“I’m going to do a little bit of research,” she said to Mma Makutsi. “Could you go and fetch Charlie, Mma. I want him to read this.”
Mma Makutsi looked puzzled. “Why?” she asked. “You know that he’s only interested in girls. He won’t be interested in this.”
“An experiment,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You wait and see.”
Mma Makutsi left the office and came back a few minutes later with the older apprentice, who was wiping his hands on the cotton lint that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni provided in his battle against grease.
“Yes, Mma,” said the apprentice. “Mma Makutsi says you need my advice. I am always happy to give advice. Ha!”
Mma Ramotswe ignored the comment.
“You read this, please,” she said. “I would like to get your opinion on it.”
She handed him the newspaper, pointing to the article, and the apprentice sat down on the chair in front of her desk. As he read, his lips moved, and Mma Ramotswe watched the look of concentration on his face. He never reads a newspaper, she thought. There really is nothing in that head but thoughts of girls and cars.
When he had finished, the apprentice looked up at Mma Ramotswe.
“I have read it now, Mma,” he said, handing the paper back to her. She saw the greasy fingerprints on the edges and delicately avoided touching them.
“What do you think of it, Charlie?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I am sorry, Mma,” he said. “I am sorry for
you.”
“Sorry?”
“Yes,” he expanded. “I am sorry that this is going to make it difficult for your business. Everybody will go to that man now.”
“So you were impressed?”
He smiled. “Of course. That is a very clever man there. New York. Did you see that? And Johannesburg. All those places. He knows what is happening, and he will deal with many things. I am sorry, because I do not want the business to go to him.”
“You are very loyal,” said Mma Ramotswe. And then, as the apprentice rose to his feet and left the room, she thought: Exactly!
“Well, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That shows us something, doesn’t it?”
Mma Makutsi made a dismissive gesture. “That boy is stupid. We all know that. Don’t believe anything he says.”
“He’s not that stupid,” said Mma Ramotswe. “To get the apprenticeship, he had to pass exams. He is probably a fairly average young man. So, you see, many, many people will be impressed by this Mr. Buthelezi. We cannot change that fact.”
MANY PEOPLE, perhaps, but not all. That afternoon, when Mma Makutsi had been dispatched to the births, deaths, and marriages registry to pursue some routine enquiries on behalf of a client, Mma Ramotswe was visited, unannounced, by a woman whose view of the Satisfaction Guaranteed Agency and its boastful proprietor was quite the opposite of the view held by the apprentice. She arrived in a smart new car, which she parked directly outside the agency door, and waited politely for Mma Ramotswe to acknowledge her presence before she entered the office. This always pleased Mma Ramotswe; she could not abide the modern habit of entering a room before being asked to do so, or, even worse, the assumption that some people made that they could come into your office uninvited and actually sit on your desk while they spoke. If that happened to her, she would refrain from speaking at all but would look pointedly at the bottom planted upon her desk until her disapproval registered and it was removed.
Her visitor was a woman somewhere in her late thirties, about Mma Ramotswe’s own age, even slightly younger. She was dressed well but not flashily, and her clothing, together with the new car outside, told Mma Ramotswe all that she needed to know about her economic circumstances. This woman, she imagined, was a well-paid senior civil servant, or even a businesswoman.
“I have no appointment, Mma,” said the woman, “but I hoped that you would be able to see me anyway.”
Mma Ramotswe smiled. “I am always happy to see people, Mma. An appointment is not necessary. I am happy to talk at any time,” adding: “within reason.”
The woman accepted Mma Ramotswe’s invitation to sit down. She had not given her name, although she had used the correct greeting; doubtless, the name would emerge later.
“I must be truthful, Mma,” she said. “I have no confidence in private detectives. I must tell you that.”
Mma Ramotswe raised an eyebrow. If she had no confidence in private detectives, then why would she come to the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, the name of which was sufficiently self-explanatory, she would have thought.
“I am sorry to hear that, Mma,” she said. “Maybe you would tell me why.”
The woman now looked slightly apologetic. “Not that I mean to be rude, Mma. It’s just that I have had a very unpleasant experience with a detective agency. That is why I feel as I do.”
Mma Ramotswe nodded. “The Satisfaction Guranteed Agency? Mr. Buthele—”
She did not have the time to finish. “Yes,” said the woman. “That man! How he thinks that he can call himself a private detective, I do not know.”
Mma Ramotswe was intrigued. She wished that Mma Makutsi had been present, as it would have been good to share with her whatever was about to be disclosed. And it was going to be choice, she thought. But before she allowed her visitor to explain, the idea occurred to her that she should make an offer, on behalf of the entire profession. Yes, it was just the right thing to do in the circumstances.
“Let me say one thing, Mma,” she said, raising her hand. “If you have suffered at the hands of a fellow member of my profession—and I must say that I am not surprised to hear this—then the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency will undertake to complete the enquiry which Mr. Buthe … which that man has obviously not done properly. That is my offer.”
The woman was clearly impressed. “You are very good, Mma. I did not come expecting that, but I am happy to accept your offer. I can tell that things are different in this place.”
“They are,” said Mma Ramotswe quietly. “We do not make claims that we cannot live up to. We are not like that.”
“Good,” said the woman. “Now, let me tell you what happened.”
SHE HAD gone to see Mr. Buthelezi after seeing his advertisement in the newspaper. He had been very polite to her, although she had found his manner rather overwhelming.
“But I thought that this might be something to do with the name,” she said, glancing at Mma Ramotswe, who nodded, almost imperceptibly. One had to be careful about what one said, but people understood, and they knew what Zulu people could be like. Perhaps the word was … well, pushy or, if one were a bit more charitable, self-confident. Not that one liked to make such remarks openly, of course. Mr. Buthelezi said that he was a Motswana and not a Zulu, but you could not ignore paternal ancestry that easily, especially if you were a man. It stood to reason, Mma Ramotswe thought, that boys took more after their father than their mother; could people seriously doubt that? Some did, apparently, but they were obviously wrong.
The woman went on to explain why she had been to see Mr. Buthelezi in the first place.
“I live in Mochudi,” she said, “although I am originally from Francistown. I am a physiotherapist at the hospital there. I work with people who have broken limbs or who have been very ill and need help in getting back on their feet. That is one of the things we do, but there are others. It is a very good job.”
“And very important,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You must be proud to be a physiotherapist, Mma.”
The woman nodded. “I am. Anyway, I live up there because that is where the job is. I also have four children, and they are happy at the school there. The only problem is that my husband has a job in town here and he did not like driving in from Mochudi every morning and back again. We put our savings into a small flat. I get my house in Mochudi with the job, so this seemed like a good thing to do.”
It was at this point that Mma Ramotswe realised what was coming. Ever since she had opened the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective A
gency, she had received a regular stream of requests to deal with errant husbands, or husbands suspected of being errant. These wifely fears were usually well founded, and Mma Ramotswe had been obliged to be the bearer of news of infidelity rather more often than she might have wished. But that was part of the job, and she did it with dignity and compassion. She was sure that this was what her new client was about to disclose; husbands working away from home rarely behaved themselves, although some, a small number, did.
Mma Ramotswe was right. The woman now described her fears about her husband and how she was sure that he was seeing somebody else.
“I usually telephone him in the evenings,” she said. “We talk about things that have happened during the day, and the children also speak to him. It is expensive, but it is important for the children to talk to their daddy. But now he is never in when I call. He says that this is because he is now enjoying walking, and he goes for a lot of walks, but that is nonsense. I can tell that this is a lie.”
“It sounds like it,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Some men cannot lie very well.”
The woman had consulted Mr. Buthelezi about her concerns, and he had promised to look into the matter, telling her to get back in touch with him after a day or so. He said that he would follow the husband and let her know what he was up to.
“And did he?” asked Mma Ramotswe. She was eager to hear how her rival operated.
“He says that he did,” said the woman. “But I do not believe him. He says that he followed him and that he is going to church. That is just ridiculous. My husband does not go to church. I have tried and tried to make him go, but he is lazy about it. And when he came home last weekend, I said to him on Sunday: ‘Let’s go to church.’ And he said that he did not want to go. Now, if he had become a great churchgoer, then surely he would want to go on a Sunday. But he did not. That proves it, in my mind.”
Mma Ramotswe had to agree.
“But there is something more,” said the woman. “I had paid a very large fee in advance, and when I said that I thought I should get some of it back, Mr. Buthe … that man just refused. He said that the money was his now. So I came to you.”
Mma Ramotswe smiled. “I will do my best. I will see whether this churchgoing is true, and, if it isn’t—and I agree with you that it does not sound likely—then I shall find out what he really is doing, and I shall tell you all about it.”
They discussed one or two further details, including the name and address of the husband, and the address of the place where he worked.
“I have brought you a photograph, too,” the woman said. “It will help you to recognize him.”
She passed over a black-and-white photograph of a man looking into the camera. Mma Ramotswe glanced at it and saw a neatly attired man with an engaging smile, a carefully tended centre parting, and a moustache. She had never seen him before, but he would be easily picked out from a crowd.
“This will be very useful, Mma,” she said. “When clients do not provide photographs, our work can be more difficult.”
Mma Selelipeng rose to her feet.
“I am very cross with him,” she said. “But I know that once I find this lady who is trying to steal my husband, I shall be able to deal with her. I shall teach her a lesson.”
Mma Ramotswe frowned.
“You must not do anything illegal,” she said. “I will not help you if that is what you are planning.”
Mma Selelipeng raised her hands in horror. “No, nothing like that, Mma. I would just be planning to speak to her. To warn her. That is all. Don’t you think that any woman has a right to do that?”
Mma Ramotswe nodded. She had no time for husband stealers, and no time for deceiving men. People had the right to protect what was theirs, but she was a kind woman and understood human weakness. This Mr. Bernard Selelipeng probably needed no more than a gentle reminder of his duties as a husband and a father. Looking at the photograph again, she suspected that this would suffice. It was not a strong face, she thought; it was not the face of a man who would leave his wife for good. He would go back like a naughty boy who has been caught stealing melons. She was sure of it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MMA RAMOTSWE GETS A FLAT TYRE; MMA MAKUTSI GOES TO THE CINEMA WITH MR. BERNARD SELELIPENG
MMA RAMOTSWE was driving back to Zebra Drive that evening, taking her normal route from the Tlokweng Road and turning off into Odi Drive, when the tiny white van began to pull over to the left. She wondered for a moment whether the steering was faulty, and she shifted her weight in the seat towards the right, but this made no difference. Now there was a strange sound coming from the back of the van, a grinding sound, as of metal on stone, and she realised that she had a flat tyre. This was both an annoyance and a relief at the same time, the relief coming from the fact that it was an easily tackled problem. If one had a spare wheel, that is, and she did not. She had asked one of the apprentices to take it out for inflating, and she had seen it propped up against the wall of the garage and had been on the point of putting it back when Mma Makutsi had called her inside to take a telephone call. So the spare wheel remained in Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, and she was here, on the side of the road, where it was needed.
She felt a momentary irritation with herself. There was really no excuse for driving without a spare wheel; tyres were always going flat with all those sharp stones on the road and dropped nails and the like. If it had happened to somebody else, she would have had no hesitation in saying: Well, it’s not very clever, is it, to drive a car without a spare wheel; and here it had happened to her, and she richly deserved such self-reproach.
She drew over to the left, to keep the car away from the traffic, not that there was much of that along this quiet residential road. She looked about her. She was not far from Zebra Drive—about half an hour’s walk, at the most—and she could easily walk home and wait for Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to come round for dinner. Then they could rescue the tiny white van together. Or, and this made more sense in terms of avoiding extra journeys, she could telephone him at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, where he was working late, and ask him to bring the spare wheel with him on his way to Zebra Drive.
She looked about her. There was a public telephone in the shopping centre at the end of the road, or, and this was the obvious answer, there was Dr. Moffat’s house, close to which the tiny white van was now parked. Dr. Moffat, who had helped Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni recover from his depressive illness, lived with his wife in a rambling old house, surrounded by a generous-sized garden, the gate of which Mma Ramotswe now opened tentatively, bearing in mind how careful one had to be about dogs in yards like that. But there was no dog barking defiance, only the surprised voice of Mrs. Moffat, who emerged from behind a shrub which she had been tending.
“Mma Ramotswe! You are always creeping up on people!”
Mma Ramotswe smiled. “I am not here on business,” she said. “I am here because my van out there has a flat tyre and I need to phone Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni for help. Would you mind, Mma?”
Mrs. Moffat slipped her garden secateurs into her pocket. “We can telephone straightaway,” she said. “And then we can have a cup of tea while we are waiting for Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.”
They went into the house, where Mma Ramotswe telephoned Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, told him of her misfortune, and explained where she was. Then, invited by the doctor’s wife to join her on the verandah, they sat around a small table and talked.
There was much to talk about. Mrs. Moffat had lived in Mochudi when her husband had run the small hospital there, and she had known Obed Ramotswe and many of the families who were friendly with the Ramotswes. Mma Ramotswe liked nothing more than to talk about those days, long past now, but so important to her sense of who she was.
“Do you remember my father’s hat?” she asked, stirring sugar into her tea. “He wore the same hat for many years. It was very old.”
“I remember it,” said Mrs. Moffat. “The doctor used to describe it as a very wise hat.”
&
nbsp; Mma Ramotswe laughed. “I suppose a hat sees many things,” she said. “It must learn something.” She paused. The memory was coming back to her of the day that her father lost his hat. He had taken it off for some reason and had forgotten where he had left it. For the best part of a day they had gone round Mochudi, trying to remember where he might have left it, asking people whether they had seen it. And at last it had been found on a wall near the kgotla, placed there by somebody who must have picked it up from the road. Would somebody in Gaborone put a hat in a safe place if it were found in the road? She thought not. We do not care about other people’s hats in the same way these days, do we? We do not.
“I miss Mochudi,” said Mrs. Moffat. “I miss those mornings when we listened to the cattle bells. I miss hearing the singing of the children from the school when the wind was in the right direction.”
“It is a good place,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I miss listening to people talking about very small things.”
“Like hats,” ventured Mrs. Moffat.
“Yes, like hats. And special cattle. And which babies have arrived and what they are called. All those things.”
Mrs. Moffat refilled the teacups, and for a few minutes they sat in easy silence, each with her own thoughts. Mma Ramotswe thought of her father, and of Mochudi, and her childhood, and of how happy it had been even without a mother. And Mrs. Moffat thought of her parents, and of her father, an artist who had become blind, and of how hard it must have been to move into a world of darkness.