Alexander Mccall Smith - Ladies' Detective Agency 05 (21 page)

“No, you listen to me, Rra,” Mma Potokwane said, her voice
rising sharply. “I know you, Herbert Molefi. I know your mother. She is
my friend. And I have often felt sorry for her, with a son like
you.”

Molefi opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came.

“Oh yes,” went on Mma Potokwane, shaking a finger at him.
“You were a bad little boy, and now you are a bad man. You are just a
bully, that’s what you are. And I have heard this thing about the
butcher’s car. Oh, yes, I have heard it. And I wonder whether your mother
knows it, or your uncles? Do they know it?”

Molefi’s
collapse was sudden and complete. Mma Ramotswe watched the effect of these
words and saw the burly figure shrink visibly in the face of Mma
Potokwane’s tongue-lashing.

“No? They have not heard about
it?” she pressed on. “Well, I think I might just let them know. And
you, you, Herbert Molefi, who thinks that he can go round bullying people like
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni here, had better think again. Your mother can still tell you
a thing or two, can’t she? And your uncles. They will not be pleased and
they might just give their cattle to somebody else when they die, might they
not? I think so, Rra. I think so.”

“Now, Mma,” said
Molefi. “I am just talking to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, that is all I am
doing.”

“Pah!” retorted Mma Potokwane.
“Don’t you try to tell me your lies. You just shut that useless
mouth of yours for a little while and let Mr J.L.B. Matekoni tell you what to
do about that poor man you’ve cheated. And I’ll just stand here and
listen, just in case. Then we’ll think about whether your people out at
Tlokweng need to be told about this.”

Molefi was silent, and he
remained silent while Mr J.L.B. Matekoni quietly and reasonably told him that
he would have to make a refund to the butcher and that he should be careful in
the future, as other garages in the town would be watching what he did.
“You let us all down, you see,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “If
one mechanic cheats, then all mechanics are blamed. That is what happens, and
that is why you should change your ways.”

“Yes,” said
Mma Ramotswe, making her first contribution. “You just be careful in
future, or Mma Potokwane will hear of it. Do you understand?”

Molefi nodded silently.

“Has a goat eaten your tongue?”
asked Mma Ramotswe.

“No,” said Molefi quietly. “I
understand what you have said, Mma.”

“Good,” said Mma
Potokwane. “Now the best thing you can do is to move that truck of yours
and get back to your garage. I think that you will have an envelope in your
office. That will do for the letter you are going to write to that man in
Lobatse.” She paused before adding, “And send me a copy, if you
don’t mind.”

There was not much more to be said after that.
Molefi reversed his truck and drove angrily away. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni thanked
Mma Potokwane, rather sheepishly, thought Mma Ramotswe, and the two women went
into the office of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, where Mma Makutsi
had boiled the kettle for tea. Mma Makutsi had listened to the encounter from
the doorway. She was somewhat in awe of Mma Potokwane, but now she asked her a
question.

“Is his mother that fierce?”

“I
have no idea,” said Mma Potokwane. “I’ve only seen his
mother; I’ve never met her, and I took a bit of a risk with that. But
usually bullies have severe mothers and bad fathers, and they are usually
frightened of them. That is why they are bullies, I think. There is something
wrong at home. I have found that with children in general and this applies to
men as well. I think that I shall have to write about that if I ever write a
book about how to run an orphan farm.”

“You must write that
book, Mma,” urged Mma Ramotswe. “I would read it, even if I was not
planning to run an orphan farm.”

“Thank you,” said
Mma Potokwane. “Maybe I shall do that one day. But at the moment I am so
busy looking after all those orphans and making tea and baking fruit cake and
all those things. There seems very little time for writing books.”

“That is a pity,” said Mma Makutsi. It had just occurred to her
that she might write a book herself, if Mma Potokwane, of all people, was
considering doing so.
The Principles of Typing
, perhaps, although that
was not perhaps the most exciting title one might imagine.
How to Get
Ninety-Seven Per Cent
. Now that was much, much better, and would be bought
by all those people, those many, many people who would love to get ninety-seven
per cent in whatever it was that they were doing and who knew that perhaps they
never would. At least they could hope, which was an important thing. We must be
able to hope. We simply must.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

MMA POTOKWANE AND MMA RAMOTSWE DISCUSS MARRIAGE

T
HESE MATTERS were distractions, of course, but at least the
matter of the butcher’s car was now sorted out and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni,
only so recently worried on two fronts—the parachute jump and First Class
Motors—could now look forward to the immediate future with greater
equanimity. Mma Potokwane had been magnificent, as she always was, and had
dispatched the bullying Herbert Molefi with the same ease as she dealt with
ten-year-old bullies. She had been happy to do this, as she owed Mr J.L.B.
Matekoni a great deal, with his constant and unquestioning availability to fix
bits and pieces of machinery on the orphan farm. And Mma Potokwane, like
everybody else who came into contact with him, recognised in Mr J.L.B. Matekoni
those qualities which endeared him to so many and which meant that most people
would do anything for him: his courtesy, his reliability, his sheer decency. If
only all men, or even more men, were like that, thought Mma Potokwane, indeed
thought all the women of Botswana. If only you could trust men in the same way
in which you could trust a close woman friend; instead of which, men tended to
let women down, not always deliberately, but just because they were selfish or
they became bored, or their heads were turned in some way. It was very easy to
turn a man’s head; a glamorous woman could do it just by looking at a man
and lowering her eyelids once or twice. That could make an apparently steadfast
man quite unpredictable, particularly if that man were of an age where he was
starting to feel unsure of himself as a man.

Mma Ramotswe was lucky
to be engaged to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, thought Mma Potokwane. He was exactly the
right choice for her, as she was a fine woman and she deserved a good man like
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni with whom to share her life. It was hard being a woman by
oneself, particularly when one was in a job such as Mma Ramotswe’s, and
it was important to have a man on whom one could call for assistance and
support. So Mma Ramotswe had made a wise choice, even if all those years ago
she had shown a distinct lack of judgment in marrying Note Mokoti, the trumpet
player. Mokoti, Matekoni: similar names, reflected Mma Potokwane, but how
different the men who bore the names.

Of course there was the question
of the length of the engagement and the slowness with which preparations were
being made for the wedding, indeed if any preparations were being made at all.
This was a puzzle to Mma Potokwane, and while Mma Makutsi made tea that day,
after the disposal of Herbert Molefi, Mma Potokwane decided to raise the matter
with Mma Ramotswe. She was direct rather than allusive; rather too direct,
thought Mma Makutsi, who listened but did not say anything. She tended to feel
inhibited in the presence of Mma Potokwane, largely because she felt the other
woman was so much more confident and experienced than she was. There was also
an element of disapproval in Mma Makutsi’s attitude—not that she
would ever have expressed it. She thought that Mma Potokwane was too ready to
take advantage of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s good nature. The kindness of men
like that could be exploited by forceful women, and there was no doubt but that
Mma Potokwane was in the vanguard of the forceful women of Botswana, their very
standard bearer, their champion.

So Mma Makutsi said nothing, but
listened very carefully as Mma Potokwane raised the subject of marriage and
weddings, virtually under the nose of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, who had resumed work
on a car next door. And what if he had walked in the door and heard her
speaking in these terms; what then? Mma Makutsi was astonished at the
matron’s tactlessness.

“Such a very good man,” came
the opening gambit. “He has been very helpful to us at the orphan farm.
All the children love him and call him their special uncle. So there he is an
uncle, but not yet a husband!”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “Yes,
he is a fine man. And he will make a good husband one day. That is why I agreed
to his proposal.”

Mma Potokwane looked at her fingernails, as if
absorbed by some cuticular matter. “One day?” she said.
“Which day? When is this day you are talking about? Next week, do you
think? Or next year?”

“Not next week,” said Mma
Ramotswe evenly. “Maybe next year. Who knows?”

Mma
Potokwane was quick to press home on this question. “But does he know?
That’s the important thing. Does Mr J.L.B. Matekoni know?”

Mma Ramotswe made a gesture which indicated that she did not know the
answer and that indeed the matter was not important as far as she was
concerned. “Mr J.L.B. Matekoni is not a man who makes hasty decisions. He
likes to think about things for a long time.”

Mma Potokwane shook
her head. “That is a weakness, Mma Ramotswe,” she said.
“I’m sorry to have to say this, but there are some men who need to
be organised by women. Every woman knows this. It is only now, in these modern
days, with men getting ideas about running their lives without any help from
women—those dangerous, bad ideas—it is only now that we see how
much these poor men need our assistance. It is a very sad thing.”

“I don’t know about that,” countered Mma Ramotswe.
“I know that ladies have to help men in many things. Sometimes it is
necessary to push men a little bit. But one should not take it too
far.”

“Well it’s not going too far to push men to the
altar,” retorted Mma Potokwane. “Women have always done that, and
that is how marriages take place. If you left it up to men, they would never
get there. Nobody would be married. You have to remind men to get
married.”

Mma Ramotswe looked at her guest thoughtfully. Should
she allow Mma Potokwane to help her to get Mr J.L.B. Matekoni a little bit
further along the road to matrimony? It was awkward for her; she did not want
him to form the impression that she was interfering too much in his life; men
did not like that, and many men would simply leave if they felt this was
happening. At the same time, if Mr J.L.B. Matekoni did need slight prompting,
it would be easier for this to come from Mma Potokwane, who had a long history
of pushing Mr J.L.B. Matekoni about, most of it with considerable success. One
only had to remember the matter of that old pump at the orphan farm which she
had cajoled him into maintaining well beyond the point where he had formed the
professional opinion that it should be scrapped. And one only had to recall the
recent instance of the parachute jump, which was another example of Mr J.L.B.
Matekoni being made to agree to something to which he did not wish to agree.
Perhaps there was a case for assistance in this matter too …

No,
no, no! thought Mma Makutsi, willing her employer not to yield to the
imprecations of the manipulative Mma Potokwane. She could see that Mma Ramotswe
was tempted, and if only Mma Potokwane had not been there she would have urged
Mma Ramotswe in the most vocal terms not to do anything which could have
serious consequences for the engagement or, even more importantly, for Mr
J.L.B. Matekoni’s state of health. Dr Moffat had told them all that Mr
J.L.B. Matekoni was not to be put under any stress, and what could be more
stressful than to be the object of a determined campaign by Mma Potokwane? Look
at that Herbert Molefi man, crushed by her tongue and unable to do anything to
defend himself. If only the Botswana Defence Force could have seen it, thought
Mma Makutsi, they would have signed her up immediately and made her a
sergeant-major or a general or whatever they called those soldiers who ordered
all the other soldiers about. Or even better, Mma Potokwane could have been
used as a weapon to intimidate the enemy, whoever they were. They would see Mma
Potokwane coming towards them and they would be incapable of doing anything,
reduced by the sight to mute and helpless boys.

None of these thoughts
reached Mma Ramotswe, although she did briefly glance across the room to where
Mma Makutsi was busying herself with the tea. But Mma Makutsi was turned away
at the time and Mma Ramotswe did not see her expression, so she had no idea of
the other woman’s feelings.

“Well,” began Mma
Ramotswe cautiously, “how would we help Mr J.L.B. Matekoni to make a
decision? How would we do it?”