Phuti straightened up. He was remembering his conversation with his aunt. She had talked about Mr. Putumelo’s financial problems; she had commented on how strange it was that in his straitened circumstances he should still be building himself a house. Of course; of course. “We are being cheated,” he said.
“Yes,” said Thomas. “Mr. Putumelo is a very good builder. He is quick and he has very high standards. But he is a cheat. That is the problem.”
Phuti reached out to put a hand on Thomas’s shoulder. “You have been very brave, Rra.”
Thomas shook his head. “I am not brave …”
“Yes, you are,” said Mma Makutsi. “You are very brave. It is hard to tell the truth about the person who gives you your job—and who can take it away again.”
Thomas sighed. “I have been feeling very bad about this because I know that you are good people. I felt ashamed.”
“But it was not your fault, Rra,” said Phuti reassuringly. “You just did your job. It is that Mr. Putumelo.” He turned to Grace. “We will have to do something.”
“Yes,” she said. “We’ll have to do something.” She had no idea, though, of what to do. Perhaps Mma Ramotswe might suggest something.
But it was Thomas who made the suggestion. “I think that it would be best not to do anything just yet,” he said. “If you went to the police, you would not have any real proof, and even if they charged him, then what would happen to all of us—the men who work for him? Let us finish your house. If you have a row with him now, then he will pull all the men off the site and you will have a house with no roof.”
“That would not be good,” said Mma Makutsi.
Thomas smiled. It was the first time they had seen him do this. “No. You need a roof.”
“And then?”
“You will have a final bill to pay at the end. Cut it in half and say that this is for the bricks that he borrowed from you. Tell him that you can easily see how he forgot to take that into account with the bill, and so you have corrected the error. Tell him that you have seen the bricks in his new house—you were just passing by—and you realised that this had happened when you saw your initials on one of them. Say that you had put the initials there when you had called in at his yard and he was not there. Tell him that you were keen that the bricks should not be stolen by some passer-by. Tell him where to look for the bricks with the initials.”
Phuti listened to this gravely. “I think I shall do all that, Rra,” he said. “You know, I’m remembering something. When we first agreed to do this job, he said that my house had his name written all over it. Well …”
“His house has your name written all over it,” said Grace.
The builder reflected on this for a few moments. “That is true,” he said.
They walked back to the car. “I’m very grateful to you, Thomas,” said Phuti. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“I did,” said Thomas. “I did have to do it, Rra.”
Phuti looked thoughtful. “You’re a carpenter, aren’t you?”
“That, and other things,” said Thomas. “But that is my first trade.”
Phuti looked at Mma Makutsi, who was watching him with interest. “We have a small workshop,” he said slowly. “We have it for repairs and for some contract work. We have been able to get work permits for one or two men we take on because we make quite a lot of furniture for schools. Desks and things like that. We could get you one if you came to work for us.”
Thomas stood quite still. “That is not why I did this, Rra.”
“I know,” said Phuti. “And that is why I want to offer you that job.”
“You will like working for my husband,” said Mma Makutsi.
“I will,” said Thomas. “Yes, Mma, I will.”
They got into the car and drove off down the road.
CLOVIS ANDERSEN CAME to see Mma Ramotswe on the day before his departure. It was early on a Saturday morning, and she was at home, walking about her garden, when he called. She offered him a cup of tea, which she said they could drink as she showed him her plants and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s vegetables. He had expressed an interest in hearing the Setswana names of some of the plants, and she had promised to tell him these—or at least to try to. “The trouble is that we are losing many of those words, Rra. We’re forgetting what these plants are called. They are lovely names, but we are losing them.”
“We’re losing words too,” he said. “People are forgetting about the land.”
“Even in your place, Rra?”
“Yes,” he said. “Even in my place.”
Mma Ramotswe looked up into the branches of her favourite acacia tree. “So, we’ll all soon be living in towns and cities and will forget where we came from. We’ll forget who feeds us. That is the earth, I think. And yet we’ll forget her.”
“I hope not,” said Clovis Andersen. “At least I won’t forget it. Nor you, Mma …”
“No, I won’t forget it.”
“I meant: I won’t forget you, Mma Ramotswe.”
She smiled at him. It was a kind thing for him to say, but of course he would forget her. He was an important, busy man from far away: Why should he remember a woman who lived in a place that was small by comparison with his own country; a woman who had only a tiny business and not very important things to do? Why should he remember?
She made tea and brought it out to him, and together they started to walk about the garden. She showed him her mopipi tree, which had been making good progress but had to be protected from the ravages of ants. She showed him her bed of aloes that were producing intense red flowers on spiky shafts. She showed him the beans that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni irrigated in the dry-land way, with drips of precious water tracking down a suspended thread.
And then, quite suddenly, he turned to her and said, “Mma Ramotswe, I have a confession to make. I cannot leave without saying something to you.”
She looked up at him; he was much taller than she was. “What is it, Rra?”
“You have been so kind to me, Mma Ramotswe. You and Mma Makutsi. You have made my stay such a good one.”
“But we have enjoyed it, Rra, and you have helped us so much. We’ve been honoured to have you. Mma Makutsi in particular. Your visit has been a very, very big thing for her. She comes from Bobonong, you see, and—”
“It’s not that,” Clovis Andersen interrupted. “It’s just that … well, I’m not who you think I am.”
She looked him with astonishment. “You’re not Clovis Andersen?”
“No, of course I’m Clovis Andersen. But Clovis Andersen is not the great detective you think he is. He’s a failed detective from Muncie, Indiana. He’s a man who has hardly any clients and never really solves any cases. He’s a nobody, Mma Ramotswe.”
She laughed. “But that is nonsense, Rra. You are the author of that great book, The Principles of Private Detection. That book is world famous. It’s very important.”
He shook his head—sadly. “No, Mma Ramotswe. The book’s not well known at all. I wrote it, yes, but I couldn’t even get it properly published. So I had it printed privately—just two hundred copies. Eighty of those are still in boxes in my garage. We sold about thirty copies, that’s all. I gave away the rest, but somehow one of those seems to have got into your hands. I have no idea how it happened, but it did. The book’s nothing, Mma. Nothing.”
She stood in front of him, the sun in her eyes now, preventing her from seeing him properly. She lifted a hand to shade her brow. She saw his face, which seemed to her to be racked with pain, with regret.
“Rra,” she said. “You mustn’t say that. You must never, never say that. Even if you had printed only ten copies—five copies, maybe—it would still be a very important book. It has helped us so much, Rra, and in turn we’ve been able to help so many people in our work. Every one of those people, Rra, is happier now because of what you did. Think of that—just think of that.”
He stared at her. “Do you think …,” he began.
&n
bsp; “Of course I think that, Rra. I know it, and Mma Makutsi knows it too. And Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. We all know it.”
He was at a loss for words. Mma Ramotswe could see that, and so she continued. “I could tell, Rra Andersen, that you were unhappy when you came here. I could tell that it was because you were thinking of your late wife.”
“I was. Yes.”
“Of course you were. We must think of late people because I believe they’re still with us—in a way. And so a late person can stay with you all your life, until it is your turn to become late too. And the late person doesn’t want you to be miserable. A late person doesn’t want you to think that your work is no use. A late person wants you to get on with life, to do things, to make good use of your time. That is well known, Rra. It is very well known.”
He said nothing, but she knew that he had heard her words.
“So, let’s finish our tea, Rra. Then we can look at that tree over there. Its leaves are very fine, Rra, and I want to show them to you.”
They walked to the far side of her garden. “We have a lot to be grateful for, Rra,” Mma Ramotswe said. She gestured to the small patch of her country that made up her garden. Her gesture took in her fence, and beyond that the road, and beyond that all Botswana and the world. “All that,” she said. “That is what we have to be grateful for.”
She did not look at him, because she sensed that he needed privacy, and a man may be embarrassed by his tears. So she simply touched him lightly on the arm and waited until he was ready to walk back.
He thought: The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection. Then he thought: Not really. But he smiled nonetheless.
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About the Author
Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, the Isabel Dalhousie series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, the 44 Scotland Street series, and the Corduroy Mansions series. He is professor emeritus of medical law at the University of Edinburgh and has served on many national and international organizations concerned with bioethics. He was born in what is now known as Zimbabwe and taught law at the University of Botswana. He lives in Scotland.
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Tea Time for the Traditionally Built • 978-0-307-37810-1
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The Lost Art of Gratitude • 978-0-307-37857-6
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The Forgotten Affairs of Youth • 978-0-307-90679-3
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Alexander McCall Smith, The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection
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