Tea Time for the Traditionally Built (26 page)

“He'll learn,” she said. “We all learn about losing.”

“Except Mr. Molofololo,” mused Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “I'm not sure that he's learned about losing.”

“No,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Some people like that seem not to have learned these simple lessons.”

Puso came into the kitchen and began to tell her about the game. After a few minutes, she lost track of what he was saying. It was something about tackles and fouls and penalties— technical details that she had heard people talking about over the past weeks but that still meant very little to her. And then, by chance, she said, “And did you talk to the players? Did Mr. Molofololo let you help, as he said he would?”

Puso nodded. “I was allowed to hold the ball while they were waiting to go on. Some of them talked to me.”

She began to peel another onion. She was not really interested
in football any more, now that she had written her report and was intending to bring the investigation to an unsatisfactory conclusion. But Puso was, and she was listening with half an ear. “And what did they say?” she asked.

“Most of them said they didn't like their boots,” he said. “One of them said that they were very uncomfortable, and the others all joined in.”

Mma Ramotswe hesitated. She put down the onion.

“They said that their boots were uncomfortable?”

“Yes. They said that Mr. Molofololo had made them wear boots that a sponsor had given them. They said that they had been wearing them for six months and they were still uncomfortable. I thought they looked very nice …”

Mma Ramotswe looked out of the window. It was so obvious. So obvious. But then the solutions to complex problems were often such simple things. If you wore uncomfortable boots, then how could you play good football? Of course you cannot—everybody, even a woman who owned a detective agency and who came from Mochudi and who had a fine mechanic for a husband, and two children who loved her although she was not their real mother, and who was the daughter of a man called Obed Ramotswe—even such a woman, with absolutely no knowledge of football, and no interest in it—even she would know that.

Then she remembered something, and the remembering of it struck her so forcefully that she found herself holding her breath, almost afraid to breathe. Of course. Of course. Mr. Molofololo had made that strange remark, right at the beginning:
I am the one. It is me
. He knew! He knew—on one level—that he was the problem, and it had slipped out. He knew but did not know, as was often the case with a person's own faults. We know what is wrong, but we cannot bring ourselves to admit it. She had helped clients like that before—people who really knew the answer to
their problems but wanted somebody else to help them admit it. She breathed out. Yes. Yes.

She turned round and suddenly picked Puso up and hugged him. It was exactly the sort of gesture that a small boy would find acutely embarrassing—that they would run away from to avoid— but he suffered it. “You clever, clever boy!”

The boy's embarrassment turned to puzzlement. “Why, Mma?”

“Oh, Puso, it is a very big case that you have just solved. What … what treat would you like? Tell me.”

He looked up at her. “Ice cream,” he said. “Lots of it.”

“There will be ice cream,” she said. “We shall go right now. In the van. Ice cream—lots and lots of ice cream. More than you can eat—I promise you.”

THE FOLLOWING MONDAY MORNING
, at eleven o'clock, Mma Ramotswe drove out to the orphan farm to have tea with Mma Potokwane. She had received no specific invitation, and when she left the office of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency she had no idea even that the matron would be in. But in the event she received her usual warm greeting from her friend, who was standing in front of her office in an apparently idle moment.

“Nothing to do, Mma Ramotswe?” Mma Potokwane called out. “Time for a cup of tea?”

“You do not look very busy yourself,” replied Mma Ramotswe, as she walked up to greet her.

“I am standing here planning,” said Mma Potokwane. “I do my best thinking when I am on my feet watching the children playing.”

Mma Ramotswe looked round. A group of very small children were playing under a tree—some strange game of childhood that involved tagging and running. There had been so many of those
games, thought Mma Ramotswe—all with complicated rules and a history behind them; just like the affairs of the adult world— complicated rules and a history.

“They look happy,” Mma Ramotswe said.

Mma Potokwane smiled. “They are very happy. No matter what they have had in their lives before, they are very happy.” She gestured for Mma Ramotswe to follow her into the office.

“I see you are driving a new van,” she said, as they sat down. “It is very smart.”

Mma Ramotswe said nothing.

“And your old van? The white one?” asked Mma Potokwane.

“My old van has been retired. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni decided that he could not fix it any more.”

“He did that with our water pump,” said Mma Potokwane. “I thought that it could go on a bit longer, but he said that it could not. They are like that sometimes—mechanics. They decide that the end has come and then nothing you say can make them think otherwise.” She paused. “Are you sad, Mma? Sad about your van?”

Mma Ramotswe sighed. “I am. But I think that I am going to get it back. I know where it has gone and I am going to go up there one day soon and find it. There is a man who has bought it to fix it up. I shall go up there—it's in Machaneng—and buy it back.”

She had not told anybody of this plan, had hardly determined it in her own mind, but now, rehearsed in this way before Mma Potokwane, it was the obvious thing to do. Yes, that was what would happen. She would go and find the tiny white van and bring it back. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni could hardly complain if she brought it back restored—it was not as if she would have to ask him to fix it.

“That sounds like a good idea,” said Mma Potokwane. “Well done, Mma. It is a good thing to fight for the things you love.” She looked at her guest. “And that blue van out there,” she ventured.
“If you get your tiny white van back, then will you need that blue van? Because we're always looking for transport for the children, you see …”

Mma Ramotswe smiled ruefully. Mma Potokwane was incorrigible. But that would be too much. She could hardly give away a valuable van just because Mma Potokwane wanted it for the children.

“I'm sorry, Mma,” she said. “I would love to give you that van, but it is worth quite a lot of money and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni …”

“Of course, Mma,” said Mma Potokwane. “I understand. Now, let us talk about other things. We cannot sit here and talk about vans, like men do. We must talk about more important things.”

Mma Ramotswe took the initiative. “Yes, we can leave that sort of talk to our husbands. That and football.”

Mma Potokwane laughed. “Football! Yes, my husband is always going on about that with his friends. It is very dull for me.”

“Mind you, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Some bits of football are quite interesting.” She looked down at the floor in modesty. “As it happens, Mma, I have just solved a very major football case. Would you like to hear about it?”

It was why she had really come out to see Mma Potokwane, to tell her of the extraordinary resolution of the case of the Kalahari Swoopers. And it was an odd case, really—a very odd case. So she told her about her excursion into the world of football players and of the sudden, blinding insight that Puso had triggered.

“And was it the problem?” asked Mma Potokwane.

“I think so,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Of course I had a bit of difficulty persuading Mr. Molofololo when I saw him earlier this morning. I told him that the reason he was losing was that the players all felt uncomfortable in the boots he was making them wear. He shouted at me, actually, and said that he had never heard such nonsense and that it was typical of the sort of idea that a
woman would come up with. He was quite rude, actually, and I told him that I would not be spoken to like that and that he had better watch what he said. And do you know, Mma, that deflated him like a balloon. And he stopped shouting.”

“I would always listen to you, Mma,” said Mma Potokwane.

“Thank you, Mma. Well, he seemed to be thinking and after a while he telephoned the captain and started to talk to him about boots. The captain said much the same thing that I had said. And the captain also said,
Why don't you listen to anybody Rra? Why don't you hear us when we try to talk to you?
Mr. Molofololo started to shout about that, but I stopped him and said,
There you are, Rra—you are not listening, are you?
And he stopped. Just like that. He had heard something at last. After that he started to apologise to me. He said that he had learned a lesson and that he was very grateful for it.”

Mma Potokwane nodded approvingly. “So what did you say then, Mma?”

“I said,
Here is my bill, Rra. It is ready for payment now.”

“And?”

“And he paid. He paid very well, Mma. That is why I have come out to see you, to tell you all about this and … and to tell you about another case. A very shocking one.”

Mma Potokwane listened open-mouthed as Mma Ramotswe told her the story of Violet Sephotho and her shocking attempt to ingratiate herself with Phuti Radiphuti. And when she came to tell her of the way in which Charlie had exposed the plan, the matron hooted with laughter. “That boy really is quite a star,” she said. “I have always said that. And yet he's still an apprentice.”

“He never does any work for his mechanical exams,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He gets very bad results. It's his own fault.”

“He'll qualify one day,” said Mma Potokwane. “Even if he doesn't get … what is the figure again, Mma?”

“Ninety-seven per cent,” answered Mma Ramotswe.

They both laughed. Then Mma Potokwane made tea, which she served with several slices of fruit cake. They drank three cups of tea each, and then, after a final slice of fruit cake—a small one—Mma Ramotswe got into her new blue van and drove back into town.

In the office, Mma Makutsi greeted her with the look that said,
You've missed something
.

“Somebody has been in, Mma Makutsi?”

“Yes. That woman.”

Mma Ramotswe looked blank.

“That Sephotho woman.”

She had not expected that. “Violet?” Perhaps she had come in to threaten them; she would not put that past her.

“No, the other one. Lily Sephotho. The one with two husbands.”

Mma Ramotswe sat down at her desk. It was turning into an eventful day, what with her successful resolution of the Molofololo case and now the return of the woman with two husbands.

“And what did she report, Mma?”

Mma Makutsi was evidently enjoying herself. “She reported that she had done as we told her to. She had confessed to both husbands. And she said that both were very angry and threw her out. Our idea of choosing the one who was most forgiving was not a very good one. Neither was prepared to forgive.”

Mma Ramotswe spread her hands in a gesture of resignation. “That really is her own fault, Mma. I'm sorry to say it, but it's her own fault. So what now?”

Mma Makutsi's enjoyment increased. “Well, it gets better, Mma. She confessed to me that she hadn't really told us the whole truth. She hadn't told us that there was a third husband. She hadn't mentioned him because she was too embarrassed.”

“And this husband? What about him?”

“She says that she has learned her lesson, and she is keeping
him. So she now has only one husband and everything has worked out well.”

“She is a very foolish woman,” said Mma Ramotswe. She stopped. Of course Lily Sephotho was foolish, but were we not all foolish, in one way or another, and did we not all deserve a second, or even a third chance?

Mma Ramotswe turned round. “Well, I hope now that she is happy. Happier than her daughter at least …”

Mma Makutsi shook her head. “No, she is not Violet's mother, Mma Ramotswe. I asked her about that, and she is an entirely different Sephotho. It is a coincidence that they both have names of flowers.”

Mma Ramotswe got to her feet. “Well, Mma Makutsi,” she said. “That settles all that. And everything else is settled, I think, which is how we really like it to be: settled. We are settled ladies, I think.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “So now we should get ready.”

“For what, Mma?”

“It is almost lunch time, and I would like to treat you to lunch at the President Hotel.”

“The President Hotel!”

“Why not, Mma? We have earned a big fee from Mr. Molofololo. We have sorted out at least one person called Sephotho, even if we have not sorted out the other one. And we are happy about all that, are we not?”

Mma Makutsi rose to her feet. She was wearing her new shoes, and she rather liked the idea of showing them off at the President Hotel. People appreciated shoes like that down there. “We are, Mma. Yes, we are happy.”

“So let us go, Mma Makutsi, before all the tables are taken.”

They drove down to the centre of the town, parking the blue van at the back of the hotel. Then, as they were climbing the stairs at the front, Mma Ramotswe looked out, over to the east, and
drew Mma Makutsi's attention to the clouds that had just appeared. They were distant purple clouds, and they meant rain, the longed-for rain that would start the growing season, would wake the land again.

“Look,” she said.

Mma Makutsi looked. “Good,” she said.

There was nothing more to be said. It was good.

And at the table, in that silence as they contemplated the menu, Mma Makutsi's shoes suddenly addressed her.
Well, this is nice, we must say!

Mma Ramotswe looked up from the menu. “Did you say something, Mma?”

Mma Makutsi, who had been concentrating on choosing her lunch, had not been listening; after all, talkative shoes could not expect a constantly attentive audience. So she said nothing, but noticed, when she looked up, that the rain clouds had moved across the sky with great speed, and now they were not far away, over Mochudi perhaps, or nearby, and the great veils of rain that dropped from those high clouds were now descending, like the traces of a giant brush across the canvas of the sky. And it was her turn to point and Mma Ramotswe's turn to look, and she said, “That is the smell of rain, Mma.”