Alexander Mccall Smith - Ladies' Detective Agency 05 (18 page)

It was much more
likely, then, that the letter was intended for the apprentices. But which one?
Charlie, the older apprentice, was certainly good-looking, in a cheap sort of
way she thought, but the same could probably be said of the younger one,
perhaps even more so, when one considered the amount of hair gel that he seemed
to rub on his head. If one were a young woman, somebody aged perhaps seventeen
or eighteen, it is easy to see how one would be taken in by the looks of these
young men and how one might even write a letter of this sort. So there was
really no way of telling which of the young men was the intended recipient. It
might be simpler, then, to throw the letter in the bin, and Mma Makutsi had
almost decided to do this when the older apprentice walked into the room. He
saw the envelope on the desk before her and, with a typical lack of respect for
what is right, peered at the writing on the envelope.

“To Mr
Handsome,” he exclaimed. “That letter must be for me!”

Mma Makutsi snorted. “You are not the only man around here. There are
two others, you know. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni and that friend of yours, that one
with the oil on his hair. It could be for either of them.”

The
apprentice stared at her uncomprehendingly. “But Mr J.L.B. Matekoni is at
least forty,” he said. “How can a man of forty be called Mr
Handsome?”

“Forty is not the end,” said Mma Makutsi.
“People who are forty can look very good.”

“To other
people who are forty maybe,” said the apprentice, “but not to the
general public.”

Mma Makutsi drew in her breath, and held it. If
only Mma Ramotswe had been here to listen to this; what would she have done?
She certainly would not have let any of this pass. The effrontery of this young
man! The sheer effrontery! Well, she would teach him a lesson, she would tell
him what she thought of his vanity; she would spell it out … She
stopped. A better idea had materialised; a wonderful trick that would amuse Mma
Ramotswe when she told her about it.

“Call the young one
in,” she said. “Tell him I want to tell him about this letter you
have received. He will be impressed, I think.”

Charlie left and
soon returned with the younger apprentice.

“Charlie here has
received a letter,” said Mma Makutsi. “It was addressed to Mr
Handsome and I shall read it out to you.”

The younger apprentice
glanced at Charlie, and then looked back at Mma Makutsi. “But that could
be for me,” he said petulantly. “Why should he think that such a
letter is addressed to him? What about me?”

“Or Mr J.L.B.
Matekoni?” asked Mma Makutsi, smiling. “What about him?”

The younger apprentice shook his head. “He is an old man,” he
said. “Nobody would call him Mr Handsome. It is too late.”

“I see,” said Mma Makutsi. “Well, at least you are agreed
on that. Well, let me read out the letter, and then we can decide.”

She opened the envelope again, extracted the piece of paper, and read out
the contents. Then, putting the letter down on the table, she smiled at the two
young men. “Now who is being described in that letter? You tell
me.”

“Me,” they both said together, and then looked
at one another.

“It could be either,” said Mma Makutsi.
“Of course, I now remember who must have put that letter there. I have
remembered something.”

“You must tell me,” said the
older apprentice. “Then I can look out for this girl and talk to
her.”

“I see,” said Mma Makutsi. She hesitated; this
was a delicious moment. Oh, silly young men! “Yes,” she continued,
“I saw a man outside the garage this morning, first thing. Yes, there was
a man.”

There was complete silence. “A man?” said the
younger apprentice eventually. “Not a girl?”

“It was
for him, I think,” said the older apprentice, gesturing at the younger
one. And the younger one, his mouth open, was for a few moments unable to
talk.

“It was not for me,” he said at last. “I do not
think so.”

“Then I think that we should throw the letter
into the bin, where it belongs,” said Mma Makutsi. “Anonymous
letters should always be ignored. The best place for them is the
bin.”

Nothing more was said. The apprentices returned to their
work and Mma Makutsi sat at her desk and smiled. It was a wicked thing to have
done, but she could not resist it. After all, one could not be good all the
time, and occasional fun at the expense of another was harmless. She had told
no lies, strictly speaking; she had seen a man walking away from the garage,
but she had recognised him as one who did occasionally take a shortcut that
way. The real sender of the letter was obviously some young girl who had been
dared to write it by her friends. It was a piece of adolescent nonsense which
everybody would soon forget about. And perhaps the boys had been taught some
sort of lesson, about vanity certainly, but also, in an indirect way, about
tolerance of the feelings of others, who might be a bit different from oneself.
She doubted if they had learned the latter lesson, but it was there, she
thought, visible if one bothered to think hard enough about it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

INSIDE THE HOUSE OF HOPE

M
MA
RAMOTSWE surveyed the House of Hope. It was a rather grand name for a modest
bungalow which had been built in the early seventies, at a time when Gaborone
was a small town, inching out from the cluster of buildings around Government
Headquarters and the small square of shops nearby. These houses had been built
for government employees or for expatriates who came to the country on
short-term contracts. They were comfortable, and were large by the standards of
most people’s houses, but it seemed ambitious to use them for
institutions, such as the House of Hope. But there was no choice, she imagined:
larger buildings simply were not available, least of all to charities, which
would have to scrimp and save to meet their costs.

There was a
large garden, though, and this had been well-tended. In addition to a stand of
healthy-looking paw-paw trees at the back, there were several clusters of
bougainvillea and a mopipi tree. A vegetable garden, rather like the vegetable
garden which Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had established in Mma Ramotswe’s own
yard, appeared to be growing beans and carrots with some success, although Mma
Ramotswe reflected that in the case of carrots one could never really tell
until one pulled them out of the ground. There were all sorts of insects which
competed with us for carrots, and often what appeared from above to be a
healthy plant would reveal itself as riddled with holes once pulled out of the
soil.

There was a verandah to the side of the house, and somebody had
thoughtfully placed shade netting over the side of this. That would be a good
place to sit, thought Mma Ramotswe, and one might even drink tea there, on a
hot afternoon, and feel the sun on one’s face, but filtered by the shade
netting. And then the thought occurred to her that all of Gaborone, the whole
town, might be covered with shade netting, held aloft on great poles, and that
this would keep the town cool and hold in the water which people put on their
plants. It would be comfortable under this shade netting in summer, and then
when winter came, and the air was cooler, they could roll back the shade
netting to let in the winter sun, which would warm them, like the smile of an
old friend. It was such a good idea, and it would surely not be too expensive
for a country that had all those diamonds, but she knew that nobody would ever
take it seriously. So they would continue to complain about the hot weather
when it was hot and about the cold weather when it was cold.

The front
door of the House of Hope opened immediately into the living room. This was a
large room for that style of house, but the immediate and overwhelming
impression it gave Mma Ramotswe was one of clutter. There were three or four
chairs in the centre of the room—tightly arranged in a circle—and
around them there were tables, storage boxes, and, here and there, a suitcase.
On the wall, fixed with drawing pins, were pictures ripped from magazines;
pictures of families and of mothers and children; of Mother Teresa with her
characteristic headscarf; of Nelson Mandela waving to a crowd; and of a line of
African nuns, all clad in white, walking down a path through thick undergrowth,
their hands joined in prayer. Mma Ramotswe’s eye dwelt on the picture of
the nuns. Where was the photograph taken, and where were these ladies going?
They looked so peaceful, she thought, that perhaps it did not matter whether
they were going anywhere, or nowhere in particular. People sometimes walked
simply because walking was an enjoyable thing to do, and better than standing
still, perhaps, if that was all you otherwise had to do. Sometimes she herself
walked around her garden for no reason, and found it very relaxing, as perhaps
it was for those nuns.

“You are interested in the
pictures,” said Mr Bobologo, behind her. “We think that it is
important that these bar girls should be reminded of a better life. They can
sit here and look at the pictures.”

Mma Ramotswe nodded. She was
not convinced that it would be much fun for a bar girl, or for anybody else for
that matter, to be sitting on one of those chairs in that crowded room, looking
at these pictures from the magazines. But then it would be better than
listening to Mr Bobologo, she thought.

Mr Bobologo now came to Mma
Ramotswe’s side and pointed in the direction of the corridor that led off
the living room. “I will be happy to show you the dormitories,” he
said. “We may find some of the bad girls in their rooms.”

Mma Ramotswe raised an eyebrow. It was not very tactful of him to call them
bad girls, even if they were. People rose to the descriptions of themselves,
and it might have been better, she thought, to call them young ladies, in the
hope that they might behave as young ladies behaved. But then, to be realistic,
they probably would not behave that way, as it took a great deal to change
somebody’s ways.

The corridor was tidy enough, with only a small
bookcase along one wall and the floor well-polished with that fresh-smelling
polish that Mma Ramotswe’s maid, Rose, so liked to use. They stopped
outside a half-open bedroom door and Mr Bobologo knocked upon this before he
pushed it open.

Mma Ramotswe looked inside. There were two bunk-beds
in the room, both of them triple-deckers. The top bed was just below the
ceiling, barely allowing enough space for anybody to fit in. Mma Ramotswe
reflected that she herself would never fit in that space, but then these girls
were younger, and some of them might be quite small.

There were three
girls in the room, two lying fully clothed on the lower bunks and one wearing a
dressing gown, and sitting on a middle bunk, her legs hanging down over the
edge. As Mr Bobologo and Mma Ramotswe entered the room, they stared at them,
not with any great interest, but with a rather vacant look.

“This
lady is a visitor,” Mr Bobologo announced, somewhat obviously, thought
Mma Ramotswe.

One of the girls muttered something, which may have been
a greeting but which was difficult to make out. The other one on the lower bunk
nodded her head, while the girl sitting on the middle bunk managed a weak
smile.

“You have a nice house here,” said Mma Ramotswe.
“Are you happy?”

The girls exchanged glances.

“Yes,” said Mr Bobologo. “They are very
happy.”

Mma Ramotswe watched the girls, who did not appear
inclined to contradict Mr Bobologo.

“And do you get good food
here, ladies?” she asked.

“Very good food,” said Mr
Bobologo. “These good-time bar girls do not eat properly. They just drink
dangerous liquor. When they are here they are given good, Botswana cooking. The
food is very healthy.”

“It is good to hear you telling me
all this,” Mma Ramotswe said, pointedly addressing her remark to the
girls.

“That is all right,” said Mr Bobologo. “We are
happy to talk to visitors.” He touched Mma Ramotswe’s elbow and
pointed out into the corridor. “I must show you the kitchen,” he
said. “And we must allow these girls to get on with their
work.”

It was not very apparent to Mma Ramotswe what this work
was, and she had to suppress a smile as they walked back down the corridor
towards the kitchen. He really was a most irritating man, this Mr Bobologo,
with his tendency to speak for others and his one-track mind. Mma Holonga had
struck Mma Ramotswe as being a reasonable woman, and yet she was seriously
entertaining Mr Bobologo as a suitor, which seemed very strange. Surely Mma
Holonga, with her wealth and position, could find somebody better than this
curious teacher with his ponderous, didactic style.

They now stood at
the door of the kitchen, in which two young women, barefoot and wearing light
pink housecoats, were chopping vegetables on a large wooden chopping board. A
pot of stew was boiling on the stove—boiling too vigorously, thought Mma
Ramotswe—and a large cup of tea was cooling on the table. It would be
good to be offered tea, she thought longingly, and that very cup looked just
right.