Mma Ramotswe's eyes opened wide. “I knew it!” she exclaimed. “I knew it, Mma Makutsi! That is how Violet Sephotho manages to sell so many beds.”
Mma Makutsi shook her head. “It is so shameful,” she said. “It is so shameful that this has been happening under Phuti's nose and he did not know what she has been saying to the customers.”
Charlie raised a finger. “Maybe he does, Mma.”
Mma Makutsi frowned. “What do you mean, Charlie?”
Charlie looked awkward. “I might have told him myself, Mma. I didn't mean to, but … Well, you see, what happened was this. After I had told her that I was going to think about it, I started to leave. But I saw a man looking at one of the beds as if he was inspecting it. As I walked past him I whispered, You should buy one of these beds, Rra! You get a lot of extras! I was just trying to be friendly—one man talking to another, you know. Anyway, he stood up, this man and he turned round, and I saw it was your Phuti Radiphuti, Mma Makutsi. Yes! And he said, What are you talking about? So I told him and he started to shake—like this, Mma—and he said, She is a very wicked lady and he walked off towards her and I came out, Mma. That is all.”
Mma Ramotswe looked at Mma Makutsi. “I do not think that we need to do anything more, Mma,” she said. “Phuti now knows about the …”
“Bad woman in his bed,” supplied Mma Makutsi, adding, quickly, “department.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
TEA WITH MMA POTOKWANE
OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS the staff of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency—that is, Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi, with some assistance from Mr. Polopetsi—were more than usually busy. The atmosphere in the office, though, was not as strained as it sometimes was during busy periods; in fact, it was rather light-hearted, not dissimilar to the mood that prevailed in the weeks before Christmas, when everybody was looking forward to parties and celebrations. Christmas was, of course, still some time away; what led to the lightness of mood now was the evident happiness of Mma Makutsi. The tensions that had arisen on the appointment of Violet had disappeared the very afternoon of Mma Ramotswe's exposure of the real reason for her sales success. Phuti Radiphuti, an upright man, had been profoundly shocked to hear of her sales technique, and had dismissed Violet immediately. The enraged former manager of the bed department had stormed out, meeting Mma Ramotswe and the others, still standing beside the van in the car park.
“It is you, Mma Ramotswe, who has done this thing to me,” she hissed. “I shall not forget it.” And then, seeing Mma Makutsi waiting in the van, she had shaken a finger at her erstwhile classmate and shouted abuse in her direction. “And you, Grace Makutsi! Don't you think that I don't know that you've been involved in this. Well, if I were you, I'd hang on to your precious Phuti Radiphuti very tight. He really likes me, you know. He couldn't keep his hands off me, you know. And he an engaged man!”
“Don't believe her,” called out Mma Ramotswe as she approached the van. “Phuti would never.”
“Oh yes he would,” yelled Violet. “And he did.”
Mma Ramotswe was now at the van and she climbed into the cab, emphasising to Mma Makutsi the meretricious nature of everything that Violet said. “Do not believe that woman,” she said. “She is jealous of you. And Phuti is a good, upright man. He is still your fiancé—that is what Violet cannot stand.”
“I trust Phuti,” said Mma Makutsi. “He would never go near a woman like her. And I never thought he would.”
This, thought Mma Ramotswe, was not strictly true—Mma Makutsi had been convinced that Violet presented a very real danger—but she did not argue. The important thing was that Mma Makutsi's mood was back to normal and that they would be able to get on with their work on the Molofololo case in reasonably good spirits. Not that Mma Ramotswe dared hope that they were getting anywhere with that inquiry—indeed, it was remarkable how similar were the responses of all the other players they had spoken to that week.
Even Rops Thobega, who was interviewed by Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi together, had much the same view as Big Man Tafa and the others about the interference of Mr. Molofololo. “He means well,” said Rops, “but I wish he would stop meaning quite so well. He's always changing things, you know. Do things this way—no, do them this way. All the time. And then six months ago he went and changed all our kit—shorts, strips, socks, boots, the lot. He had some new sponsor who got him all this kit and he made us use it. It's never-ending. Change, change, change. Nag, nag, nag. And he never listens to us. Never.”
She had wondered about Big Man, and about one or two of the others, but had decided, in the end, that there really was nobody at whom the finger could be pointed. Nor a nose either.
At the end of the week, Mma Ramotswe began to draft the report that she planned to submit to Mr. Molofololo the following Monday. She dictated it to Mma Makutsi, sitting in their office, in the heat of mid-morning, watching the flies on the ceiling as she spoke.
“My assistant and I have jointly spoken to every member of the team. We have found no notable instances of disloyalty. Every member appears to be fond of the Kalahari Swoopers, and we found no evidence that any one of them would willingly do anything to ensure that opposing teams won. At the same time we found that there was …”
She paused. “How should I put that, Mma?” she asked Mma Makutsi.
“We found that there was some dissatisfaction,” suggested Mma Makutsi.
“Very good. We found that there was some dissatisfaction with the style that you yourself adopt in telling the team what to do. We do not wish to give offence, Rra, but we must tell you that the team might play better if you did not spend so much time changing tactics and telling them what to do. In conclusion, therefore …”
Again Mma Makutsi provided the form of words. “You should say, In conclusion, we think that there is no evidence of a traitor and all inquiries of this nature should be terminated—after payment of our bill, which we now append to this report as appendix 1(a).”
“That is very good,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You are very good with words, Mma. And I am happy enough with this report now, even though it says really very little …”
“It says nothing,” said Mma Makutsi, closing her notebook with a flourish. “But that, Mma, is because there are some cases in which there is nothing to say.”
WHEN SATURDAY CAME, Mma Ramotswe arranged for Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to drop Puso off at the football ground where the Kalahari Swoopers were due to play the Molepolole Squibs. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had toyed with the idea of going too, but had decided, in the end, to catch up on his accounts, which he had sorely neglected over the last month. If you don't send bills, Mma Ramotswe had pointed out to him, then people forget to pay you. He knew that was true, and yet there always seemed so many other things to do—more important things, he felt, such as finding what was wrong with a particularly cantankerous car, or looking for a spare part for Mma Potokwane's old van, or any of the other things that a generous-hearted mechanic finds himself asked to do. Of course it would have been simpler had he insisted on payment in every case before a vehicle was removed—every other garage did that—but how could he turn away a car in need simply because of its owner's temporary impecuniosity? He could not, and Mma Ramotswe—and everybody else, particularly impecunious drivers—loved him for it.
So it was accounts, rather than football, for Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, and for Mma Ramotswe it was, to her immense satisfaction, a perfectly ordinary Saturday. She would do her shopping with Motholeli before dropping her off to play at a friend's house. Then she would have tea at the President Hotel, perhaps call in on a friend for a further cup of tea, walk in her garden, sit on her verandah, plan the evening meal, and have an afternoon nap on her bed with the latest copy of her favourite magazine. That would be the best part of it all—lying on the bed reading helpful household hints and about the exotic, patently doomed romance of some distant person, before allowing the magazine to slip out of her hand as sleep—dreamless afternoon sleep—overt
ook her.
Puso, of course, was bursting with excitement as he prepared for his football outing. This excitement was mixed with a certain self-importance: he had been told to report to Mr. Molofololo when he arrived at the game, and he would be allowed to help the team get ready. He now spoke of the team as “us” and Mr. Molofololo as “my friend, Rra Molofololo.” But he was realistic, too, for all his enthusiasm, and told Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni as they drove to the match that he thought it likely that the Molepolole Squibs would win.
“You never know,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “You never know what can happen.”
“We will not play well,” said Puso. “We are full of bad luck at the moment.”
And when he was collected at the end of the match, his expression told Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni everything, even before the young boy had climbed into the cab of the truck.
“No?” asked Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.
“The Squibs won,” said Puso. “They are not a very strong team, but they won. They scored so many goals.”
“But it was a good game?” asked Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.
“If you were a Squib,” said Puso.
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was thoughtful. There would have to be a lesson about sportsmanship, and about enjoying a game, no matter what the outcome. It was sometimes a hard lesson to be learned, and some people never learned it, but it was needed. He looked at Puso and tried to remember what it was like to be that age. You wanted things so much—that was it: you wanted things so much that you ached. And sometimes you believed that you could make the things you yearned for happen, just by willing them. He had done that himself—he remembered it vividly, when as a boy he had lost a favourite uncle and he had walked out into the bush and looked up at the sky and addressed God directly: Please make him not be dead. Please make him not be dead. And when he had got home, he had half expected that his act of willing would have somehow worked and his uncle would have miraculously recovered. But of course there was still the sound of keening women and the black armbands and all the other signs that it had not worked: the world is the world in spite of all our wishes to the contrary.
When they returned to the house, Mma Ramotswe was up from her nap and was chopping onions in the kitchen. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni told her that the Kalahari Swoopers had not played well—as everyone expected—and that Puso was taking it badly.
“He'll learn,” she said. “We all learn about losing.”
“Except Mr. Molofololo,” mused Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “I'm not sure that he's learned about losing.”
“No,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Some people like that seem not to have learned these simple lessons.”
Puso came into the kitchen and began to tell her about the game. After a few minutes, she lost track of what he was saying. It was something about tackles and fouls and penalties— technical details that she had heard people talking about over the past weeks but that still meant very little to her. And then, by chance, she said, “And did you talk to the players? Did Mr. Molofololo let you help, as he said he would?”
Puso nodded. “I was allowed to hold the ball while they were waiting to go on. Some of them talked to me.”
She began to peel another onion. She was not really interested in football any more, now that she had written her report and was intending to bring the investigation to an unsatisfactory conclusion. But Puso was, and she was listening with half an ear. “And what did they say?” she asked.
“Most of them said they didn't like their boots,” he said. “One of them said that they were very uncomfortable, and the others all joined in.”
Mma Ramotswe hesitated. She put down the onion.
“They said that their boots were uncomfortable?”
“Yes. They said that Mr. Molofololo had made them wear boots that a sponsor had given them. They said that they had been wearing them for six months and they were still uncomfortable. I thought they looked very nice …”
Mma Ramotswe looked out of the window. It was so obvious. So obvious. But then the solutions to complex problems were often such simple things. If you wore uncomfortable boots, then how could you play good football? Of course you cannot—everybody, even a woman who owned a detective agency and who came from Mochudi and who had a fine mechanic for a husband, and two children who loved her although she was not their real mother, and who was the daughter of a man called Obed Ramotswe—even such a woman, with absolutely no knowledge of football, and no interest in it—even she would know that.
Then she remembered something, and the remembering of it struck her so forcefully that she found herself holding her breath, almost afraid to breathe. Of course. Of course. Mr. Molofololo had made that strange remark, right at the beginning: I am the one. It is me. He knew! He knew—on one level—that he was the problem, and it had slipped out. He knew but did not know, as was often the case with a person's own faults. We know what is wrong, but we cannot bring ourselves to admit it. She had helped clients like that before—people who really knew the answer to their problems but wanted somebody else to help them admit it. She breathed out. Yes. Yes.
She turned round and suddenly picked Puso up and hugged him. It was exactly the sort of gesture that a small boy would find acutely embarrassing—that they would run away from to avoid— but he suffered it. “You clever, clever boy!”
The boy's embarrassment turned to puzzlement. “Why, Mma?”
“Oh, Puso, it is a very big case that you have just solved. What … what treat would you like? Tell me.”
He looked up at her. “Ice cream,” he said. “Lots of it.”
“There will be ice cream,” she said. “We shall go right now. In the van. Ice cream—lots and lots of ice cream. More than you can eat—I promise you.”
THE FOLLOWING MONDAY MORNING, at eleven o'clock, Mma Ramotswe drove out to the orphan farm to have tea with Mma Potokwane. She had received no specific invitation, and when she left the office of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency she had no idea even that the matron would be in. But in the event she received her usual warm greeting from her friend, who was standing in front of her office in an apparently idle moment.
“Nothing to do, Mma Ramotswe?” Mma Potokwane called out. “Time for a cup of tea?”
“You do not look very busy yourself,” replied Mma Ramotswe, as she walked up to greet her.
“I am standing here planning,” said Mma Potokwane. “I do my best thinking when I am on my feet watching the children playing.”
Mma Ramotswe looked round. A group of very small children were playing under a tree—some strange game of childhood that involved tagging and running. There had been so many of those games, thought Mma Ramotswe—all with complicated rules and a history behind them; just like the affairs of the adult world— complicated rules and a history.
“They look happy,” Mma Ramotswe said.
Mma Potokwane smiled. “They are very happy. No matter what they have had in their lives before, they are very happy.” She gestured for Mma Ramotswe to follow her into the office.
“I see you are driving a new van,” she said, as they sat down. “It is very smart.”
Mma Ramotswe said nothing.
“And your old van? The white one?” asked Mma Potokwane.
“My old van has been retired. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni decided that he could not fix it any more.”
“He did that with our water pump,” said Mma Potokwane. “I thought that it could go on a bit longer, but he said that it could not. They are like that sometimes—mechanics. They decide that the end has come and then nothing you say can make them think otherwise.” She paused. “Are you sad, Mma? Sad about your van?”
Mma Ramotswe sighed. “I am. But I think that I am going to get it back. I know where it has gone and I am going to go up there one day soon and find it. There is a man who has bought it to fix it up. I shall go up there—it's in Machaneng—and buy it back.”
She had not told anybody of this plan, had hardly determined it in her own mind, but now, rehearsed in this
way before Mma Potokwane, it was the obvious thing to do. Yes, that was what would happen. She would go and find the tiny white van and bring it back. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni could hardly complain if she brought it back restored—it was not as if she would have to ask him to fix it.
“That sounds like a good idea,” said Mma Potokwane. “Well done, Mma. It is a good thing to fight for the things you love.” She looked at her guest. “And that blue van out there,” she ventured. “If you get your tiny white van back, then will you need that blue van? Because we're always looking for transport for the children, you see …”
Mma Ramotswe smiled ruefully. Mma Potokwane was incorrigible. But that would be too much. She could hardly give away a valuable van just because Mma Potokwane wanted it for the children.
“I'm sorry, Mma,” she said. “I would love to give you that van, but it is worth quite a lot of money and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni …”
“Of course, Mma,” said Mma Potokwane. “I understand. Now, let us talk about other things. We cannot sit here and talk about vans, like men do. We must talk about more important things.”
Mma Ramotswe took the initiative. “Yes, we can leave that sort of talk to our husbands. That and football.”
Mma Potokwane laughed. “Football! Yes, my husband is always going on about that with his friends. It is very dull for me.”
“Mind you, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Some bits of football are quite interesting.” She looked down at the floor in modesty. “As it happens, Mma, I have just solved a very major football case. Would you like to hear about it?”
It was why she had really come out to see Mma Potokwane, to tell her of the extraordinary resolution of the case of the Kalahari Swoopers. And it was an odd case, really—a very odd case. So she told her about her excursion into the world of football players and of the sudden, blinding insight that Puso had triggered.