The House of Unexpected Sisters

by Alexander McCall Smith

  She had so much to think about, and as the day had progressed, she had been unable to turn her mind to anything else. I have a sister; I have a sister. She played with the words, savouring the novelty of the phrase. I have a sister. For most, such an utterance would be unremarkable: most people in Botswana had brothers or sisters because families were large and it was nothing unusual to have several siblings. Some people had six or seven, with a wide range of ages—Charlie, for instance, had four brothers as well as two sisters; Fanwell, too, referred from time to time to brothers in Francistown and Serowe, although he never said how many there were. She had been the only child because her mother had died young, when Precious was still very small, and the tiny family—she and her father—had been left alone, joined from time to time by aunts and cousins who had rallied round.

  As a child, she had been acutely conscious of her lack of brothers and sisters. While other children at school talked of the doings of their siblings, she had remained silent, pretending not to care that she had nothing to contribute; but the sense of having missed out on something was always there, and was painful. Like many children who invent an imaginary friend, she invented an elder sister, Luxury, and a younger brother called Samson. The sister’s name came from an advertisement she had seen in a magazine for ladies’ underwear, all lace and frills, and impossibly exotic to a seven-year-old girl living in Mochudi in those days. “Let luxury be your companion,” said the advertisement, and she responded, although not in the way the advertisers imagined. Luxury was older than Precious; she was almost sixteen, an age as alluring as it was seemingly distant to a child eight years younger; she was very beautiful, of course, wore garments like those in the advertisement, and she was invited to dances by boys. But in spite of all this, she had time for her younger sister and was available for games with dolls and the toy pram with only three wheels that Obed had bought for Precious at a sale. They would find the fourth wheel one day, he said, if they kept their eyes open.

  Samson, the imaginary brother, was only five but needed no looking after. His name was chosen from exposure to the story of Samson at Sunday school, and like his biblical counterpart, Samson was unusually strong. He could lift small boulders and push cars to start them when their batteries went flat. He had once unwound a python when it had wrapped itself around one of the nurses from the hospital; the python hissed as it felt Samson wind its coils off the unfortunate nurse, but it could do nothing in the face of the small boy’s superior strength.

  These two imaginary siblings survived for some years and then simply faded away. One day, when she was ten, they were simply no longer there, and she was truly alone. She used to leave a small glass of drinking water on her bedroom shelf for Luxury and Samson to drink from should they feel the need; this glass was put back in the kitchen, no longer required.

  She thought of this now, as she stood in her vegetable garden. There was nothing imaginary about Mingie: she had a real, flesh-and-blood sister; she was like everyone else now. And this should have given her pleasure, should have filled her with delight; yet it did not, and that was because of Mingie’s age. She had not asked her when she was born; she might have done that, but she had not; she already knew. And she had not sought to confirm details because it was these details, or one in particular, that had led to her feelings of sadness in the first place.

  The newspaper, as newspapers like to do, had printed the age of each of the nurses in brackets after their names. She had gone back to the cutting to check up, and there it was on the page in black and white: Mingie Ramotswe (43). Mma Ramotswe did the arithmetic. If Mingie was forty-three, then she was a year older than Precious. That in itself was neither here nor there, but it had quickly led to another conclusion, and that was the one that cut at her inside like a small and insistent knife.

  She was thinking of just that when she heard a movement behind her. Turning around, she saw Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni stepping out of the back door, the door that led to the kitchen. He was carrying a mug in each hand, and that meant he had made a cup of tea. She smiled; he was a thoughtful husband: How many men made tea for women? Did Phuti Radiphuti make tea for Mma Makutsi? Now that she came to think of it, he did: Mma Makutsi had reported that he often made tea for her in bed and then went to attend to Itumelang in order to give her the chance of a long lie-in. And Mma Potokwane’s husband, did he do the same? Again she realised that he did, because Mma Potokwane had once complained that the tea he made was too weak and she had to strengthen hers discreetly so as not to hurt his feelings or discourage him. “It’s most important,” Mma Potokwane had said, “not to put men off from doing things. We must never laugh at their attempts to cook, Mma Ramotswe, because men can lose their confidence very quickly. My husband made a fruit cake the other day, but forgot to put the fruit in. It was very hard not to laugh, Mma, but I had to try.” She had paused, while Mma Ramotswe waited for the denouement. “It was hard to eat,” she finished. “It was very crumby, but I told him it was very good.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni handed her a mug. “This is for you, Mma Ramotswe,” he said quietly. “Tea.”

  The mug was hot. Most men, she thought, were more sensitive than women were to hot surfaces; he was not—it was, he said, because he was mechanic, and mechanics developed a layer of grease on their hands that never went away. She had smiled at this, but did not think it was true. Perhaps it was something to do with gentleness: perhaps men who were gentle, being more like women in that respect, could pick up hot plates without feeling them. But that was another theory that was probably untrue, along with all the other theories that people held. She took a sip, and she felt calmed by it, as she always did. There was something in red bush tea that said to you Look, don’t worry; at least, it always had that effect on her.

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni knew what she was thinking about. He had been watching her from the kitchen window, and had seen her standing by the beans. It was always a sign of something being on a person’s mind, he felt, to stand and look at beans. He had met Mingie earlier that day, when Mma Ramotswe had brought her to the garage and then into the office. She had introduced her simply as Mingie Ramotswe, her newly found sister. There had been no explanation beyond that, either to him or to Mma Makutsi and Charlie, both of whom had been agog throughout the brief meeting. After she had left, Charlie had crowed. “I told you, Mma,” he said to Mma Makutsi. “I told you—didn’t I? I said that is Mma Ramotswe’s sister, and you said to me: there’s no sister because she hasn’t got one. Those were your words, Mma. That’s what you said.”

  He had not had the time to discuss the matter with her. When he returned from work at the garage, she was already in her garden. He wondered how she felt. He could not imagine how it would feel to discover something as important as this about your family. His own family had been uncomplicated: everybody knew one another very well and there were no secrets—at least as far as he knew. Now, thinking about it, he realised that the whole point of secrets was that you didn’t know about them. So how could anybody, such as himself, say there were no secrets in his family? All that he could say, perhaps, was that there were no open secrets, and of course open secrets were not real secrets anyway. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni frowned. That was what he did when he started to think about a matter that appeared to have no easy resolution: he frowned.

  Mma Ramotswe noticed this. “You’re worried about something, Rra?”

  He looked at her. “It’s you, Mma. You’re the one I’m worried about.” He paused. “And I think I know what it’s about. This sister of yours…”

  For a few moments she said nothing. Then she replied, “It’s a bit of a shock, Rra.”

  “Of course it is,” he said. “But you do like her, don’t you?”

  She nodded. “She is a nice lady, Rra. She’s a nurse, you know. Down at Lobatse…” Her voice trailed away.

  He looked at her again. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

  She turned to look at him, and he saw the anguish in her face
.

  “The newspaper cutting said she was forty-three, Rra. That’s what it said.”

  He looked puzzled. “Well, Mma, there’s nothing wrong in being forty-three. I was forty-three a few years ago.” His attempt at good humour did not help, and he saw that. “I’m sorry,” he continued. “I don’t mean to make a joke out of this.”

  She reached out to touch him lightly on the arm. “I know you don’t,” she said. “No, Rra, what’s worrying me is this.” There was something unusual in her voice: disappointment, he thought; even sadness. “If she is forty-three, Rra, then that means she was born a year before I was.” She stared at him; he had not yet understood. “That was when my father was still married to my mother, Rra. She was not yet late.”

  It dawned on him, and he looked down at the ground, embarrassed both by his slowness in realising what she had been driving at and by the conclusion itself. This meant that the late Obed Ramotswe, whom he knew she had always idolised, had been involved with another woman while he was still married to Mma Ramotswe’s mother.

  He cleared his throat. “Oh,” he said. “I see.”

  “Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That is why I am sad, Rra. I am happy that I have a sister—of course I am—but I am also sad that she was born in this way.”

  “But it’s not her fault,” protested Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “How we are born has nothing to do with us.”

  “It’s nothing to do with her,” said Mma Ramotswe, her voice so low as to be almost inaudible. “It’s my daddy.”

  He was silent; it had occurred to him what this meant.

  “He was with another woman while…” She did not finish her sentence.

  He wanted to say so much. He wanted to say to her that it did not mean much; that these things happened; that men sometimes failed in these matters and that it was not very important after all; what counted was what he was like in other respects, and there had never been the slightest doubt about that. But he did not say any of this. So he said nothing.

  She shook her head, as if trying to clarify something that she could not quite believe. “Why would he do that?” she asked. “Why would he go off with another woman when he had my mother? He said he loved her. He always told me that, you know, when I was a little girl. He said that he loved my mother very much and that she was one of the best women in Botswana, and that he had never deserved her.” She paused. “Now I know what he meant. He did not deserve her.”

  He held up a hand. “Oh no, Mma. You mustn’t say that.”

  She looked into his eyes. “Why not, Rra? He was a hypocrite.”

  He winced, but she repeated the charge.

  “He was a hypocrite for saying one thing and doing another. My daddy—I thought he was such a good man, and now I find that he was a hypocrite.”

  He tried to dissuade her from saying anything further. “You must not speak in anger, Mma. You are upset. You mustn’t say things like that just because you’re upset.”

  She took another sip of tea, and then handed him the half-full mug. “Could you carry that back for me, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, please? I am going to walk about the garden for a little while, and then I’ll come back and start the dinner.”

  “I could come with you,” he offered.

  “No, Rra. It would be best for me to be by myself, if you don’t mind. My heart is broken, you see. It is broken.”

  The words took his breath away. She had never declined his company, and this rejection showed him just how deeply she must have been wounded by this discovery of her father’s past. He felt powerless; no words of his, he felt, could do anything to lessen her distress, and so he left her where she was and made his way back into the house alone.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATING OFFICER

  MMA MAKUTSI could tell that there was something wrong with Mma Ramotswe. As they sat in the office the next morning going through the mail, she wondered what it was that was making Mma Ramotswe seem so…well, there was only one word for it, she decided, and that was sad. And there was something quite wrong with that: Mma Ramotswe was the one person she knew who should never be sad. Mma Ramotswe being sad was like a day with no sun, a day with no birdsong at dawn, a day without tea…One could go on, but the essential thing was that Mma Ramotswe should not look sad.

  She knew that it was nothing she had done; they had the occasional tiff, usually over something rather unimportant, but any feeling that such disagreements produced never lasted very long. That pointed to the new sister being the source of the problem. Had they perhaps had a row? There was nobody it was easier to argue with than a member of one’s family, and that must apply every bit as much to newly discovered relatives as it did to old-established ones. Indeed, in the case of a long-lost relative, the first few days of acquaintanceship might be richly productive of rows, as there would be decades of missed disagreements to make up for.

  “I hope you’re all right, Mma,” said Mma Makutsi as she settled at her desk.

  Mma Ramotswe looked up from the letter she was reading. She smiled, but Mma Makutsi thought the smile looked like a sad smile, and her concern merely deepened.

  “I am perfectly well, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And thank you for asking.”

  “I am glad about that,” said Mma Makutsi. “And remember: if there is anything I can do to help, anything at all, then I am here, Mma.”

  Mma Ramotswe thanked her. “You are very kind, Mma, but I am fine.” She paused. “What we do need to do, though, is to have a meeting about the Charity business. We need to work out where we are, and what we can do next.” She noticed that Mma Makutsi stiffened at these words.

  “You are, of course, the Principal Investigating Officer,” Mma Ramotswe added hurriedly. “So you should be in the chair, I think.”

  Mma Makutsi inclined her head graciously. “That would be best,” she said. “We should have a review. It is always useful to have a review.” Mma Makutsi had used the word review before, preferring it to the simpler term meeting. The word review sat well with the term Principal Investigating Officer: it seemed only right and proper that a Principal Investigating Officer should attend frequent reviews and, as a result, come up with “recommendations.”

  “I think Mr. Polopetsi would like to be at the review too,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Will he be coming in today?”

  Mma Makutsi replied that he was expected in half an hour and that it would be important to include him in the review. “Sometimes Mr. Polopetsi has good ideas,” she said. “Not always, of course, but sometimes.”

  “I shall be very interested to hear your recommendations,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  Mma Makutsi loved this, and offered to make tea early, so that the meeting could begin as soon as Mr. Polopetsi arrived. “This is a very complex case,” she said. “There will be many different possibilities to consider.”

  Mr. Polopetsi arrived on time, and was immediately informed by Mma Makutsi that a review was about to begin and that all other business could wait until it had taken place. Mma Makutsi then drew her chair out from behind her desk and positioned it in the centre of the room, with Mma Ramotswe and Mr. Polopetsi on chairs ranged before her.

  “Now Mma, now Rra,” she began. “We must consider what we know so far about this Charity Mompoloki business.”

  She looked at her two colleagues. Mma Ramotswe was clearly preoccupied with something else, but was at least trying to pay attention; Mr. Polopetsi sat on the edge of his chair, as if eagerly awaiting some imminent insight.

  “What are we one hundred per cent certain about?” Mma Makutsi continued. “I shall answer that myself…as Principal Investigating Officer. We know that Charity lost her job because a complaint had been made about her.”

  Mma Ramotswe now looked up. “And we know that she was inclined to be rude. Her own mother told us that. And then one of the other employees confirmed that she had indeed been rude to a customer.”

  Mma Makutsi made an impatient gesture. “Mma, I don’t like to co
rrect you, but even if we know that some people…some people think her rude…”

  Mma Ramotswe gazed out of the window. “Some people includes her mother, Mma. That is significant, I think.”

  Mma Makutsi hesitated, but then came back with a strong response. “Mothers can be wrong, Mma. There is no law that says mothers are always right.”

  Mr. Polopetsi ventured an opinion. “Most mothers know what their children are like, I think.”

  The intervention was a mild one—as always from Mr. Polopetsi—but it bore the full force of Mma Makutsi’s disagreement. “No, Rra, you cannot make sweeping generalisations like that. Mothers are the same as anybody else. They have their prejudices.”

  “Yes, they do,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But usually those prejudices are in favour of their children. That is why it is very significant when a mother admits to a child having a fault.”

  Mr. Polopetsi, although wary of saying anything that might be slapped down by Mma Makutsi, felt he could add something here. “One of my students at the school is very bad at chemistry,” he said. “Very bad indeed. I have to watch him like a hawk in case he blows us all up by mistake. His mother, though, thinks he is brilliant at everything, including chemistry. She wants him to become a chemical engineer, and she will not listen to me when I tell her that this is not a good idea. That is an example of a mother who is prejudiced in favour of her son.”

  Mma Makutsi listened to this politely enough, but now moved the discussion on. “Whatever we think about Charity’s mother,” she said firmly, “my instinct is that Charity herself is innocent.”

  Mma Ramotswe pursed her mouth. It was clear to her that loyalty to the Botswana Secretarial College was still in play here. Mma Makutsi sensed this reservation, and now sought to strengthen her hand. “We must remember,” she went on, “that we have discovered a very powerful motive in this case. We know that the boss, this Mr. Gopolang, was having an affair with some lady. So, if we accept the theory that he fired Charity to give her job to his girlfriend, then we have a way of sorting this whole thing out.”