the man who was about to take his life had a barber’s rash round his throat or that he had hair on the back of his hands.

  “Note,” she said. “It is you.”

  The muscles around the mouth slackened, and he smiled. She saw the teeth, so important, he had always said, for a trumpeter, good teeth. And then she heard the voice.

  “It is me, yes. Yes, you are right there, Precious. It is me after all these years.”

  She looked into the lenses of the dark glasses, but could see only the tiny reflection of the acacia tree and the sky.

  “Are you well, Note? Have you travelled from Johannesburg?”

  “Joeies,” he said, laughing as he spoke. “Egoli. Joburg. The place of many names.”

  She waited for him to say something more. For a few moments there was nothing, then he spoke.

  “I’ve heard all about you,” he said. “I’ve heard that you are the big detective around these parts.” He laughed again, as if the suggestion that this should be so was ridiculous. Of course he had thought that about all women: that no woman, in his view, could do a job as well as a man. How many woman trumpeters do you see? he had asked her all those years ago, mockingly. She had been too young then to stand up to him, and now, when she could do so, when she had the facts of her success with which to confront him, she felt only the same ancient fear, the fear which had made women through the ages cower before such men.

  “I have a good business,” she said.

  He looked over her shoulder into the garage and then he glanced up at their business sign, the sign which she had proudly displayed over her first office under Kgale Hill and which they had brought with them when they made the move.

  “And your father?” he said casually, looking at her now. “How is the old man? Still going on about cattle?”

  She felt her heart lurch, and then a rush of emotion that seemed to stifle the very breath within her.

  “Well?” he said. “What about him?”

  She steadied herself. “My father is late,” she said. “It is many years ago now. He is late.”

  Note shrugged. “There are many people who are dying. You may have noticed.”

  For a moment Mma Ramotswe could think of nothing, but then she thought of her father, the late Daddy, Obed Ramotswe, who had never said anything unkind or dismissive to this man, although he had known full well what sort of person he was; of Obed Ramotswe who represented all that was fine in Botswana and in the world, whom she still loved, and who was as fresh in her memory as if he had been alive only yesterday.

  She turned away and took a few faltering steps back towards the garage.

  “Where are you going?” called Note, his voice harsh. “Where are you going, fat lady?”

  She paused, still looking away from him. She heard him come towards her, and now he was standing directly behind her, his acrid body odour in her nostrils.

  He leaned forward so that his mouth was close to her ear. “Listen,” he said. “You have married that man, haven’t you? But what about me? Am I not still your husband?”

  She looked down at the ground, and at her toes sticking out of the sandals she was wearing.

  “Now,” said Note. “Now you listen to me. I haven’t come back for you—don’t worry about that. I never really liked you, you know? I wanted a woman who could have a child, a strong child. You know that? Not a child who wasn’t going to last very long. So I haven’t come back for you. So you just listen to me. I’m planning a concert here—a big event at the One Hundred Bar. But I need a bit of help with the cost of that, you know? Ten thousand pula. I’ll come and collect it in two or three days, from your place. That’ll give you time to get the money together. Understand?”

  She remained quite immobile, and he moved away suddenly.

  “Goodbye,” he said. “I’ll come for that loan. And if you don’t pay, then maybe I can tell somebody—maybe the police, I don’t know—that you’ve married a man before you got rid of the first husband. That’s a careless thing to do, Mma. Very careless!”

  SHE WENT BACK into the office, where Mma Makutsi was sitting at her desk, immersed in the task of addressing an envelope. The search for the delinquent Zambian financier had brought forth nothing so far. Most of the letters they had written had been ignored by their recipients, although one, which had been sent to a Zambian doctor who was thought to know just about everybody in the local Zambian community, had drawn a hostile reply. “You people are always saying that Zambians are dishonest and that if there is any money missing then you should look in Zambian pockets. This is defamation and we are fed up with such stereotypes. Everybody knows that you should be looking in Nigerian pockets …”

  Mma Ramotswe made her way to her desk and sat down. She reached for a sheet of paper, folded it, and picked up her pen. Then she put down the pen and opened a drawer, not knowing why she was doing this, but filled with dread and fear. The picking up of a pen, the opening of a drawer, the lifting of the telephone handset—all of these were actions that might be performed in distress by one who did not know what to do, but who hoped that by such movements the fear might be defeated, which of course it never would.

  Mma Makutsi watched, and knew that whoever it was who had arrived that morning had upset and frightened her employer.

  “You saw that person?” she asked gently. “Was it somebody you knew?”

  Mma Ramotswe looked up at her and Mma Makutsi saw the pain in her eyes.

  “It was somebody I knew,” she said quietly. “It was somebody I knew very well.”

  Mma Makutsi opened her mouth to ask a question, but stopped herself as Mma Ramotswe raised a hand.

  “I do not want to talk about that, Mma,” she said. “Please do not ask me about this thing. Please do not ask.”

  “I will not,” said Mma Makutsi. “I will not ask.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked at her watch and muttered something about being late for a meeting. Again Mma Makutsi was about to ask what meeting this was, as nothing had been said about a meeting, but then she thought better of it and simply watched as Mma Ramotswe gathered her things together and left the office. Mma Makutsi waited for a few minutes, until she heard the engine of the tiny white van start, and then she stood up and looked out of the window to see Mma Ramotswe drive out onto the Tlokweng Road and disappear in the direction of town.

  Leaving the office, Mma Makutsi found Mr Polopetsi with the apprentice.

  “I need to ask you something, Rra,” she said. “That man who came to see Mma Ramotswe—who was he?”

  Mr Polopetsi stood up and stretched. It was difficult working on cars in confined spaces, although he was beginning to get used to it. It amused him to think that throughout his education he had worked and wor
ked to get himself a job which would involve no manual labour, and here he was enjoying the rediscovery of his hands. Of course they had said that this job was only temporary, but he had begun to settle in to being a mechanic and perhaps he would ask about becoming a real apprentice. And why not? Botswana needed mechanics—everyone knew that—and there was no reason why older people should be prevented from acquiring such skills.

  Mr Polopetsi scratched his head. “I have not seen him before,” he said. “He was a Motswana, judging from the way he spoke. But there was something about him that seemed foreign. You know how it is when people are away for a long time. They carry themselves in a different way.”

  “Johannesburg?” asked Mma Makutsi.

  Mr Polopetsi nodded. It was sometimes difficult to put it into words, but there was an unmistakable air about people who came from Johannesburg or who had lived a long time there. There was a way of walking in Johannesburg, a way of holding oneself, that was different from the way in which people did these things in Botswana. Johannesburg was a city of swagger, and that was something which people in Botswana would never do. There were some people who swaggered these days, particularly those who had more money, but it was not really the Botswana way of doing things.

  “And what do you think this man wanted from Mma Ramotswe?” asked Mma Makutsi. “Did he bring her bad news, do you think? Did he tell her that somebody is late?”

  Mr Polopetsi shook his head. “I have very good hearing, Mma,” he said. “I can hear a car when it is far, far away. I can hear an animal before you can see it in the bush. I am like one of those people out in the bush who can tell you everything just by listening to the wind. So I can tell you that he did not tell her that somebody is late.”

  Mma Makutsi was surprised by this sudden disclosure on the part of Mr Polopetsi. He had seemed such a quiet and inoffensive man, and now he was admitting to the talents of a bush tracker. Such a person could be useful in a detective agency. You were not allowed to tape a person’s telephone line, but then there would be no need to do so if you had a Mr Polopetsi. You could just position him on the other side of the street, with his ears pointed in the right direction, and he could report what was said behind closed doors. It would be one of those low technology solutions that people sometimes talked about.