“I was in this morning,” he said. “I am not teaching chemistry this afternoon, and so I am doing the shopping for my wife. She gives me a big list, you see, and then I go round and buy the things on that list. That is what I have been doing.”
Mma Ramotswe hesitated. She did not wish to seem too keen to find out what was happening in the agency, but she could hardly miss this opportunity.
“Were things busy this morning?” she asked, trying to sound as casual as possible.
“They are always busy,” said Mr. Polopetsi. “You know how it is.”
It was not a very satisfactory answer. Mma Ramotswe wanted to know exactly what was going on, and this vague response told her nothing much.
“Anything in particular?” she asked.
“Oh, there is always something,” replied Mr. Polopetsi. “One thing comes in and then another thing, and then you sort out one of them and you are still left with one thing. You know how it is.”
She found herself becoming annoyed by the repeated refrain of “You know how it is.” She tried to make light of her irritation. “I’m not sure that I know how it is,” she said. “That is why I’m asking you.”
Mr. Polopetsi frowned. “Asking me what, Mma?”
She decided to be frank. “I’m asking what is going on—that is what I’m asking.” She paused. “You see, I’m still the owner of the agency. I have not sold it to Mma Makutsi. I am the owner.”
“But you’re on holiday. I don’t want to burden you with petty details. I don’t want to say to you, ‘Oh, we had a telephone call from such-and-such a person and then I made tea and then Charlie fetched the mail.’ You don’t need to know that when you’re on holiday, Mma Ramotswe.”
There were very few people whom Mma Ramotswe wanted to shake; indeed, she could not remember when she last wanted to shake anybody, but now she felt the urge to shake Mr. Polopetsi. She would not shake him vigorously—she did not want to hurt him in any way—she just wanted to shake the desired answer out of him. But of course she would not, and so, after taking a deep breath, she simply said, “Let me put it this way, Rra: Was there any new business today? Any new clients?”
Mr. Polopetsi looked apologetic. “I can see that I should have told you in the first place, Mma. You have every right to know.”
She relaxed. “Thank you.”
“And the answer is no.”
She felt a mixture of relief and disappointment. She was relieved that there had been no new clients because that saved her from feeling anxious as to whether Mma Makutsi would deal with them properly, but she was disappointed for the lack of news, for the lack of something to think about.
“Well, Rra,” she said, “I hope everything goes well. I know that you are a good pair of hands to leave things in.”
He beamed at the compliment. “I do my best, Mma. I will always do my best for you—you know that.”
And she did. Mr. Polopetsi, she felt, was one of those people who would never allow his own ego to get in the way of duty. He was a modest and unassuming man; he was the sort of man who would loyally serve an employer, who would never jockey for promotion or seek personal advantage. He was a good man.
She looked at her watch and explained that she would have to get on with her shopping. He said he must do the same, as he was cooking the evening meal for his wife.
“There are not many men in Botswana who can say that,” said Mma Ramotswe.
Mr. Polopetsi acknowledged the compliment, but bowed his head as if to accept responsibility for the failures of all the other men. “I only have one recipe, Mma. Maybe I will get another one some day.”
“That would be nice,” said Mma Ramotswe.
—
SHE LOADED HER PURCHASES into the back of the van, taking care to shelter the butter and milk from the direct rays of the sun. In this heat, exposure to even a few minutes of direct sunshine could turn milk sour and reduce butter to an oily puddle. There would have to be rain soon, she thought; the land was crying out for it. It would come, of course, as there had been rain further north and people were talking of a good season, but until that happened the heat would drain the life and energy from everything. What they would see first would be a darkening of the sky in the east—a change from empty blue to a grey-white that would gradually shade into a heavy, inky purple. And then there would be a wind—the wind that preceded a storm and carried the smell of rain on its breath. Leaves on the ground would be lifted, would dance briefly in tiny eddies of agitated air; trees would begin to sway as if bowing to the approaching shower. That would come suddenly, in a white sheet moving swiftly across the sky, accompanied by peals of thunder and brilliant flashes of silver lightning.
That would all happen, but its time was not yet. And so the van exhaled oven-hot air when she opened the door; and so the steering wheel was almost unbearably hot to the touch; and so the heat off the tarmac was a dancing shimmer. Her groceries stacked away, she drove out of the car park and began to make her way back to Zebra Drive.
Not far from the side gate to the university, a sign at the edge of the road caught her eye. She slowed down to read it. Coming soon. The new headquarters of the No. 1 Ladies’ College of…
She did not have time to finish reading before driving past. And for a moment she thought that she had imagined the last few words. The No. 1 Ladies’ College of…Surely not; the eye plays tricks on us; a few letters, seen quickly, might be made whole by the brain, but to completely misleading effect. The other day she had spotted a headline in the Botswana Daily News that read “Man Accused of Eating Neighbour’s Children.” She had been astonished, although nothing, she reflected, should astonish us any more; and then, going back a line, she had read it correctly as “Man Accused of Eating Neighbour’s Chickens.” She had mentioned this in the office, and Mma Makutsi had revealed that she knew the man in question—he had lived near her last house, the one she had occupied before she married Phuti Radiphuti, and nobody in the area had liked him much. “I am not surprised that he has been caught doing this,” said Mma Makutsi. “It was only a question of time.” But Mma Ramotswe had wondered about that; an unpopular man might well be accused of things he did not do, and could protest his innocence in vain. “It only says that he is accused, Mma,” she had pointed out. “It does not say that anything has been proved.”
Mma Makutsi was unconvinced. “Where there is smoke there’s fire, Mma. I have always said that.”
Mma Ramotswe could not let that pass. “But what does Clovis Andersen say in The Principles of Private Detection, Mma? Does he not say that you must be very careful to decide where the smoke is coming from? Smoke can drift, Mma. Those were his exact words, I think.”
“Hah!” said Mma Makutsi. “There are more ways than one of looking at things.”
The matter had been left there, with Mma Ramotswe asking herself whether Mma Makutsi was perhaps over-reaching in questioning—even if only indirectly—the authority of Clovis Andersen. Was she implying that she knew better? It did not bode well for her time at the helm of the agency if she were setting herself up as a greater authority than the author of The Principles of Private Detection. But she let things rest, and nothing more was said.
She put her foot on the brake, steering the van onto a rough track that led from the road to a strip of waste ground alongside it. By doubling back along this track she was able to draw level with the sign and read it properly. There was no reason why anybody should not call a business the No. 1 anything, but to combine No. 1 with Ladies’ was without question taking matters too far. Perhaps she had misread it. Perhaps it was just the No. 1 something or other, without any mention of ladies. But no, it was as she had feared, painted in large, confident lettering, with quite breathtaking temerity.
Coming soon. The new headquarters of the No. 1 Ladies’ College of Secretarial and Business Studies. A bright future awaits you! Enrolling now.
She read and reread it, and as she did so she remembered the conversation in the Preside
nt Hotel. Then her gaze moved to something else. Depicted immediately below the wording there was a pointing hand, a neatly painted female hand…with long red fingernails. She gazed at the fingernails. There was something about them that disturbed her. It was bad enough that somebody was using the No. 1 description—and she supposed she could hardly stop that, even if it was derivative—but the fingernails were something else altogether. Why should she worry about fingernails like that? Who had such fingernails? Long, sharp fingernails…
For a good few minutes Mma Ramotswe sat in her van, feeling vaguely uneasy. The engine was still running and the fan was doing its best to provide a current of air, but slowly the heat increased and discomfort stirred her. The painted hand pointed down a side road, one of those in between minor thoroughfares, tarred at some point but now largely forgotten by those responsible for maintaining it. Putting the van into gear, she turned down this road, thinking as the van bumped along its way of what she would say to Mma Makutsi. “Not just any school of secretarial studies, Mma, but the No. 1 Ladies’ College…” Mma Makutsi would be indignant, of course; she was proud of the agency’s name, and the thought that somebody should be using part of it in direct competition with her own alma mater, the Botswana Secretarial College, would undoubtedly distress her.
The building was only a short distance down the road. It was part of a small block that consisted of a bakery, an accountant’s office, a paint depot, and there, at the end, a set of premises under renovation but already boasting a large, freshly painted sign identifying it as the No. 1 Ladies’ College. Mma Ramotswe drew up directly outside the front door.
A man dressed in a painter’s outfit appeared from round the side of the building. Getting out of the van, Mma Ramotswe approached him and greeted him in the traditional way.
“Dumela, Rra. Are you well?”
The man, who had been carrying a small ladder, rested the ladder against the wall. “Dumela, Mma. I am very well.”
He looked at her expectantly.
“This is a new business, is it, Rra?”
The man nodded. “It will be opening next week, I think. I am just finishing some of the painting. Then it will be ready.”
Mma Ramotswe smiled. “It will be very popular, I think. There are many people wanting this sort of qualification these days.”
The man looked at her shrewdly. “Do you think so, Mma?”
She had not expected this. “Well, yes, I do. There is always a good demand for people who can do secretarial work. There are plenty of good office jobs going.”
The man shrugged. “Maybe.” He hesitated. “But who is going to do the teaching, Mma? That is what I’d like to know. There is only one person running this place, I think.”
Mma Ramotswe stiffened. It would be easy to ask directly, but she thought that it might be better to do so more tactfully. People could clam up if you appeared to be too interested in finding out something.
“Well, there are many one-man businesses, Rra…or one-lady businesses, should I say?”
The man shrugged again. “Everything done by her? By that one lady? I don’t think so, Mma.”
“Why do you say that, Rra?” She still had not asked the name. Painted fingernails…painted fingernails…These were common enough; just about everybody had painted fingernails. But long, scratchy ones…
“Because I do not think that one teacher can run a whole college.”
Mma Ramotswe made a dismissive gesture. “But she won’t run the whole college by herself. There will be other teachers, surely.”
The man picked up his ladder. “I haven’t seen any, Mma. When she comes round here, it’s just her. And inside…” He tossed his head in the direction of the front door. “Inside there is only one desk in the office. Just one. One desk and one chair.” He gave Mma Ramotswe a challenging look. “Will the other teachers not sit down, Mma?”
“Maybe they’ll come in and teach their lessons and then go. In many places like this the teachers are part-time.”
He made a disbelieving sound. “And where are the seats for the students?”
“There are no seats at all, Rra?”
“Four chairs,” he said. “Four chairs and one desk that isn’t very big. That is all, Mma.” He began to move away. “I think this college is a college for ghosts, Mma—that’s what I think.”
Mma Ramotswe took a step back towards her van, but then she half turned and said, “Oh, one thing, Rra…who is this lady?”
But at that moment, even as she uttered the question, the answer came to her. It came unheralded, but with complete certainty—so much so that she barely needed to listen to his response, which was audible, but only just, for there was at that moment a rumble of thunder. She looked up sharply, as did he, and they saw that the sky in the east had darkened slightly; the storm was as yet only a promise, but it might well come their way. She smiled at him, and he at her, as they were united in their relief that at last there was a sign of the rain that the country so thirsted for.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHE’S AT THE CONTROLS NOW, NOT YOU
IF THERE HAD BEEN DRAMA for Mma Ramotswe that day, then the same was true, she discovered, for Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. Fanwell, the young mechanic, had lowered a car onto his foot, with the result that he’d had to be rushed to the emergency department at the Princess Marina Hospital.
“I warned him and warned him,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni as he came into the kitchen on his return from work. “I warned him, Mma Ramotswe. You probably even heard me—many, many times.”
She nodded; she had heard him. He had a special voice for the issuing of warnings—the sort of voice that ministers sometimes used in church when they had something special to say. It was a voice that you felt you had to listen to—or you ignored at your peril.
“I’ve said it so many times,” he continued. “You’d think they would remember. When you’re lowering anything—anything at all—always, always, always look at what you’re lowering it onto. Doesn’t that make sense? Isn’t it the sort of thing your great guru tells you in that book of his?”
“Clovis Andersen? The Principles of Private Detection?”
“Yes, that book.”
Mma Ramotswe could tell that he was angry, which was an unusual state for him. Normally Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was the most equable-tempered of men, but now there was a note of frustration in his voice.
“I know he’s more careful than Charlie ever was,” he continued. “He’s in a different class altogether. But you’d think that he’d have more sense, you really would.”
“He’s still young,” said Mma Ramotswe soothingly. “We have to remind ourselves of what we were like when we were Fanwell’s age.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni made a visible effort to calm down. Mma Ramotswe always managed to put things into perspective. “Everything could always be worse,” she would say, “and so be grateful that things are only as bad as they are.” She was right; of course she was right. Fanwell could have been lying under the car and had the breath crushed out of him.
“What exactly happened?” asked Mma Ramotswe.
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni sighed. “We had a car up on a pneumatic jack. He’d been doing something to the suspension. When he’d finished that, he began to lower the car, but didn’t notice where his right foot was—directly below one of the front wheels. When it came to the last few inches, he let all the pressure out at once so that the car more or less fell that last little bit—onto his foot.”
Mma Ramotswe winced. “Ow!”
“Ow indeed, Mma. He was yelling his head off. I thought he’d cut off a hand, or something like that. Mma Makutsi heard him too and came out of the office to see what was going on. We got the car up off his foot, but he was still howling. He said his foot was broken.”
“Well, the weight of a car…”
“Oh, I know that. But when they X-rayed him at the hospital, they said only a tiny, tiny bone was broken. Nothing else. They didn’t even put a plaster on.”<
br />
“I don’t think they have to do that for a tiny bone.”
“No, that’s what the doctor said. She said that he would get better but that he should be careful not to use his foot too much. She gave him a strong painkiller.”
“And now he’s all right?”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni nodded. “He seems fine. But we had a long wait at the hospital. Four hours. I couldn’t really leave him there by himself.”
Mma Ramotswe looked thoughtful. “You say Mma Makutsi went with you?”
“Yes, she was very good. She even held his hand while they were waiting for the X-ray.”
Mma Ramotswe asked her question casually. “Did she speak much to you?”
“Of course. We were sitting in a corridor for a long time.”
“What about?”
“What did she talk about? Oh, this and that. Phuti had a business trip over the border—to Johannesburg. She spoke about that a lot. Apparently, he bought a new vacuum cleaner while he was over there. She had a lot to say about that too.”
“And anything else?”
He scratched his head. “You know how she is. She says all sorts of things. She said something about one of her uncles from Bobonong being bitten by a spider. Apparently, he almost lost a finger.”
Mma Ramotswe smiled at that—not at the thought of the uncle’s misfortune, but because the travails of Mma Makutsi’s uncles were a frequent topic of conversation in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. It seemed that the Makutsi uncles led exceptionally accident-prone lives: one had recently been kicked by a mule, another had discovered that part of his savings—fortunately only a small part—had been eaten by termites, and now there was this uncle who had been bitten by a spider. But this was not what she wanted to find out. “Anything about work?” she asked. “Anything about the agency?”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni took a few moments to answer. “I think everything is all right,” he said. “You mustn’t worry about that, you know. Remember, you’re on holiday.”