Alexander Mccall Smith - Ladies' Detective Agency 05 (5 page)

“That is very good,” said Mma Holonga. “It is good just
to sit sometimes. I like to do that, if I get the chance. I just
sit.”

“There is a lot to be said for that,” agreed
Mma Ramotswe. “Although we would not want people to do it all the time,
would we?”

“Oh no,” said Mma Holonga hurriedly.
“I would never recommend that.”

For a few moments there was
silence. Mma Ramotswe looked at the woman in front of her. As the newspaper
photographs had suggested, she was traditionally built about the face, but also
everywhere else, and her dress was straining at the sides. She should move up a
size or two, thought Mma Ramotswe, and then those panels on the side would not
look as if they were about to rip. There really was no point in fighting these
things: it is far better to admit one’s size and indeed there is even a
case for buying a slightly larger size. That gives room for manoeuvre.

Mma Holonga was also taking the opportunity to sum up Mma Ramotswe.
Comfortable, she thought; not one of these undernourished modern ladies. That
is good. But her dress is a bit tight, and she should think of getting a
slightly larger size. But she has a friendly face—a good, old-fashioned
Botswana face that one can trust, unlike these modern faces which one saw so
much of these days.

“I am glad that I came to see you,”
said Mma Holonga. “I had heard that you were a good person for this sort
of thing. That’s what people tell me.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled.
She was a modest person, but a compliment was never unwelcome. And she knew, of
course, how important it was to compliment others; not in any insincere way,
but to encourage people in their work or to make them feel that their efforts
had been worthwhile. She had even complimented the apprentices on one occasion,
when they had gone out of their way to help a customer, and for a short time it
seemed as if this had inspired them to take a pride in their work. But after a
few days she assumed that her words had been forgotten, as they forgot
everything else, since they returned to their usual, sloppy habits.

“Oh yes,” Mma Holonga continued. “You may not know it,
Mma, but your reputation in this town is very high. People say that you are one
of the cleverest women in Botswana.”

“Oh that cannot be
true,” said Mma Ramotswe, laughing. “There are many much cleverer
ladies in Botswana, ladies with BAs and BScs. There are even lady doctors at
the hospital. They must be much cleverer than I am. I have just got my
Cambridge Certificate, that is all.”

“And I haven’t
even got that,” said Mma Holonga. “But I don’t think that I
am any less intelligent than those apprentices out there in the garage. I
assume they have their Cambridge Certificate too.”

“They
are a special case,” said Mma Ramotswe. “They have passed their
Cambridge Certificate, but they are not a very good advertisement for
education. Their heads are quite empty. They have nothing in them except
thoughts of girls.”

Mma Holonga glanced through the doorway to
where one of the apprentices could be seen sitting on an upturned oil-drum. She
appeared to study him for a moment before she turned back to Mma Ramotswe. Mma
Ramotswe noticed; it was only a momentary stare, she thought, but it told her
something: Mma Holonga was interested in men. And why should she not be? The
days when women had to pretend not to be interested in men were surely over,
and now they could talk about it. Mma Ramotswe was not sure whether it was a
good idea to talk too openly about men—she had heard some quite shocking
things being said by some women, and she would never condone such
shamelessness—but it was, on the whole, better for women to be able to
express themselves.

“I have come to see you about men,”
said Mma Holonga suddenly. “That is why I am here.”

Mma
Ramotswe was taken aback. She had wondered why Mma Holonga had come and had
assumed that it was something to do with one of her businesses. But now it
seemed it was going to be something rather more personal than that.

“There are many women who come to see me about men,” she said
quietly. “Men are a major problem for many women.”

Mma
Holonga smiled at this. “That is no exaggeration, Mma. But many women
have problems just with one man. I have problems with four men.”

Mma Ramotswe gave a start. This was unexpected: four men! It was
conceivable that somebody might have two boyfriends, and hope that neither
found out about the other, but to have four! That was an invitation for
trouble.

“It’s not what you may think,” said Mma
Holonga hurriedly. “I do not have four boyfriends. At the moment I have
no boyfriend, except for these four …”

Mma Ramotswe raised
her hand. “You should start at the beginning,” she said. “I
am getting confused already.” She paused. “And to help you talk, I
shall make some bush tea. Would you like that?”

Mma Holonga
nodded. “I will talk while you are making the tea. Then you will hear all
my troubles while the water is boiling.”

“I AM a very ordinary lady,” Mma Holonga began. “I did
not do very well at school, as I have told you. When other girls were looking
at their books, I was always looking at magazines. I liked the fashion
magazines with all their pictures of bright clothes and smart models. And I
specially liked looking at pictures of people’s hair and of how hair
could be braided and made beautiful with all those beads and henna and things
like that.

“I thought it very unfair that God had given African
ladies short hair and all the long hair had been taken by everybody else. But
then I realised that there was no reason why African hair should not be very
beautiful too, although it is not easy to do things with it. I used to braid my
friends’ hair, and soon I had quite a reputation amongst the other girls
at school. They came to see me on Friday afternoons to have their hair braided
for the week-end, and I would do it outside our kitchen. The friends would sit
on a chair and I would stand behind them, talking and braiding hair in the
afternoon sun. I was very happy doing that.

“You’ll know
all about hair braiding, Mma. You’ll know that it can sometimes take a
long time. Most of the time I would only spend an hour or two on
somebody’s hair, but there were times when I spent over two days on a
design. I was very proud of all the circles and lines, Mma. I was very
proud.

“By the time I was ready to leave school, there was no
doubt in my mind what I wanted to do for a living. I had been promised a job in
a hair salon that a lady had opened in the African Mall. She had seen my work
and knew that I would bring a lot of business because I was so well-known as a
hair braider. She was right. All my friends came to this salon although now
they had to pay for me to do their hair.

“After a while I started
my own business. I found a small tuck shop that was closing down and I started
off in there. It was very cramped, and I had to bring the water I needed in a
bucket, but all my customers moved with me and said that they did not mind if
the new place was very small. They said that the important thing was to have
somebody who really knew about hair, and they said I was such a person. One of
them said that a person who knew as much about hair only comes along once or
twice in a century. I was very pleased to hear this and asked that person to
write out what they had said. I then had a sign-writer paint it on a board and
passers-by would stop and read that remark and look at me with respect as I
stood there with my scissors ready to cut their hair. I was very happy, Mma. I
was very happy.

“I built up my business and eventually I bought a
proper salon. Then I bought another one and another after that up in
Francistown. Everything went very well and all this time the money was piling
up in the bank. I had so much money that I could not really spend it all
myself, and so I gave some to my brother and asked him to use it to buy some
other businesses for me. He bought me a shop and a place where they make
dresses. So I had a factory now, and this made me even richer. I was very happy
with all that money, and I went into the bank every Thursday to check how much
I had. They were very polite to me now, as I had all that money and banks like
people with lots of money.

“But you know what I didn’t
have, Mma? I didn’t have a husband. I had been so busy cutting hair and
making money that I had forgotten to get married. Three months ago, when I had
my fortieth birthday, I suddenly thought: where is your husband? Where are all
your children? And the answer was that there were none of these. So I decided
that I would find a husband. It may be too late to have children now, but at
least I would find a husband.

“And do you think that was easy,
Mma? What do you think?”

Mma Ramotswe had by now made the bush
tea and was pouring it into her client’s cup. “I think it would be
easy for a lady like you,” she said. “I would not think you would
find it hard.”

“Oh?” said Mma Holonga. “And why
would I not find it hard?”

Mma Ramotswe hesitated. She had
answered without thinking very much about it, and now she wondered how she
would explain herself. She had probably thought that it would be easy for Mma
Holonga to find a husband because she was rich. It was easy for rich people to
do anything, even to find a husband. But could she say that? Would it not seem
insulting to Mma Holonga that the only reason why Mma Ramotswe should think she
could find a husband was because she was rich, and not because she was
beautiful or desirable.

“There are many men …”
began Mma Ramotswe, and then stopped. “There are many men looking for
wives.”

“But many women say that it is not all that
easy,” said Mma Holonga. “Why should they find it hard while I
should find it easy? Can you explain that?”

Mma Ramotswe sighed.
It was best to be honest, she thought, and so she said, quite simply,
“Money, Mma. That is the reason. You are a lady with a large chain of
hair salons. You are a rich lady. There are many men who like rich
ladies.”

Mma Holonga sat back in her chair and smiled.
“Exactly, Mma. I was waiting to see if you would say that. Now I know
that you really do understand things.”

“But they would also
like you because you are an attractive lady,” added Mma Ramotswe
hurriedly. “Traditional Botswana men like ladies who are more
traditionally shaped. You and I, Mma. We remind men of how things used to be in
Botswana before these modern-shaped ladies started to get men all
confused.”

Mma Holonga nodded, but in a rather distracted
fashion. “Yes, Mma. That may be quite true, but I think that my problem
remains. I must tell you what happened when I let it be known that I was
looking for a suitable husband. A very interesting thing happened.” She
paused. “But would you pour me more of that tea, Mma? It is very fine tea
and I am thirsty again.”

“It is bush tea,” said Mma
Ramotswe as she reached for the tea-pot. “Mma Makutsi—my
assistant—and I drink bush tea because it helps us to think.”

Mma Holonga raised her refilled cup to her lips and drained it
noisily.

“I shall buy bush tea instead of ordinary tea,”
she said. “I shall put honey in it and drink it every day.”

“That would be a very good thing to do,” said Mma Ramotswe.
“But what about this husband business? What happened?”

Mma
Holonga frowned. “It is very difficult for me,” she said.
“When word got round, then I received many telephone calls. Ten, twenty
calls. And they were all from men.”

Mma Ramotswe raised an
eyebrow. “That is a large number of men,” she said.

Mma
Holonga nodded. “Of course, I realised that some of them were no good
right there and then. One even telephoned from the prison and the telephone was
snatched away from him. And one was only a boy, about thirteen or fourteen, I
think. But I agreed to see the others, and from these I ended up with a list of
four.”

“That is a good number to choose from,” said
Mma Ramotswe. “Not too large a list of men, but not too
small.”

Mma Holonga seemed pleased by this. She looked at Mma
Ramotswe uncertainly. “You do not think it strange to have a list, Mma?
Some of my friends …”

Mma Ramotswe raised a hand to
interrupt her. Many of her clients referred to advice from friends, and in her
experience this advice was often wrong. Friends tried to be helpful, but tended
to misadvise, largely because they had unrealistic ideas of what the friend
whom they were advising was really like. Mma Ramotswe believed that it was
usually better to seek the advice of a stranger—not just any stranger, of
course, as one could hardly go out onto the street and confide in the first
person one encountered, but a stranger whom you knew to be wise. We do not talk
about wise men or wise ladies any more, she reflected; their place had been
taken, it seemed, by all sorts of shallow people—actors and the
like—who were only too ready to pronounce on all sorts of subjects. It
was worse, she thought, in other countries, but it was beginning to happen in
Botswana and she did not like it. She, for one, would never pay any attention
to the views of such people; she would far rather listen to a person who had
done something real in life; these people knew what they were talking
about.

“I’m not sure if you should worry too much about
what your friends think, Mma,” she said. “I think that it is a good
idea to have a list. What is the difference between a list of things to buy at
a shop, or a list of things to do, and a list of men? I do not see the
difference.”

“I am glad that you think that,” said
Mma Holonga. “In fact, I have been glad to hear everything that you have
said.”

Mma Ramotswe was always embarrassed by compliments, and
rapidly went on.

“You must tell me about this list,” she
said. “And you must tell me about what you want me to do.”