In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “You are right, Mma,” said Mma Makutsi. “We have never had so much happen all at the same time. It is better for things to happen separately. I have always said that.” She paused to think for a moment before continuing. “At the Botswana Secretarial College they taught us to do one thing at a time. That is what they said we should do. One thing at a time.”

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. “That is very true,” she said. She was not sure that everything that Mma Makutsi attributed to the Botswana Secretarial College could really have been taught there; after all, surely they had much more to teach than aphorisms. And for her part, of course, Mma Makutsi had those doubts about Mma Ramotswe’s attribution of sayings and views to Seretse Khama. But neither expressed their doubts very much, which was what civility required.

  It was true that rather too much had happened. Now both Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi were looking forward to a period of stability and peace. That is not to say that they were averse to the appearance of an interesting client with a challenging problem; such clients were always welcome—indeed they were necessary—but it would be helpful if such a person did not cross their threshold for a week or two.

  Mma Ramotswe was sure that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni would share her views on this. He had busied himself with the repair of the tiny white van—a task that had taken him several days—but now that was finished and she was once again at the wheel of the vehicle she loved so much.

  “That van will not last forever,” Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had warned her. “You know that, don’t you?”

  Mma Ramotswe had admitted this, as she had done on many occasions, “A few more years will be enough,” she said. “Five, six years maybe. Then I shall say goodbye to it.”

  “Five or six years?” Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had repeated. “Oh, no. No. That is too long. You cannot hope for that. A machine is like a person. It gets tired.”

  “We shall see,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You never know. There are some very old cars that are still working. I have seen some that are older than my van.”

  They had left the subject there, as there were other things for Mr J.L.B. Matekoni to do. Charlie had returned, as had been anticipated by Mr Polopetsi, and had asked for his job back. Mma Makutsi had witnessed the scene from the office doorway, standing just far back enough not to be seen by the chastened apprentice, but in a good position to listen to what was said. Later she told Mma Ramotswe with considerable satisfaction about the exchange.

  “You should have seen his face, Mma,” she said, smiling at the memory. “He looked like this.” She turned down the corners of her mouth and gazed glumly at the floor.

  Mma Ramotswe smiled. She took no pleasure in the young man’s humiliation, but there were lessons he had to learn and there was a certain justice in what had happened.

  “He shifted his weight from foot to foot,” went on Mma Makutsi. “Like this. And Mr J.L.B. Matekoni stood like this, with his hands on his hips, like a teacher speaking to a naughty boy.”

  “What did he say?” asked Mma Ramotswe.

  “I heard it all,” said Mma Makutsi. “Charlie said, ‘I am back here now, Boss. I have been away for a few days. I have taken a little holiday. Now I am back.’

  “Mr J.L.B. Matekoni said, ‘A holiday? I thought you said that you were quitting the job. I thought you said that you didn’t need to work any more? Did you not say that?’

  “And then Charlie said that this was a mistake. He said that he had not been serious when he said that he was not going to work any more. He said that he had meant to say that he was going on a holiday.”

  Mma Ramotswe sighed. “That young man has not learned anything yet,” she said. “Did he really expect Mr J.L.B. Matekoni to believe that nonsense?”

  “I think he did,” said Mma Makutsi. “But then, you know what Charlie is like. He is not a boy with first-class brains. He is a forty-two per cent boy, at the most. That is the sort of result he would get in an exam. Forty-two per cent. I am pretty sure of that, Mma.”

  Mma Ramotswe’s eyes wandered up for a moment to the certificate on the wall behind Mma Makutsi’s head. It was the certificate from the Botswana Secretarial College, proudly framed, with the motto of the College in bold letters under the College title: Be Accurate. And under that, the remarkable result, inscribed in a hand that must have marvelled at the figures it was obliged to pen: 97 per cent.

  “Anyway,” went on Mma Makutsi, “Mr J.L.B. Matekoni listened to all this, and then he leaned forward and he shook a finger at Charlie, just as he did when Charlie shouted at me that day and called me the rude name.”

  A warthog, thought Mma Ramotswe. Yes, he called you a warthog, and I think you called him one too, if I remember correctly. She thought this and tried not to smile as for a brief moment an image of a warthog in big round glasses crossed her mind. Big round glasses and green shoes with blue linings.

  “Mr J.L.B. Matekoni told him that he was a very silly young man,” continued Mma Makutsi. “He said that young men should not run off with ladies who were much older than they were. He said that it was asking for trouble. He also told him that he should act more responsibly and find a nice girl of his own age whom he could marry. He said that this was what the Government was saying men should do, and that Charlie should listen to what the Government had to say on this subject.

  “And all the time Charlie was looking down at the ground and wringing his hands, like this. I almost felt sorry for him. In fact, maybe I did feel a little bit sorry for him, although he had asked for all of it and only had himself to blame.

  “And then I heard him promise Mr J.L.B. Matekoni to behave better in the future and I heard him say that he knew that he had been very stupid and that he would not be stupid again. Those were his very words, Mma, and I wrote them down on a piece of paper which we can keep in the office here and take out and wave at him some time in the future if we need to do so.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked at the piece of paper which Mma Makutsi had produced. Yes, it might be useful, but they should remember, she said, that Charlie was still a young man and that young men were apt to do foolish things, and that they probably all had to learn by their mistakes. Mma Makutsi was more grudging about it, but eventually agreed that he had probably suffered enough and should be given another chance. Perhaps he would meet a nice girl now, and all would change, although she had to admit to some reservations about that.

  “But Charlie said something else,” added Mma Makutsi. “He said something about a pumpkin.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked up sharply. “A pumpkin?”

  “Yes,” said Mma Makutsi. “He said that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni should not think that he was all bad. He said that he should remember that he had given you a pumpkin.”

  “I see,” said Mma Ramotswe, and then, again, “I see.”

  She gazed out of the window. So it was Charlie who had brought that pumpkin, which meant that the man under the bed was not the person who had brought it, and this in turn meant that she still did not know the identity of the intruder. It was certainly not Charlie, because she would have recognised him, so … She stopped. An idea came to her, and it was an icy one. Perhaps it had been Note Mokoti under her bed. But she put that out of her mind, as there was no point in scaring herself after the event.

  “Well, just think of that,” said Mma Ramotswe to Mma Makutsi. “Charlie brought me a pumpkin! Don’t young men do strange things, Mma Makutsi?” And everybody might be kind, she thought to herself—even a young man like Charlie, with his thoughts of women and his vanity and all the rest.

  “They do,” agreed Mma Makutsi. “Especially that young man.” She would not mention her tea-pot again, but she had not forgotten.

  Of course, Charlie’s return had raised issues about Mr Polopetsi’s future. Mr Polopetsi himself had been silent when Charlie had been re-engaged. He had continued to work conscientiously, but he had noticed Charlie’s hostile glances and seen the two apprentices whispering to one another and looking in his direction. He had assumed that the re
turn of the apprentice would mean the end of his job, and there was a resignation about his manner that day and the next. At last, waiting for a quiet moment, he had slipped into the office and spoken to Mma Ramotswe.

  “I have come to thank you, Mma,” he blurted out. “Now that my job is over, I am coming to thank you for what you did for me. I have been happy here. You have been kind to me.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked up from her desk. “I do not know what you are talking about, Rra,” she said. “What is over? What are you talking about?”

  “My job,” he said. “The apprentice has come back. Now there will be no more work for me.”

  Mma Ramotswe, who had been adding up garage receipts, put down her pen and looked at Mr Polopetsi.

  “I do not think your job is finished,” she said. “Has Mr J.L.B. Matekoni said anything to you?”

  Mr Polopetsi shook his head. “He is a very kind man,” he said. “I do not think that he wants to tell me. But I think that this thing has happened anyway. I think that I shall have to go soon. Maybe tomorrow. I do not know.”

  Mma Ramotswe rose to her feet. “We will go and speak to him,” she said. “You come with me, Rra.”

  Mr Polopetsi raised a hand. “No, Mma. Please, no. I do not want to make a fuss.”

  But Mma Ramotswe had brushed aside his objections and had ushered him out of the office and into the garage, where Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was standing over a handsome red car, deep in thought, contemplating its exposed engine.

  “These people who make these cars are trying to make our lives difficult,” he said. “They put in all these computers and what are we to do when they go wrong? They are trying to make cars into space ships, that is what they are doing. But we do not need space ships here in Botswana. We need good cars with engines that do not mind the dust. That is what we need.”

  “You should write to the people who make these cars,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You could tell them.”

  “They would not listen to me,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “I am just one man. I am just Mr J.L.B. Matekoni of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. They would look at my letter in Japan or America and say, ‘Who is this Mr J.L.B. Matekoni? Do we know him? What is he writing to us about?’ And then they will throw my letter in the bin. That is what would happen. I am not important.”

  “You are,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You are very important. You are the best mechanic in Botswana.”

  “Yes,” said Mr Polopetsi. “That is true, Rra. You are the very best mechanic. I have been proud to work with you.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni turned and looked at them, first at Mma Ramotswe, and then at Mr Polopetsi.

  “You are a good mechanic too, Rra,” he said to Mr Polopetsi. “I have seen the way you handle an engine. You respect machinery. That comes from having worked in the hospital. You are like a doctor dealing with a patient.”

  Mma Ramotswe glanced at Mr Polopetsi, and then she addressed Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “And he is a good detective too,” she said. “He is the one who followed the tracks of the van. That was a fine piece of detective work. We could use him from time to time, as a sort of assistant. Maybe he could be an assistant-assistant detective to Mma Makutsi. She would like that.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked thoughtful. “Yes,” he said. “That would be a good idea.” He paused, and frowned. “You did not think that your job was over, did you, Rra? Just because Charlie has come back?”

  Mr Polopetsi nodded. “I did think that, Rra. And it is all right with me. I cannot expect you to give a job to everyone.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni laughed. “But I never thought that you should go, Rra. I should have told you. I never thought that you should go. What is going to happen to this place once those boys finish their apprenticeship—if they ever finish it? Where would I be then if I did not have somebody like you to help me? And now you have heard what Mma Ramotswe says about your doing some work for her from time to time. You are going to be a very busy man, Rra.”

  THAT AFTERNOON, just as Mma Ramotswe was on the point of suggesting that they close the agency an hour earlier than normal, as she needed to go to the butcher to collect some meat for that evening’s meal, Mr Polopetsi came into the office to announce that there was a man who was asking to see her. He was an elderly man, he said, who had arrived in a car driven by a driver, and he did not wish to come inside. Could Mma Ramotswe speak to him outside, under the tree?

  Mma Ramotswe smiled. This was what an elderly person, a traditional person, might feel comfortable doing: talking under a tree, as people had always done. She went outside, and saw that her visitor was already standing under the tree, his hat in his hand. He looked so like her father, she thought, with a pang of regret; he had enjoyed talking to people while standing or sitting under a tree, watching the cattle grazing, or simply looking at the sky and the hills of the country that he had loved so much.

  “Dumela, Mma Ramotswe, you remember me, do you not?”

  She reached forward and they shook hands.

  “I remember you well, Rra. You were a friend of my father. I have not seen you for a long time, but of course I remember you. You are well, Rra?”

  He tapped his head lightly with a forefinger. “My head is getting very old now,” he said, smiling as he spoke. “And that means that I forget many things. But I have not forgotten Obed Ramotswe. We were boys together. You do not forget that.”

  She nodded. “You were his good friend,” she said.

  “And he was a good man, your father.”

  There was a silence. She wondered whether she should invite him into the office for tea, but decided that this was not what he wanted. But what then did he want? Sometimes old people just liked to talk about the past, that was all, and perhaps that was why he had come to see her.

  But no, there was something else. “I have a son,” he said. “I have a son who is called Phuti. He is a very good man, but he has not found a wife. That is because he is a very shy man, and has always been like that. He cannot speak properly, and his words come out very slowly. That makes him very shy with women. I think that maybe the girls used to laugh at him when he was younger.”

  “People can be very cruel,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  “Yes,” said Mr Radiphuti. “But now he has met a very nice lady.”

  Ah, thought Mma Ramotswe. This is why he has come to see me. He has come to ask me to find out something about this lady. She had been asked many times to do that sort of thing—to investigate a prospective marriage partner. It was a common thing for detectives to do, and indeed there was a whole section in Clovis Andersen’s book about how to approach such a task.

  “Who is this lady?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “If you give me her name, then I shall see if I can find out anything about her for you. I can find out whether she would make a good wife for your son.”

  Mr Radiphuti fingered his hat awkwardly. “Oh, I am sure that she would make a very good wife for him,” he said. “And I think that you would know that thing already.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked at him in incomprehension, and he broke into a smile. “You see, Mma,” Mr Radiphuti went on, “the lady works in that office over there, just behind you. So you will know her very well.”

  For a few moments Mma Ramotswe did not say anything. Then, very quietly, she said, “I see.” Then she paused, and said again, “I see.”

  “Yes,” said Mr Radiphuti. “My son has been seeing your assistant. She has been very kind to him and has made his dancing much better. She has also helped his speaking, because she has given him confidence. I am very happy about that. But there is a problem.”

  Mma Ramotswe’s heart sank. She had allowed herself to hope, on Mma Makutsi’s behalf, but now it seemed that there was some difficulty. It would be a familiar story of disappointment for Mma Makutsi. That seemed inevitable now.

  Mr Radiphuti slowly drew breath before proceeding—a thick, wheezy sound. “I know that my son would like to marry this lady, I am sure of that. But I am also sure that he will never get
round to asking her. He is too shy. In fact, he has told me that he cannot ask her because he would just stutter and stutter and no words would come. So he does not feel that he can ask her this important question.”

  He stopped, and looked imploringly at Mma Ramotswe.

  “So what can we do, Mma?” he went on. “You are a clever lady. Maybe you can do something.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked up at the sky through the branches of the acacia tree. The sun was lower now, which always seemed to make the sky seem emptier. It was a time of day that made her feel a bit sad; a time of thinness and soft light.

  “It is a very strange thing,” she said. “But it seems to me that there is no reason that I know of why one person should not act as the messenger for another person in a matter like this. Have you seen those love messages that Zulu women used to make in beads and send to others? Those messages might contain a proposal of marriage. So why should we not use a messenger in a case like this? I see no reason.”

  Mr Radiphuti’s gnarled fingers worked more anxiously on the brim of his hat. “Do you mean that I should ask her, Mma? Is that what you want me to do? Do you think …”

  She raised a hand to stop him. “No, Rra. Do not worry. A woman is the best messenger in a case like this. But I must first ask you: Are you sure that your son wishes to marry this lady? Are you one hundred per cent sure?”

  “I am,” he said. “He told me that. And, what is more, he knows that I was coming to talk to you about it.”

  Mma Ramotswe listened carefully to his reply. Then, telling him to wait where he was, she made her way back into the office, where her assistant was sorting a pile of papers on her desk. Mma Makutsi looked up as Mma Ramotswe entered the room.

  “What did he want?” she asked casually. “Is it a client?”

  Mma Ramotswe said nothing, but stood there, smiling.

  “Is it something funny?” asked Mma Makutsi. “You look as if you have heard something amusing.”

  “No,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It is not funny. It is very important.”