The House of Unexpected Sisters

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Charity interrupted her. “To get by? I have some savings, Mma. It’s not very much, but it will keep me going for a few months.”

  Mma Ramotswe lowered her eyes. After that, she would have to go back to the grandmother, as people always did when they reached the end of the road.

  “This house?” asked Mma Makutsi. “Do you own it, Mma, or do you pay rent?”

  “Rent,” replied Charity. “But the man who owns it is a good man. He knows what has happened and he will not be unkind to me.”

  “But he is a landlord,” muttered Mma Makutsi. “And eventually landlords have to get rent.”

  Charity looked at her reproachfully. “I know that, Mma. Don’t think I haven’t thought of that.”

  Mma Ramotswe asked about the client who was said to have complained.

  “He is the head of a firm of accountants,” she said. “He has big offices in Lobatse and Francistown, as well as Gaborone. Then he has smaller offices in many other towns. He is up at Maun. He is over in Ghanzi. He is a very successful accountant, and all his furniture comes from our…from their depot here in Gaborone.”

  “So he is a rich man?” asked Mma Makutsi.

  “Yes, Mma, he is a rich man.”

  “So he would have been unlikely to lie about something like this,” said Mma Makutsi. “I can see no reason why he should. If you’re rich you don’t have to get mixed up in things like this.”

  “But you’ll be very good at complaining,” interjected Mr. Polopetsi. “Rich people like to complain about small things. If something is not quite right, then a rich person may make a very big fuss. You’d think the skies were falling.”

  Mma Ramotswe was interested to find out whether Charity had seen this man since the incident was said to have taken place. She had not. “I was dismissed the day afterwards,” said Charity. “So if he has come in, then I would not have been there.”

  “His name?” asked Mma Ramotswe.

  “Mpho. George Mpho.”

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. She had seen the name before, but had never met him. He had his picture in the newspapers from time to time: George Mpho presenting the prizes; George Mpho standing outside his new office in Francistown. He was not unknown.

  “Did they say what you were meant to have done?” asked Mma Makutsi.

  “They said I had shouted at him. They said I had told him to go and build a desk himself if he didn’t like what was on offer.” She stared at Mma Ramotswe. “That would have been very rude, Mma.”

  Mma Makutsi laughed. “That’s very ridiculous. Who would say a thing like that?”

  “Well, they said that I did,” muttered Charity.

  Mr. Polopetsi was shaking his head. “Sometimes these things boil down to the word of one person against another.”

  This brought agreement from Charity. “And what is my word worth, Rra? How much is it worth when you put it beside the word of somebody like Mr. George Mpho?”

  “The value of a person’s word doesn’t depend on who they are,” said Mma Ramotswe evenly.

  “No,” said Mr. Polopetsi. “Mma Ramotswe is right. A very rich man can tell very big lies. A very poor man can tell only the truth. It all depends on what’s inside somebody.”

  Mma Makutsi was not convinced. “That’s a nice thought, Rra, but I’m not sure that it’s true. People listen to those who are rich and powerful. They nod their heads all the time. They say, ‘Oh yes, that is quite true.’ That is what people are like.”

  It was clear from Charity’s defeated expression that this was how she saw the matter. Her earlier optimism that Mma Ramotswe could bring about the rectification she desired seemed to have entirely evaporated. “I am finished,” she said.

  “Nothing is finished until it is finished,” muttered Mr. Polopetsi.

  They all looked at him. Then Mma Ramotswe brought the visit to an end. “Mr. Polopetsi is right, Mma,” she said to Charity. “We shall go now, but we shall be thinking very hard. And we will get in touch with you and tell you if we have come up with anything.”

  “You’re very kind,” said Charity. “But my heart is very cold now.”

  “That is why we are going to think so hard,” said Mr. Polopetsi.

  As they left the house, Mma Ramotswe turned to Charity and asked her whether she had enemies. The question seemed to surprise her. “I don’t think so, Mma. None that I know of, at least.” She paused, and then appeared to remember something. “There is one person, though, who dislikes me. I wouldn’t want to call her an enemy, but perhaps that’s what she is.”

  “And who is that person, Mma?” asked Mma Ramotswe.

  “She is called Violet Sephotho,” answered Charity.

  Mma Makutsi gave what sounded like a cry of triumph. “Her!”

  “You know her, Mma?” asked Charity.

  “Oh, I know her only too well,” said Mma Makutsi. “So does Mma Ramotswe. And even Mr. Polopetsi here knows her, I think.”

  “I met her a long time ago,” said Charity. “It was when I was studying at the Botswana Secretarial College.”

  This brought forth another cry from Mma Makutsi. “The Botswana Secretarial College? You were at the Botswana Secretarial College?”

  “Yes. I was there at the same time that Violet Sephotho was.”

  Mma Makutsi’s eyes narrowed. “I thought I’d seen you somewhere. I thought your face was familiar, Mma.”

  Mma Ramotswe decided to give an explanation: “Mma Makutsi is a graduate of that college, Mma. You two must have been there at the same time. She…” She hesitated, but decided to continue. “She graduated with ninety-seven per cent in the final examinations.”

  This proved to be the key to memory. “Ninety-seven per cent! So, you’re that Grace…that Grace…”

  Mma Makutsi gave the necessary nudge. “Makutsi.”

  “Of course,” said Charity. “You used to sit in the front. I sat at the back.”

  “There were many ladies there,” said Mma Makutsi. “I don’t think we got to know one another very well.”

  “Well, well,” said Charity. “I’m sorry that I didn’t recognise you, Mma.”

  Mma Makutsi answered warmly. “That doesn’t matter, Mma. Remember Mma Moswaane? Remember her? The shorthand teacher?”

  Charity burst out laughing. “How can I forget?”

  “And Mma Mamelodi, who did that funny thing with her hair? She taught us accounts.”

  “Of course. Poor lady.” Charity shook her head at the memory. Then her expression changed, and she was serious once again. “Violet cheated, you know.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” said Mma Makutsi. “Not that it did her much good. Her final mark was very low, you know—barely fifty per cent.”

  “She took one of my essays and copied it,” said Charity. “I was very annoyed when I discovered this and I gave her a piece of my mind. She was furious and she threatened me if I did anything about it. I think she couldn’t stand the idea that I knew she was a cheat. That’s what turned her against me.”

  “That’s because she felt guilty,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  “She has hated me ever since,” said Charity. “If I see her in the street, she looks the other way. She cuts me dead. It’s as if I didn’t exist.”

  “I know how you must feel,” said Mma Makutsi. “She does that to me too.”

  “Well,” said Mma Ramotswe. “This is an extraordinary coincidence. We shall have to think about it some more.” She looked at her watch. “But not now, I think. Later.”

  In the van on the way back to the office, Mma Makutsi reflected on their meeting. “One thing is certain,” she said. “We have to help that poor lady.”

  “Do you think that Violet has anything to do with it?” asked Mr. Polopetsi.

  “I’m not sure,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  “Oh, I’m certain she has,” said Mma Makutsi.

  Mma Ramotswe thought that this might be loyalty speaking—the two graduates of the Botswana Secretarial College had embraced one anoth
er with particular warmth when she, Mma Makutsi, and Mr. Polopetsi had finally left. But emotions and detective work did not always mix; there was something about that in Clovis Andersen’s The Principles of Private Detection. What had he said? Emotions have the same effect as a magnet has on a compass…Yes, that was it. The needle swings around in a confusing way and you lose direction. Yes, exactly. Clovis Andersen had such a way with words—and he was usually, if not always, absolutely correct.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  GOOD DAY, MMA CHARITY

  MMA RAMOTSWE drove up to Mochudi by the old road, because that was the road she had used with her father. They had travelled between Mochudi and Gaborone, a journey of just over twenty miles, in Obed Ramotswe’s old truck—a vehicle which, for all its rattles and tendency to belch smoke, never let them down. It was, people said, a travelling pharmacy, with its cartons of cattle remedies—drenches and pills—that he would deliver to the cattle posts on the outer reaches of the Kalahari. In the back, among pliers and screwdrivers and fencing tools, there were hessian sacks and salt licks still in their packaging. It was a working vehicle—the transport of a man whose business was cattle.

  She missed him so—still, after all these years, there was so much she wanted to ask him. She wanted to talk about Botswana in the old days, a long time ago—even before Seretse Khama took over; she wanted to know what it had been like to grow up in Mochudi when there was only one shop and one butchery. She wanted to know where her grandmother came from and what had happened to her grandfather’s cattle; he was said to have owned the finest bull in Botswana—so great a bull that there had even been talk of raising a statue to it when it died, the patriarch of several hundred cattle families, its progeny spoken about even over the border in Mafeking. There was so much she would have liked to have found out, but, as was the case with so many questions, they are only asked when it is too late and they can no longer be answered.

  On this road, driving by herself in her white van, she sometimes imagined conversations between her and her father. She could almost hear his voice, his deep, considered tones. She could hear him address her, as he often did, as “my Precious.” And that voice, she thought, came from somewhere very far away, some place that was Botswana but not quite Botswana; a place beyond the hills, behind the clouds, where the late people of Botswana kept watch over those who were not yet late.

  The old road went past the graveyard where her parents were buried. She had never known her mother, having been an infant when she died, but she visited the grave once a year and attended to whatever needed to be done. And wept. It was possible, she thought, that one wept more for those one did not know than for those one did, because there was more to regret; to lose somebody without the chance of ever showing love was a heavy loss indeed.

  Today, though, she had no time to stop at the graveyard; she would make that trip the following week, or the week after that. A week or two is nothing to the dead, but to those busy with running an office and a home it was time not easily spared. Now she had to get to Mochudi in time for a meeting at the school of those who had attended it in the past and who would be prepared to support a plan for a new school library. It was an ambitious project, and although the government was giving money, it was up to the local community—and past students of the school—to raise the shortfall. Along with many others, Mma Ramotswe had been invited to a meeting at which the library plans would be revealed; then, she was sure, they would be asked to make a contribution. She was happy to do that, even if she could not afford to give a great deal, and she had ideas, too, about money-making schemes. There could be a fashion show in Gaborone, she thought, with the proceeds going to the library project. Mma Ramotswe did not normally attend fashion shows, but this one, she thought, would be special. It would be a fashion show for traditionally built ladies, in which all the outfits would be modelled by ladies like that and would be for people exactly like them. So there would be none of those skinny, stick-like models who tripped along the fashion catwalks in impossibly skimpy frocks; there would be, rather, comfortably padded ladies in loose-fitting dresses made of good, solid material.

  This traditionally built fashion show would be a great success, as there were many ladies in Gaborone and its immediate surrounds who would recognise themselves in all this. They would flock to the show and make donations with a generosity that matched the generosity of their figures. Mma Ramotswe was already making a mental list of such ladies, starting with Mma Potokwane, who was traditionally built however you looked at it. Mma Potokwane tended not to spend money on herself, and was mostly content with dresses that she had worn for a very long time, often concealing them, anyway, behind a pink-and-white quilted housecoat that she wore when doing her rounds of the Orphan Farm. But her husband could be worked upon, and persuaded to treat her to a new outfit from the traditionally built fashion show.

  Mma Ramotswe drove directly to the school. It was school holiday time, so there were no children around, other than a few who had been brought by mothers attending the meeting. There was a large crowd assembled in the school hall—almost one hundred people—and the hubbub of conversation reached the tree under which Mma Ramotswe parked her van. The pitch of this increased as she approached the hall, and once she was inside it became a roar of chatter and laughter. Mma Ramotswe immediately understood why: this may have been a school meeting but it was also a reunion of old friends, and people had a great deal of catching up to do. What happened to him? What happened to her? Where are you living now? There were so many questions to be asked and answered that it seemed unlikely there would be time for the real business of the gathering.

  But there was, and this business was conducted with firmness and dispatch by the principal. She explained the plans, and showed a small cardboard model of the new library. There were many suggestions as to improvements: the addition of a window here and a door there, the insertion of an extra basin for the children to wash their hands before they handled the books—“An excellent, practical suggestion,” said the principal—and then several views were expressed as to the colour of the walls, the roof, and the shelving. Mma Ramotswe’s own suggestion—that there should be a fashion show for the traditionally built—was received with acclaim, and noted down by the school secretary. “And I take it, Mma Ramotswe,” said the principal, “that you will be happy to chair the committee for this event?” There were murmurs of agreement, and before Mma Ramotswe had the chance to demur, her agreement was minuted.

  Mma Ramotswe returned to her van. She had expected the meeting to last longer and had intended to go straight back home rather than to call in at the office. Now she found herself with several hours on her hands; she could make good use of this in Mochudi, where there were numerous people she could visit—elderly relatives, for instance, whom she liked to see from time to time; her cousin, who ran a small grocery store on the edge of the village; her blind great-aunt who lived with another set of cousins behind the hill and who always welcomed visits from relatives. But then she remembered Charity had mentioned that her mother still lived in Mochudi, or just outside; there would be time to visit her if she could find out where she lived.

  She knew exactly what to do. The woman who ran the post office in Mochudi knew everybody, and where they lived. Mma Ramotswe had obtained information from her before, and it had always been reliable; if anybody could direct her to Charity’s mother, it was Mma Mangole. And that was how it turned out: Mma Mangole knew exactly where the old lady lived, and assured her that she would be in. “Mma Lentswe hasn’t left her house for years,” she said. “She sits there reading all the papers—ow! That lady reads and reads—and keeps a note of everything. Everything.”

  Mma Ramotswe had no specific questions to ask of Charity’s mother; what she wanted to do was to get to know the family a bit better. At the heart of Charity’s case—in as much as she had a case—was the assertion that she simply would not have done what she was alleged to have done. Mma Ramotswe had to be satisfied about
that, as the worst thing for any exponent of a cause is to find out that the cause is flawed; that the innocent are, in fact, guilty as charged. Mma Makutsi was convinced that Charity was in the right, but Mma Ramotswe could see where that conviction came from. That was a matter of a shared attachment to the Botswana Secretarial College and a shared enemy in the shape of Violet Sephotho. Mma Ramotswe wanted to be sure herself; she was tending to the view that Charity was, as she claimed, the wronged party, but she wanted to know a bit more, just to be sure.

  She found the house without difficulty. Mma Mangole had directed her past the My Darling Fresh Produce Store, past the large new house with a green roof, to the point where the tarred road stopped and became, like a river reaching a confluence, three separate, meandering tracks. The right-hand track was the one to take, past a clump of thorn bushes stripped bare on the lower branches by goats, and then skirting a small gully, along the side of a donga frequented by herd boys ignoring their sheep. This eventually led to a cluster of traditional houses, round and thatched, each ringed with a neatly kept lelapa, the courtyard marked out by low, mud-constructed walls.

  “Dumela, Mma Charity,” said Mma Ramotswe. Good day, Mma Charity—Mother of Charity; this was a traditional term of address in which a woman’s name was linked with her firstborn.

  The elderly woman to whom she had directed this greeting had been sweeping the yard, and looked up with surprise at her unexpected visitor.

  Mma Lentswe peered at Mma Ramotswe through a pair of round tortoiseshell glasses, obviously trying to retrieve a name from memory. “Dumela, Mma,” came the clearly spoken reply. “You are well, I hope.”

  Mma Ramotswe completed the formal greetings, and then went on to say, “You do not know me, Mma, but I am Precious Ramotswe…”

  She did not get any further. “Oh, then I know who you are, Mma. You are the daughter of Ramotswe—I’m sorry, I cannot remember his name, and he is late…”

  “Obed Ramotswe. Yes, he was my father, Mma.”