The House of Unexpected Sisters

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “He cannot be going home,” said Mr. Polopetsi. “A man like that will not be living here—not a man who owns his own business.”

  “Of course he’s not going home, Rra,” said Charlie, somewhat dismissively. “You do not go home if you’re having a lunch-time affair.”

  “We shall see,” said Mma Makutsi. “Let’s not jump to conclusions.” That advice she had garnered from Clovis Andersen and his Principles of Private Detection. Mma Makutsi had underlined the passage in red pencil: Sometimes, wrote the great detective, an answer jumps out at you. Do not trust it! If an answer jumps, then you mustn’t jump yourself.

  Charlie, though, was not deterred. “This is exactly the sort of place where a rich man like Gopolang will keep his girlfriend. He will be too mean to get her a better place, and so he’ll choose something like this for her.”

  The red car was now slowing down again; a flashing indicator light told them it was about to pull in to the side of the road.

  “He’s stopping,” said Charlie. “What do I do? I can’t stop right here, it’ll be too obvious.”

  “Drive on,” said Mma Makutsi quickly. “And look the other way, Mr. Polopetsi. I will too. Then he won’t see our faces if he looks at us as we go past.”

  She and Mr. Polopetsi gazed studiously in the other direction as Charlie drove past the now stationary red car. They need not have bothered; inside the car, Mr. Gopolang was too busy adjusting his tie and checking his appearance in the sun-visor mirror.

  “What now?” asked Charlie.

  “Go to the end of the road,” Mma Makutsi instructed him. “Then turn round and we can drive past again once he’s inside. We can park a bit further down that way—we’ll get a good view from there.”

  Charlie did as she ordered and then started to drive back slowly the way they had come. They saw Mr. Gopolang walk up the short path that led to the front door of the house. They expected that he would go straight in, but that was not what happened. Mr. Gopolang seemed to linger on the doorstep and then, just as they were beginning to draw level with the house, the door opened and a woman came out, closing the door behind her.

  For Mma Makutsi it was a jaw-dropping moment. “Violet Sephotho!” she exclaimed. And then, losing no time, she said to Charlie, “Charlie, speed up,” and to Mr. Polopetsi, “Look the other way, Rra.”

  Had Mr. Gopolang or Violet paid any attention to the car going past, they would have spotted three astonished faces turn towards them and then rapidly look the other way. But they did not, and so, unconcerned, they made their way to Mr. Gopolang’s car, deep in conversation, climbed in, and disappeared down the road in the opposite direction to the one taken by their watchers.

  Mma Makutsi was breathless, her emotions in turmoil, struggling with indignation, fury, and sheer astonishment. When she spoke, her voice was cracked. “Take us straight back to the office, Charlie,” she said. “I must get word of this to Mma Ramotswe without the slightest delay.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  SHE HAD SAID HER HEART WAS BROKEN

  WHILE MMA MAKUTSI, Mr. Polopetsi and Charlie were in the process of making their shocking discovery, Mma Ramotswe closed the office, announcing to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, hard at work in the garage next door, that she was going to drive up to Mochudi for the afternoon. She spoke to him while he and Fanwell were under a car, struggling to replace a cracked oil sump. It was messy work, and when he pulled himself out from under the car she could see that his overalls were covered in the thick black oil that had dripped down from the damaged sump.

  “Oh, Rra,” she said. “Just look at you. I’ll never manage to get those overalls clean—never.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni cast a cursory glance downwards. “They are very old overalls, Mma,” he said. “Perhaps it is time…” He brushed at the dark patch, succeeding only in spreading the oil further. Now he looked at her inquisitively. “What is it, Mma Ramotswe? We are trying hard to fix this car and—”

  She cut him off. “I am going to Mochudi, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni,” she said. “I have not locked the office, but I think that Mma Makutsi will be back quite soon.”

  “To Mochudi, Mma? What is happening up in Mochudi?”

  “Nothing is happening,” she said. “I’m going to think.”

  He knew what this meant, and he was concerned. She had said her heart was broken and he felt powerless to do anything about it. It seemed to him that she did not want to admit him into her sorrow, and he, being a mere mechanic, did not have the words to ask her to let him in on it. That was the problem, he felt: when words were handed out to the various callings by which people lived, all the words were taken by politicians and lawyers and the clever accountants, and not many were left for people like him—the mechanics and the farmers.

  She saw the way he was looking at her. She wanted to say something more to him, but she could not find the words either. This sorrow that she felt was as deep as any that she had felt before, perhaps even including that numbing emptiness that had embraced her when she had lost the baby, and when she had said goodbye to her father. On those occasions she had thought that she would never again experience something so soul-wrenching, but it was dawning on her that what she felt now was every bit as much a bereavement. Something had been taken from her—something that had nourished and supported her, a light that had illuminated her whole world seemed to be flickering and dying.

  They said goodbye to one another. They could not embrace, as Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni would have wanted to do, because he knew that he was covered in oil. From underneath the car, the disembodied voice of Fanwell urged him back to work. “Boss, I think we should get on with this—there’s more oil.” So he said, “I’m coming, Fanwell,” and gave his wife a sort of wave, a motion of an oily, untouchable hand.

  She drove to Mochudi by the old road, which is the road she always chose because of its familiar aspects. Normally, she would have driven slowly, because she knew each bend, each dip, and because every building, every stretch of bush—trackless and monotonous though it may have been to those who did not know it—was well known to her. Now, though, she had no desire to linger, and drove purposefully and faster than usual. The tiny white van responded as best it could, its loyal heart straining, new and threatening noises coming from the engine as she pushed it to its limits. She wondered why she wanted to get there as soon as she could. She should be dreading reaching her destination, feeling the way she did, but instead there was an urge to get there as soon as possible, even if she had no real idea what she would do when she arrived. To anybody who might be watching, it would be the same as any other visit, when people came to a family graveside and laid flowers, or stood still under the sun before they retraced their steps to the gate and to those who were waiting for them.

  She was alone when she drew up and got out of the van. There had been a tree under which people would park, but something had happened to this tree—its trunk had split, its branches were now only half alive but still bore their burden of foliage, bunched up on the ground like gathered skirts. There was a black mark in the cloven wood, a searing as of a torch applied, and this confirmed what she had thought when she saw the broken tree. It was lightning, and it had chosen the tree because it was the highest object for some distance around. It had protected the graveyard itself from being struck, which meant, she found herself thinking, that it had been a sentry for those within—a sentry that had done its job. Yet, she thought, lightning could never disturb those who were in their graves; they were beyond all dangers of this world—indifferent to drought as much as to flood; safe and secure, even in the depths of night when there were creatures abroad that nobody could name or describe, but seemed to be there even though you told yourself they did not exist. You heard the breathing of these creatures sometimes, heard their footfall, sensed their presence; although they faded so quickly, like all imaginary things, when the first rays of the sun touched the land.

  Just before she entered the graveyard—an enclosure bounded by a
straggling cattle fence—she stopped and picked up a piece of paper that had been trapped in the twigs of a shrub. It was something that had been dropped after a burial service, and she saw that it bore the words of an old Setswana hymn. These words were familiar to her; as a girl she had sung them many times, in the small church at Mochudi to which her aunt took her on Sundays. She stared at the paper, and then rubbed it between her fingers. It had that rough, cardboardy feel of paper that has been left out in the elements, and she crunched it into a ball before slipping it into the pocket of her blouse. She heard the words of the hymn, as clearly as if there had been a congregation to sing them; then they faded and the only sound was the calling of a bird somewhere off in the bush behind her, a plea for love or food, or a warning to other birds, perhaps, that such love or food as might be had was already claimed.

  She approached the grave of her mother. Like most of the graves, it was protected by a small raised structure, a traditional set of small iron posts across which a roof of fabric was sometimes stretched. This created a tent of sorts—although the wind was unmerciful and would make tatters of one’s efforts, and there was no cover now. The surface of her mother’s grave, marked by chips of stone within the curtilage of the posts, was open to the sky, which was better, she thought, because the touch of the sun on a grave seemed to her to be a natural and good thing. At its head was a small red-stone marker, rectangular and crumbling at the very edges, on which a few words had been carved: Angel Ramotswe, dear wife of Obed Ramotswe, and mother of Precious. She read the words again, and stumbled over dear wife. Her father must have chosen those words himself, and yet…She closed her eyes. Her grief was almost unbearable.

  She turned and took the few steps that would take her to her father’s side. There was a stone of the same sort, more recent of course and therefore less weathered. She had to force herself to look at it, because everything within her made her want to avert her eyes. She read the inscription: Obed Ramotswe: now gathered to the Lord. Those were her words, and she remembered why she had chosen them. It was because you gathered in cattle at the end of the day, and he had been so proud of his cattle…So proud; and she had been proud of him, or everything he stood for—the old ways of thinking about things and doing them; the old Botswana morality, the kindness that lay at the heart of that. And now all that was dust.

  How could he have done it? How could he have gone off with another woman while her mother was still with him? Even though she knew that men could fail because they were weak, as we all were, he was not like other men—he was her daddy, her beloved daddy, and now everything that he had stood for was diminished because he must have been a deceiver, just like so many men.

  She looked down at the earth. Sooner or later we all became just that—earth—and people forgot all about us. And yet we tried to keep late people alive; we tried. But we often did not succeed for very long, because the memory of them faded and we forgot how they sounded and what they said and even how they looked. She had not allowed that to happen with her daddy; she had thought of him every day, even occasionally speaking to him as if he were there at her side. She had not done that since she had found out about Mingie. It was as if somebody had finally gone away; after all these years, somebody had gone away.

  She knew what she had to do. She had always believed in forgiveness, and even in her work she had applied the principle that we simply had to forgive others for what they did. This was no different; she would have to forgive him. But there was more to it than that; she knew that in forgiving him, she would be saying goodbye—finally this time—she would be saying that it was over. She would not come back here, and these graves would become like those other graves, where the people who tended them had simply gone away, or become late themselves.

  She summoned up her courage, and then she spoke. It was a simple goodbye—just a few words, uttered in the Setswana language, to which late people reverted no matter how much English they spoke in their lives; because that was the language that the ancestors would understand. Then she said the words that would have to make do for her forgiveness—and she turned away and went out through the gate, her eyes filled with tears that seemed to come from the deepest place within her, from the heart itself, from the same profound wells from which love itself does spring.

  —

  BY THE TIME she got back to the office she was calmer. Mma Makutsi was at her desk, having arrived back an hour or so earlier. Mr. Polopetsi had waited for a short time in the hope of seeing Mma Ramotswe, but had been obliged to go off to teach a chemistry lesson at the Gaborone Secondary School. Nor was Charlie there: he had been sent off by Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to collect a spare part from the motor trade wholesaler in the old industrial sites.

  Mma Makutsi could barely contain herself. “Mma Ramotswe,” she blurted out, “you will never guess what we have found out—never in a hundred years.”

  Mma Ramotswe lowered herself into the chair behind her desk. It was a well-padded and voluminous chair, but it would need replacing sooner or later, she thought, for now it squeaked whenever she moved. If a client was present, she felt that would hardly be compatible with the dignity of the agency.

  “You were watching this Mr. Gopolang,” she said. “So it’s something to do with him? Something to do with his private life?”

  “Yes,” said Mma Makutsi. “That is what it is about.”

  “So, let me see,” mused Mma Ramotswe. “You have found out who his girlfriend is?”

  Mma Makutsi nodded her head excitedly. “We have, Mma. We have seen her.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked thoughtful. “And it’s somebody known to us?”

  Again, Mma Makutsi nodded. But now she simply had to reveal the name. “It’s Violet Sephotho!” she exclaimed.

  Mma Ramotswe raised an eyebrow. “Violet? Well, she does get around, doesn’t she?”

  Mma Makutsi’s expression was one of complete disgust. “She’s shameless, Mma. She’s always been shameless, right from the beginning—sitting there at the Botswana Secretarial College, painting her nails during the shorthand lectures, thinking about men. Shamelessness of a very high order, Mma.”

  Ninety-seven per cent shamelessness, thought Mma Ramotswe, irreverently. And then she found herself wondering how Mma Makutsi could tell when somebody was thinking about men: Did the face assume a particular, men-related look? Or did one simply assume that somebody like Violet Sephotho, who had revealed her interest in men in a hundred different ways, was more likely to be thinking about men than about shorthand, or any of the other things that might occupy the minds of those who attended classes at the Botswana Secretarial College?

  “This is a very interesting development, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “So, do you think it means that Mr. Gopolang will be planning to give Charity’s job to Violet?”

  Mma Makutsi hesitated. “It must be something like that, Mma Ramotswe. It all adds up.”

  But Mma Ramotswe was not so sure. Violet Sephotho was an ambitious woman—and it was widely believed that she would stop at nothing to advance her career. Why would an ambitious woman be interested in selling office furniture? Surely Violet, with all her pretensions, would set her sights somewhat higher than that. Now Mma Ramotswe made that point to Mma Makutsi, who listened intently and seemed to be weighing her response.

  “Unless,” Mma Makutsi began, “unless the plan to replace Charity with Violet was something dreamed up by Mr. Gopolang without consulting Violet herself.” She paused, giving herself time to develop the argument further. Then, when satisfied that it all made sense in her mind, she continued with conviction, “In other words, he may have been thinking about himself rather than about her—and what she might want. Yes, Mma, that seems likely, I think. I think that he might have been planning to put her into that job so that he could have an excuse to see her all day—and to have her more in his power. He would be her boss and her boyfriend too—men love that sort of thing, you know. It makes them feel even more powerful.”

  Mma Ram
otswe considered this. It was perfectly possible, she thought, but she wondered if it made any difference from their—or Charity’s—point of view. The agency’s interest was in discovering whether there had been a false accusation and an unfair dismissal. That was all they needed to find out, and it seemed to her that they had now done so, or at least they had unearthed something that strengthened their case. And yet, and yet…Even if Mr. Gopolang had acted improperly, it was doubtful that they would be able to do anything about it, as he could simply deny that his motive in dismissing Charity had been improper. On the other hand, if Mma Ramotswe were able to confront him and tell him that she knew why he had done what he did, then that might force him to undo the dismissal. But then she asked herself: Why would he do that? The answer was that he would only act if he felt that a failure to do anything would result in the information about his affair becoming known to…She smiled at the thought: to his wife. One of the things that she had learned in her profession, and from going through life, was that there were many men who were afraid of their wives. This was a secret that men in general preferred not to be widely known, but she had seen it time and time again—confident, even boastfully strong men lived in fear of their wives, who were often the only people capable of controlling them. It started when these confident, boastfully strong men were confident, boastfully strong boys, but with forceful mothers. That set the pattern, and it continued for the rest of their lives. So if you wanted to deal with such a man, the answer was to find his mother or his wife. They were the people he would be in awe of; they were the people who could produce the desired result.

  “I think we might be able to give Mr. Gopolang a bit of a fright,” she said to Mma Makutsi. And then, bearing in mind that Mma Makutsi was the Principal Investigating Officer, she added, “That is, if you don’t mind my getting involved, Mma.”

  Mma Makutsi did not mind. She had been worried about Mma Ramotswe’s uncharacteristically low mood, and she was pleased that this appeared to be lifting. And the thought of having Mma Ramotswe pitted against Violet Sephotho was reassuring, as, if truth be told, Mma Makutsi, for all her ninety-seven per cent, was slightly afraid of Violet Sephotho. Not that she would admit it, of course, and not that it was real fear, but it was nonetheless comforting to know that Violet was facing not only Botswana’s most famous detective, but one who was also traditionally built, as brave as a lioness, and capable, in extreme situations, of actually sitting on people who could not be subdued in any other way. What a delicious image, she thought: Violet Sephotho being sat upon by Mma Ramotswe; Violet would struggle and squeal, but avoirdupois would always win in such an encounter and Violet would be confounded, winded, and put to silence—a lovely prospect, but unlikely to occur, she feared. Still, one might dream, and dreams, even unlikely ones, could make you feel warm inside—if you allowed them to.