The House of Unexpected Sisters

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Mr. Polopetsi looked puzzled. “How can we do that, Mma?”

  Mma Makutsi smiled. “Mr. Polopetsi,” she said, “imagine that you are a man…”

  Mr. Polopetsi sat up in his seat. “I am a man, Mma.”

  Mma Makutsi looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Rra, I didn’t mean to suggest you are not a man. What I meant is imagine that you are the average man.”

  Mma Ramotswe thought this rather tactless, but did not say anything. Asking Mr. Polopetsi to imagine that he was an average man implied that he was not an average man, that he was somehow unusual. But Mr. Polopetsi had not taken offence; he nodded and said, “Yes, all right: I’m an average man. What now, Mma?”

  Mma Makutsi continued: “And let’s say that you were doing what Gopolang did—you fired an employee in order to replace her with your girlfriend.” She paused, and then, with rhetorical flourish, went on to ask, “What would you fear most of all? Let us imagine that you are still with your wife and you do not want to end up in a messy and expensive divorce—what would frighten you most?”

  He answered without hesitation. “That my wife would find out.”

  “Precisely,” said Mma Makutsi. “And that is what is happening all over the place, Rra. There are men who are shaking in their boots because they are afraid that their wives will find something out. In fact, there is probably not a man in the land who is not worried that his wife will find out something or other.”

  Mma Ramotswe thought this a bit extreme. She could not imagine Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni worrying about that, or Phuti Radiphuti, for that matter. But she was interested to see where Mma Makutsi’s argument was going to lead.

  She did not have to wait long. “So,” said Mma Makutsi, “we have a big weapon in our hands, Mr. Polopetsi. Once we find out a bit more detail we can go to the wife of this Gopolang and tell her. She will soon put a stop to that nonsense if we say to her, ‘Your husband is going to give his girlfriend a job.’ Any wife would say, ‘Not if I have anything to do with it.’ ”

  Mma Ramotswe drew in her breath. This was a dangerous strategy, and she was not sure that it was a good idea. But she had a lot on her mind, and now that Mma Makutsi was Principal Investigating Officer it would cause a lot of upset if she intervened. So she simply said, “Interesting, Mma Makutsi. Very interesting.”

  This was taken as a compliment, and Mma Makutsi beamed with pleasure. “What we need to do, then, Mr. Polopetsi,” she concluded, “is to confirm this girlfriend. We shall observe our friend Mr. Gopolang, and find out who is this no-good woman he’s seeing. We shall then have strong evidence to lay before the wife.”

  “But it will take a lot of time to follow Gopolang,” Mr. Polopetsi pointed out. “And the agency is not being paid for this.”

  Mma Makutsi shook her head. “If he’s having an affair, he’ll want to see her every day.”

  “So we follow him in the evening—when he leaves the store?”

  “No,” said Mma Makutsi. “Men who have affairs have them during the day. They have them at lunch time.”

  This view was expressed with such firmness and authority that Mma Ramotswe found herself nodding in agreement. But then she thought: How does Mma Makutsi know that?

  The answer was not long in coming, and it was expressed with the same confidence. “When I was at the Botswana Secretarial College,” Mma Makutsi continued, “there was a lecturer who knew all about office problems. She had made a study of them and was a big expert—maybe even a world expert on such matters. She told us that if there was an affair going on in the office, it would always be conducted at lunch time. She said that there were very few exceptions to that.”

  Mr. Polopetsi seemed to agree. “There were two teachers at the school who were having an affair. They met at lunch time.”

  Mma Ramotswe raised an eyebrow. “In the staff room?”

  Mr. Polopetsi looked at her reproachfully. “No, not in the staffroom, Mma. They took to meeting one another in my chemistry storeroom. I didn’t know about it until we had an incident—a chemical incident.”

  Both Mma Makutsi and Mma Ramotswe stared at Mr. Polopetsi.

  “And?” prompted Mma Makutsi.

  Mr. Polopetsi became embarrassed. “They knocked over a bottle of acid. I don’t know what they were doing at the time, but they broke a bottle of hydrochloric acid. It spilled over some calcium carbonate, and well, you know what that leads to.” He laughed nervously. “Oh yes, that leads to something, all right.”

  “We do not know, Rra,” said Mma Makutsi, slightly impatiently. “What does it lead to?”

  Mr. Polopetsi seemed surprised that he had to explain. “CaCO3,” he began, “plus HCl gives us CaCl2 plus CO2 plus H2O. It’s simple. You get calcium chloride, water, and, of course, carbon dioxide.”

  “You wouldn’t want to be in a storeroom with carbon dioxide bubbling away,” said Mma Makutsi. “At the Botswana Secretarial College we were warned about carbon dioxide.”

  Mr. Polopetsi frowned. “I think that would have been carbon monoxide, Mma. That is always a danger, that gas. You cannot smell it, you see, and it can be very dangerous.”

  “It was carbon dioxide, Rra,” said Mma Makutsi coldly. “Remember that I was there. It was carbon dioxide.”

  “Ah well,” said Mr. Polopetsi, “be that as it may, this carbon dioxide is dangerous too. And so they had to rush out of the storeroom and it was all very embarrassing.”

  Mma Makutsi took control. “So, that’s decided then. You and I shall observe Mr. Gopolang over the lunch hour and see where he goes—or who comes to him. Then we shall go to his wife and tell her.” She paused. “Does everyone agree?”

  Mma Ramotswe had strong reservations, but she did not like to voice them. Her mind was on her sister, and her father too, but it was also on Note. Her life, it seemed to her, had suddenly become immensely complicated, and these were the only things that she could think about. Charity’s situation was a difficult one, but somehow her own problems seemed to overshadow everything else. And it was all very well being a professional sorter-out of other people’s difficulties, but what about your own? How could you sort those out when all you could think about was your ex-husband, your new and unexpected sister, and of course your late father and how he had let you down?

  —

  IT WAS A TEAM OF THREE: Charlie was at the wheel of the van, with Mr. Polopetsi and Mma Makutsi squashed in beside him. Now they sat together, somewhat uncomfortably, parked under an obliging tree not far from the entrance to The Office Place. Charlie was in an ebullient mood, excited at the prospect of being involved in some clandestine observation. He was pleased, too, that his theory as to what was happening appeared to have been accepted. “I told you this is what was happening,” he said. “This is what I said was going on, remember?”

  “Yes, yes, Charlie,” said Mma Makutsi. “You did say something like that.”

  Charlie preened himself. “Well, there you are, Mma Makutsi. I’m glad you remember that.” He paused. “Sometimes, it seems to me, you think I know nothing. You think that just because I’m a man, I know nothing and that women know everything.”

  Mma Makutsi looked pointedly out of the window. “I’ve never said that, Charlie.” She glanced at Mr. Polopetsi. “I’ve never said that, have I, Rra?”

  Mr. Polopetsi squirmed with embarrassment. “I haven’t heard her say that, Charlie. Although that’s not to say…”

  A further glance from Mma Makutsi silenced him.

  “You see,” said Mma Makutsi. “You’re a bit too sensitive, Charlie. If you want to make it in this life, you can’t go round thinking that people are talking about you. You’ll get nowhere that way, you know.”

  Charlie said nothing.

  “And another thing,” continued Mma Makutsi. “You must always remember that if you have an idea, there may be other people who have the same idea at the same time. They may have that idea but they may not say anything about it, you know. So this business of Mr. Gopolang—how do you
know that I wasn’t thinking the same thing?”

  Charlie looked sceptical. “And were you, Mma? Were you thinking that?”

  “I was thinking of many things,” said Mma Makutsi enigmatically. “There were many things on my mind.”

  Mr. Polopetsi nodded. “I have often thought about that,” he ventured. “I have often thought how strange it is that we can be thinking about one thing and then, without any warning, we find ourselves thinking about another thing.”

  “That is very true, Rra,” said Mma Makutsi. “Sometimes we are like birds. Have you seen how birds are clearly thinking one thing and then they remember something else? They may be sitting on a tree and then suddenly they fly up and move to another tree. Or they’re standing on the ground looking at something and then without any warning they fly up and go off somewhere else.”

  Charlie said that this was something to do with evolution. “If we are like birds,” he said, “that is because we are descended from them.”

  Mma Makutsi gave him a sideways look. “We are not descended from birds, Charlie.” She turned to Mr. Polopetsi. “We aren’t descended from birds, are we, Mr. Polopetsi?”

  Mr. Polopetsi gave a nervous laugh. “No, of course not. Human beings descended from apes. They are our cousins, so to speak.”

  Charlie whistled. “That’s what you think, Mr. Polopetsi. Baboons? Not me.”

  Mma Makutsi looked at her watch. “It is almost one o’clock,” she muttered. “He will be stopping work for his lunch.”

  Mr. Polopetsi looked doubtful. “That is, if he stops,” he said. “There are many people who work irregular hours—especially if they’re the boss.”

  Mma Makutsi replied that although that may be true, she thought that bosses who were busy having affairs would probably want their lunch-time break. “They sit there thinking about the lady they will be meeting.”

  Charlie chuckled. “And then, oh my goodness, they’ll be busy.”

  The salacious note seemed to offend Mr. Polopetsi. “I don’t think you should speak like that, Charlie,” he said.

  “I’m just talking about what’s going on,” said Charlie. “You cannot pretend that people don’t do things like that, you know. It’s going on all the time, Mr. Polopetsi.”

  The discussion was brought to an abrupt end by Mma Makutsi. She had seen the door of The Office Place opening. “Hush,” she said. “Something is happening now.”

  They watched as a tall man came out of the building and stood for a few moments, as if uncertain as to what to do.

  “Is that him?” whispered Charlie.

  “It is,” Mma Makutsi answered. “I have seen him before. He is a very tall man.”

  “That’s why he’s popular with the ladies,” said Charlie. “Have you noticed that? Have you noticed how girls like men who are tall—like me?”

  Mma Makutsi made a dismissive noise. “You’re not very tall, Charlie. And anyway, concentrate. Your job is to drive.”

  “Is he going somewhere?” asked Charlie.

  His question was answered by Mr. Gopolang himself, who now walked purposively towards the small car park to the side of the building. This served several nearby businesses and was almost full. He stopped at the side of a large red car, fished in his pocket for a key, and opened the driver’s door.

  They watched from the other side of the street as Mr. Gopolang’s car nosed out onto the road. “Start the engine now, Charlie,” Mma Makutsi instructed. “But don’t get too close to him. Follow at a distance.”

  “But not too much of a distance,” added Mr. Polopetsi. “There can be a lot of traffic at lunch time with people going off to their—”

  Charlie completed his sentence. “Going off to their lovers. Hah! All these cars full of people going off to—”

  Mma Makutsi stopped him. “Pay attention to your driving, Charlie.”

  “All right, all right,” muttered Charlie irritably. And then, after a few moments, he added, “Mind you, that man looks about fifty. What’s he doing going to see a woman? How has he got the energy to do these things if he’s fifty?”

  Mr. Polopetsi frowned. “Fifty is not very old, Charlie. And I’ve known men who are eighty and above who are still interested in ladies.”

  Charlie whistled. “They’d better watch out, those old men. They’ll have a heart attack if they carry on with—”

  Mma Makutsi interrupted him again. “Don’t let him get too far ahead, Charlie. Watch the road—and stop talking about these things. It’s the only thing you seem able to think about.”

  The red car crossed the first major roundabout and headed down the road that led towards the place where fishermen sold fish caught in the dam. Good rains the previous year, breaking the drought that had reduced the dam to little more than a bed of cracked dry mud, had filled it to capacity, and more: an overflow cascading over the lip of the dam wall had revitalised streams that had long since faded from human memory, taking the water over the land, bringing a flush of luxuriant green growth, quenching the thirst of ground that had almost given up hope. Somehow fish had survived—some people said they burrowed into the mud and slept, sometimes for years, until the rains returned and they could swim once more. Others said—with greater credibility, perhaps—that fish came downstream from places where some surface water had survived the drought, and had just travelled down to the dam when the opportunity arose. For the fishermen, though, the important thing was that the fish were there again, and that they could find bream and barbel lurking in the reeds that had miraculously sprung up again where they had been before the rains had failed. Now two of them sheltered under a tree with their catch—admittedly not an impressive one, but a catch nonetheless—hung up on lines to attract passers-by.

  Charlie pointed to the fishermen as they drove past. “There used to be three of those men,” he said. “My uncle knew them. Now there are only two. One of them is late.”

  “Many people are late these days,” said Mma Makutsi.

  “Yes,” said Charlie. “But that one is late because of a crocodile. He was fishing, and there was a crocodile watching him. It dragged him into the water.”

  “They are very dangerous creatures,” said Mr. Polopetsi. He nodded his head sadly. “There are many things in this country that will eat you if they get the chance.”

  Mma Makutsi had her eyes fixed on the red car ahead, but could not let this pass. “I don’t think so, Rra,” she said. “Crocodiles, yes, but apart from them what creatures are there that will eat us? Lions? But that’s all.”

  Charlie shook his head. “Leopards too, Mma. Remember there are leopards.”

  “They are very shy creatures,” said Mma Makutsi. “You hardly ever see them. They keep away from us.”

  “I’ve known people who have been eaten by leopards,” said Charlie.

  Mma Makutsi challenged him. “Name one, Charlie.”

  “I cannot remember their names,” Charlie snapped back. “But there are also pythons. A big python can easily eat a man. Not a fat lady, perhaps, but a small man will be easy for them.” He glanced at Mr. Polopetsi. “Somebody like Mr. Polopetsi here. He could easily be eaten by a python.” He looked thoughtful, and added, “A wild dog too, I think. He would be able to eat you, Rra. And a hyena—I think that you are small enough to be eaten by a hyena.”

  Mr. Polopetsi tried to smile. “I shall be very careful, Charlie, don’t you worry.”

  Charlie was warming to his theme. “You can be as careful as you like, Rra,” he continued. “But all these people who get eaten—do you think they weren’t being careful? I’m sure they were. The problem is that you can only look in one direction at a time. So, if you’re looking that way, then how do you know that there is not some creature coming up behind you? How do you know that, Rra? The answer is that you don’t. And then the hyena or whatever it is gets you and starts to eat you and it’s too late.”

  This was too much for Mma Makutsi. “You’re frightening Mr. Polopetsi, Charlie. Stop it. Nobody’s
going to be eaten.”

  “That’s what you think, Mma,” retorted Charlie, slowing down to take a corner that the red car had just negotiated. “But I still think that people need to look out. Imagine being eaten! Ow! You’re walking along and this lion comes up and starts to eat you. What do you think about? Do you say to yourself, ‘Oh, this is very bad—I’m being eaten?’ Is that what people think, Mma Makutsi? Or do you think of all the bad things you’ve done and say sorry for them?”

  “If you’ve done bad things, Charlie,” said Mma Makutsi. “But not all of us have done that many bad things. We’re not all like you, you know.”

  Mr. Polopetsi laughed at this, but stopped when he saw Charlie’s expression.

  “I’m not bad,” the young man protested. “You think that I’m bad just because I have a little bit of fun.”

  Mma Makutsi was conciliatory. “I’m sorry, Charlie, I didn’t mean that. And look, I think he’s slowing down.”

  “That’s because there is a dog crossing the road,” said Mr. Polopetsi.

  “That’s the easiest way for a dog to become late,” said Charlie. “You don’t see them. Then, bang! Late dog.”

  The red car speeded up again. They were now getting to the Village, the part of town at the top of the Tlokweng Road. Off to their left, beyond the cemetery, was the cluster of modest houses among which Mma Makutsi had rented her room when she first worked for the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. It was a more sought-after suburb than Old Naledi, which they had just passed, but none of the houses had more than two bedrooms, and many of them could have done with a lick of paint.

  Mr. Gopolang’s car now began to indicate a left turn, and Charlie, slowing down so as not to be too obviously following, followed suit.