In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

CHAPTER FOUR TEA ISSUES

IN THE MORNINGS everybody arrived at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors at different times, and there was no telling who would be in first. It used to be Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, in the days when the offices of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency were housed separately, but since the two businesses began to share the same premises it was sometimes Mma Ramotswe or Mma Makutsi, or, very rarely, one of the apprentices. In general, the apprentices arrived late, as they liked to stay in bed until the last possible moment before they bolted down a quick breakfast and rushed to catch the overloaded minibus that would drop them off at the roundabout at the end of the Tlokweng Road.

After their marriage, of course, Mma Ramotswe and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni tended to arrive at exactly the same time, even if they drove in two vehicles, as in a convoy, with Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s truck leading the way and the tiny white van, at the wheel of which sat Mma Ramotswe, following valiantly behind.

On that particular morning it was Mma Makutsi, carrying a brown paper parcel, who was first to arrive. She unlocked the office of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, placed the parcel on her desk, and opened the window to let in some air. It was barely seven o’clock, and it would be half an hour or so before Mma Ramotswe and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni arrived. This would give her time to organise her desk, to telephone her cousin’s sister-in-law about a family matter, and to write a quick letter to her father in Bobonong. Her father was seventy-one, and he had nothing very much to do, other than to walk to the small post office in the village and check for mail. Usually there was nothing, but at least once a week there would be a letter from Mma Makutsi, containing a few snippets of news from Gaborone and sometimes a fifty-pula note. Her father could not read English very well, and so Mma Makutsi always wrote to him in Kalanga, which gave her pleasure, as she liked to keep her grasp of the language alive.

There was much to tell him that day. She had had a busy weekend, with an invitation to a meal at the house of one of her new neighbours, who was a Malawian lady teaching at one of the schools. This lady had lived in London for a year and knew all about places that Mma Makutsi had only seen in the pages of theNational Geographic magazine. Yet she carried her experience lightly, and did not make Mma Makutsi feel at all provincial or untravelled. Quite the opposite, in fact. The neighbour had asked probing questions about Bobonong and had listened attentively while Mma Makutsi had told her of Francistown and Maun, and places like that.

“You are lucky to live in this country,” said the neighbour. “You have everything. Lots of land, as far as the eye can see, and further. And all those diamonds. And the cattle. There is everything here.”

“We are very fortunate,” said Mma Makutsi. “We know that.”

“And you now have that nice new house,” the neighbour went on, “and that interesting job of yours. People must ask you all the time: What is it like to be a private detective?”

Mma Makutsi smiled modestly. “They think it is a very exciting job,” she said. “But it is not really. Most of the time we are just helping people to find out things they already know.”

“And this Mma Ramotswe people talk about?” asked the neighbour. “What is she like? I have seen her at the shops. She has a very kind face. You would not think she was a detective, just to look at her.”

“She is a very kind lady,” agreed Mma Makutsi. “But she is also very clever. She can tell when people are lying, just by looking at them. And she also knows how to deal with men.”

The neighbour sighed. “That is a very great talent,” she said. “I would like to be able to do that.”

Mma Makutsi agreed with this. That would be very good; and indeed it would be good to have just one man to deal with. Mma Ramotswe now had Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, and this Malawian woman had a boyfriend, whom Mma Makutsi had seen coming to the house in the evenings. She herself had not yet found a man, apart from that one she had met at the Kalahari Typing School for Men and who had not lasted very long for some reason. After that she had made a rule:Never become emotionally involved with one of your typing students —a rule which was a variant on the advice which Mma Ramotswe had quoted from Clovis Andersen:Always keep your distance from your client; hugs and kisses never solved any cases, and never paid any bills.

Now the last part of that advice was very interesting, and Mma Makutsi had considered it at some length. She had no doubt that it was true that emotional involvement with a client would not help you to see a problem clearly, and would therefore not assist the solving of the case, but was it true to say that hugs and kisses never paid any bills? Surely one could argue the opposite of that. There were plenty of people who paid their way through life with hugs and kisses—the wives of rich men, for example, or at least some wives of some rich men. Mma Makutsi was in no doubt whatsoever that some of those glamorous girls who had been in her class at the Botswana Secretarial College, those girls who in some cases got scarcely fifty per cent in the College’s final examinations (against her own ninety-seven per cent); some of these girls had made a very astute calculation that the way to get on financially was to make sure that their hugs and kisses went to the right sort of man. And that, in their view, was the sort of man who was earning many thousands of pula a month and who drove an expensive car, preferably a Mercedes-Benz.

Mma Makutsi now wrote to her father about the meeting with this neighbour, but said nothing of the discussion about men, or Mma Ramotswe, or being a private detective; rather, she told him what the woman had cooked for her. Then she told him about the trouble she was having with ants in the new house, and that there seemed to be nothing that could be done. He would sympathise with her on that. Everybody in Botswana had experienced trouble with ants, and everybody had a view on what to do. But nobody ever succeeded: the ants always returned. Perhaps it was because they had been there before people had arrived and regarded it as their place. Perhaps the country should be called Botshoswane, rather than Botswana; this meant the Place of the Ants. No doubt that’s what the ants called it anyway.

The letter concluded, she attached a twenty-pula note to it with a pin, addressed the envelope and sealed it. That was her daughterly duty done for the week, and she smiled to herself as she imagined her father opening his small metal postal box (which she paid for) and his pleasure in receiving her letter. She had been told that he would read each letter again and again, extracting new significance each time from each phrase and each sentence. Then he would show it to his friends, the other old men, or read it to those who could not read, and they would talk about it for hours.

By the time the letter was finished, and the quick telephone call made, she heard Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s truck arriving outside. This truck always made more noise than any other vehicle, which was caused by its engine being different from the engines of other trucks. That was what Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had said, and he was undoubtedly right. He explained that the engine had been badly looked after by the previous owner and it had been impossible to undo the damage altogether. But it remained a good truck at heart; like a faithful beast of burden that has been maltreated by an owner but which has never lost its faith in man. And hard on the heels of the truck came the tiny white van, which drew to a halt in its parking place under the acacia tree at the side of the garage.

Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi had already opened the morning mail by the time that the apprentices arrived. The older apprentice, Charlie, sauntered into their office, whistling a tune, and smiling cheekily at the two women.

“You look pleased with yourself,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Have you won a big prize or something?”

The apprentice laughed. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Mma? Just wouldn’t you like to know?”

Mma Ramotswe exchanged glances with Mma Makutsi. “I hope you haven’t come to borrow money,” she said. “I am happy to help you, but you really should pay me back that fifty pula you borrowed at the beginning of the month.”

The apprentice affected injured innocence. “Ow! Why do you think I should need to borrow money, Mma? Do I look like somebody who needs to borrow money? I do not, I think. In fact, I was just coming in to pay you back. Here. Look.”

He reached into his pocket and took out a small roll of notes, from which he peeled off fifty pula. “There,” he said. “That is fifty pula, is it not? And that is what I owe you. I am giving it back right now.”

Mma Ramotswe took the money and slipped it into her drawer. “You seem to have a lot of money there. Where did you get it? Have you robbed a bank?”

The apprentice laughed. “I would never rob a bank. That is just for fools. If you rob a bank, then the police will surely catch you. That is always true. So don’t rob a bank, Mma!”

“I have no intention of robbing a bank,” said Mma Ramotswe, laughing at the suggestion.

“Just warning you, Mma,” he said casually, ostentatiously putting the roll of notes back into the pocket of his overalls. Then he sauntered out again, having resumed his whistling.

Mma Makutsi looked across the room at Mma Ramotswe. “Well!” she exclaimed. “What a performance!”

“He’s up to something,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Where would he have got hold of that money if he weren’t up to something? Do you think he borrowed it from somebody, from some foolish person who doesn’t know what those young men are like?”

“I have no idea,” said Mma Makutsi. “But did you see the look on his face? Did you see how pleased he was with himself? And did you see that he was wearing one white shoe and one brown shoe? Did you notice that?”

“I’m afraid I didn’t,” said Mma Ramotswe. “What can that mean, do you think?”

“It means that he has two pairs like that,” said Mma Makutsi, laughing. “Or it means that he thinks he looks smart. I think it is because he thinks it looks smart.”

“He’s a good enough boy at heart,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He just needs to grow up a bit, don’t you think?”

“No,” said Mma Makutsi. She paused before continuing, “Do you know, Mma? I think that he is seeing a rich woman. I think that he has found some lady to give him money. That would explain the money itself, but it would also explain the fancy shoes, the grease on the hair, and the general air of being very pleased with himself. That is what is happening, if you ask me.”

Mma Ramotswe laughed. “Poor woman!” she said. “I feel sorry for her.”

Mma Makutsi agreed with this, but she felt concerned for the boy too. He was only a young man, and very immature, and if this woman was much older than he was, then she might be taking advantage of him in some way. It did not look good for a young man to be spoilt in this way by some bored, rich woman. He would be the one to be hurt when the whole thing came to an end, as it undoubtedly would. And in spite of everything, she liked the two apprentices, or at least felt some responsibility for them; the responsibility that an older sister feels for a younger brother, perhaps. The younger brother might be foolish and may get into all sorts of difficulties through his foolishness, but he remained the younger brother, and he had to be protected.

“I think we should watch this situation,” she said to Mma Ramotswe. And Mma Ramotswe nodded her head in agreement.

“We’ll think of something,” she said. “But you are right, we do not want that young man to come to any harm. We must think of something.”

THEY HAD A GREAT DEAL of work to do that day. A few days previously, they had received a letter from a firm of lawyers in Zambia, asking them to help in the tracing of a Lusaka financier who had disappeared. The circumstances of his disappearance were suspicious: there was a large hole in the company’s finances and the natural conclusion was that he had taken the money. This was not the sort of matter with which Mma Ramotswe normally liked to concern herself; the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency preferred to deal with more domestic matters, but it was a matter of professional honour that no client would be turned away, unless, of course, they deserved to be. And there was also the question of money. This sort of work paid well, and there were overheads to be taken into account—Mma Makutsi’s salary, the cost of running the tiny white van, and postage, to name just a few of the items that seemed to consume so much of the profits each month.

The financier was believed to be in Botswana, where he had relatives. Of course they were the first people who should be approached, but who were they? The lawyers had been unable to provide names, and this would mean that Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi would have to make enquiries amongst Zambians in Gaborone. That sounded simple enough, but it was not always easy to get foreigners to talk about their fellow citizens, especially if one of them was in trouble. They knew that it was wrong to close ranks, especially when it was a question of embezzled funds, but they did it nonetheless. So there were many telephone calls to be made to see if anybody was prepared to throw light on the case. There were also letters to hotels, asking them if they recognised the person in the photograph which they now sent them. All of this was time-consuming, and they worked solidly until ten o’clock, when Mma Ramotswe, having just finished an unsatisfactory telephone call to a rather rude Zambian woman, put down the receiver, stretched her arms wide, and announced that it was time for morning tea.

Mma Makutsi agreed. “I have written letters now to ten hotels,” she said, taking a sheet out of her typewriter, “and my head is sore from thinking about missing Zambians. I am looking forward to a cup of tea.”

“I will make it,” offered Mma Ramotswe. “You have been working very hard, while I have just been talking on the telephone. You deserve a rest.”

Mma Makutsi looked embarrassed. “That is very kind, Mma. But I was thinking of making tea in a different way this morning.”

Mma Ramotswe looked at her assistant in astonishment. “In a different way? How can you make bush tea in a different way? Surely there is only one way to make tea—you put the tea leaves in the tea-pot and then you put in the water. What are you going to do? Put the water in first? Is that the different way you have in mind?”

Mma Makutsi rose to her feet, picking up the parcel which she had placed on her desk when she arrived. Mma Ramotswe had not noticed this, as it had been behind a pile of files. Now she looked at it with curiosity.

“What is that, Mma?” Mma Ramotswe asked. “Is it something to do with this new way of making tea?”

Mma Makutsi did not reply, but unwrapped the parcel and exposed a new china tea-pot, which she held up to Mma Ramotswe’s gaze.

“Ah!” exclaimed Mma Ramotswe. “That is a very fine tea-pot, Mma! Look at it! Look at the flowers on the side. That is very fine. Our bush tea will taste very good if it is brewed in so handsome a tea-pot!”

Mma Makutsi looked down at her shoes, but there was no help from that quarter; there never was. In tight moments, she had noticed, her shoes tended to say:You’re on your own, Boss! She had known all along that this would be awkward, but she had decided that sooner or later she would have to take this issue up with Mma Ramotswe and it could not be put off any longer.

“Well, Mma,” she began. “Well …”

She paused. It was going to be more difficult than she had imagined. She looked at Mma Ramotswe, who stared back at her expectantly.

“I am looking forward to the tea,” said Mma Ramotswe helpfully.

Mma Makutsi swallowed. “I will not be making bush tea,” she blurted out. “I mean, I will make bush tea for you, as usual, but I want to make my own tea, ordinary tea, in this pot. Just for me. Ordinary tea. You can drink bush tea and I will drink ordinary tea.”

After she had finished speaking, there was a complete silence. Mma Ramotswe sat quite still in her chair, her eyes fixed on the china tea-pot. Mma Makutsi, who had been holding the pot up as if it were a battle standard, a standard for the ranks of those who preferred ordinary tea to bush tea, now lowered it and put it down on her desk.

“I’m sorry, Mma,” said Mma Makutsi. “I’m very sorry. I do not want you to think that I am a rude person. I am not. But I have tried and tried to like bush tea and now I must speak what is in my heart. And my heart says that I have preferred ordinary tea all along. That is why I bought this special tea-pot.”

Mma Ramotswe listened carefully, and then she spoke. “I am the one who should say sorry, Mma. No, it is me. I am the one. I have been the rude person all along. I have never asked you whether you would prefer to drink ordinary tea. I never bothered to ask you, but I have bought bush tea and expected you to like it. I am very sorry, Mma.”

“You have not been rude,” protested Mma Makutsi. “I should have told you. I am the one who is at fault here.”

It was all very complicated. Mma Makutsi had switched from bush tea to ordinary tea some time ago, and then she had gone back to bush tea again. Mma Ramotswe felt confused: What did Mma Makutsi really want when it came to tea?

“No,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You have been very patient with me, drinking all that bush tea just for my sake. I should have seen it. I should have seen it in your face. I did not. I am very sorry, Mma.”

“But I didn’t dislike itall that much,” said Mma Makutsi. “I did not make a face when I drank it. If I had made a face, then you might have noticed it. But I did not. I was happy enough drinking it—it’s just that I shall be even happier when I am drinking ordinary tea.”

Mma Ramotswe nodded. “Then we shall have different tea,” she said. “Just as we did in the past. I have my tea, and you have yours. That is the solution to this difficult problem.”

“Exactly,” said Mma Makutsi. She thought for a moment. What about Mr J.L.B. Matekoni and the apprentices? They had all been drinking bush tea, but now that there was a choice, should they be offered ordinary tea? And if they were, then would they want to drink it out of her tea-pot? She would not mind sharing her new tea-pot with Mr J.L.B. Matekoni—nobody would mind that—but sharing with the apprentices was another matter altogether.

She decided to voice her concerns to Mma Ramotswe. “What about Mr J.L.B. Matekoni?” she asked. “Will he drink …”

“Bush tea,” said Mma Ramotswe quickly. “That is the best tea for a man. It is well-known. He will drink bush tea.”

“And the apprentices?”

Mma Ramotswe rolled her eyes towards the ceiling. “Perhaps they should have bush tea too,” she said. “Although, heaven knows, it’s not doing them much good.”

With those decisions made, Mma Makutsi put on the kettle and, watched by Mma Ramotswe, she ladled into the new tea-pot a quantity of her tea, her ordinary tea. Then she fetched Mma Ramotswe’s tea-pot, which looked distinctly battered beside the fine new china tea-pot, and into this she put the correct quantity of bush tea. They waited for the kettle to boil, each of them silent, each of them alone with her thoughts. Mma Makutsi was thinking with relief of the generous response that Mma Ramo-tswe had shown to her confession, which seemed so like an act of disloyalty, of treachery even. Her employer had made it so easy that she felt a flood of gratitude for her. Mma Ramotswe was undoubtedly one of the finest women in all Botswana. Mma Makutsi had always known this, but here was another instance which spoke to those qualities of understanding and sympathy. And for her part, Mma Ramotswe thought of what a loyal, fine woman was Mma Makutsi. Other employees would have complained, or moaned about drinking tea they did not like, but she had said nothing. And more than that, she had given the impression that she was enjoying what was given to her, as a polite guest will eat or drink what is laid upon the host’s table. This was further evidence of those very qualities which obviously had been revealed at the Botswana Secretarial College and which had resulted in her astonishingly high marks. Mma Makutsi was surely a gem.