Morality for Beautiful Girls

CHAPTER FOUR A VISIT TO DR MOFFAT

AS MMA Makutsi sat at her brother’s side, Mma Ramotswe was driving her tiny white van up to the gate of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s house near the old Botswana Defence Force Club. She could see that he was in; the green truck which he inevitably drove—in spite of his having a rather better vehicle which he left parked at the garage—stood outside his front door, which he had left half open for the heat. She left the van outside, to save herself from getting in and out to open and shut the gate, and walked up to the house past the few scruffy plants which Mr J.L.B. Matekoni called his garden.

“Ko! Ko!” she called at the door. “Are you there, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni?”

A voice came from the living room. “I am here. I am in, Mma Ramotswe.”

Mma Ramotswe walked in, noticing immediately how dusty and unpolished was the floor of the hall. Ever since Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s sullen and unpleasant maid, Florence, had been sent to prison for harbouring an unlicensed gun, the house had been allowed to get into an unkempt state. She had reminded Mr J.L.B. Matekoni on several occasions to engage a replacement maid, at least until they got married, and he had promised to do so. But he had never acted, and Mma Ramotswe had decided that she would simply have to bring her maid in one day and attempt a spring clean of the whole place.

“Men will live in a very untidy way, if you let them,” she had remarked to a friend. “They cannot keep a house or a yard. They don’t know how to do it.”

She made her way through the hall and into the living room. As she entered, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, who had been lying full length on his uncomfortable sofa, rose to his feet and tried to make himself look less dishevelled.

“It is good to see you, Mma Ramotswe,” he said. “I have not seen you for several days.”

“That is true,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Perhaps that is because you have been so busy.”

“Yes,” he said, sitting down again, “I have been very busy. There is so much work to be done.”

She said nothing, but watched him as he spoke. There was something wrong; she had been right.

“Are things busy at the garage?” she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Things are always busy at the garage. All the time. People keep bringing their cars in and saying Do this, do that. They think I have ten pairs of hands. That’s what they think.”

“But do you not expect people to bring their cars to the garage?” she asked gently. “Is that not what a garage is for?”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked at her briefly and then shrugged. “Maybe. But there is still too much work.”

Mma Ramotswe glanced about the room, noticing the pile of newspapers on the floor and the small stack of what looked like unopened letters on the table.

“I went to the garage,” she said. “I expected to see you there, but they said that you had left early. They said you often left early these days.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked at her, and then transferred his gaze to the floor. “I find it hard to stay there all day, with all that work,” he said. “It will get done sooner or later. There are those two boys. They can do it.”

Mma Ramotswe gasped. “Those two boys? Those apprentices of yours? But they are the very ones you always said could do nothing. How can you say now that they will do everything that needs to be done? How can you say that?”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni did not reply.

“Well, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni?” pressed Mma Ramotswe. “What’s your answer to that?”

“They’ll be all right,” he said, in a curious, flat voice. “Let them get on with it.”

Mma Ramotswe stood up. There was no point talking to him when he was in this sort of mood—and it certainly was a mood that he seemed to be in. Perhaps he was ill. She had heard that a bout of flu could leave one feeling lethargic for a week or two; perhaps that was the simple explanation of this out-of-character behaviour. In which case, she would just have to wait until he came out of it.

“I’ve spoken to Mma Makutsi,” she said as she prepared to leave. “I think that she can start at the garage sometime in the next few days. I have given her the title of Assistant Manager. I hope that you don’t mind.”

His reply astonished her.

“Assistant Manager, Manager, Managing Director, Minister of Garages,” he said. “Whatever you like. It makes no difference, does it?”

Mma Ramotswe could not think of a suitable reply, so she said goodbye and started to walk out of the door.

“Oh, by the way,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni as she started to leave the house, “I thought that I might go out to the lands for a little while. I want to see how the planting is going. I might stay out there for a while.”

Mma Ramotswe stared at him. “And in the meantime, what happens to the garage?”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni sighed. “You run it. You and that secretary of yours, the Assistant Manager. Let her do it. It’ll be all right.”

Mma Ramotswe pursed her lips. “All right,” she said. “We’ll look after it, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, until you start to feel better.”

“I’m fine,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

SHE DID not drive home to Zebra Drive, although she knew that the two foster children would be waiting there for her. Motholeli, the girl, would have prepared their evening meal by now, and she needed little supervision or help, in spite of her wheelchair. And the boy, Puso, who was inclined to be rather boisterous, would perhaps have expended most of his energy and would be ready for his bath and his bed, both of which Motholeli could prepare for him.

Instead of going home, she turned left at Kudu Road and made her way down past the flats to the house in Odi Way where her friend Dr Moffat lived. Dr Moffat, who used to run the hospital out at Mochudi, had looked after her father and had always been prepared to listen to her when she was in difficulties. She had spoken to him about Note before she had confided in anybody else, and he had told her, as gently as he could, that in his experience such men never changed.

“You must not expect him to become a different man,” he had said. “People like that rarely change.”

He was a busy man, of course, and she did not wish to intrude on his time, but she decided that she would see if he was in and whether he could throw any light on the way in which Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was behaving. Was there some strange infection doing the rounds which made people all tired and listless? If this were the case, then how long might one expect it to last?

Dr Moffat had just returned home. He welcomed Mma Ramotswe at the door and led her into his study.

“I am worried about Mr J.L.B. Matekoni,” she explained. “Let me tell you about him.”

He listened for a few minutes and then stopped her.

“I think I know what the trouble might be,” he said. “There’s a condition called depression. It is an illness like any other illness, and quite common too. It sounds to me as if Mr J.L.B. Matekoni could be depressed.”

“And could you treat that?”

“Usually quite easily,” said Dr Moffat. “That is, provided that he has depression. If he has, then we have very good antidepressants these days. If all went well, which it probably would, we could have him starting to feel quite a bit better in three weeks or so, maybe even a little bit earlier. These pills take some time to act.”

“I will tell him to come and see you straightaway,” said Mma Ramotswe.

Dr Moffat looked doubtful. “Sometimes they don’t think there’s anything wrong with them,” he said. “He might not come. It’s all very well my telling you what the trouble probably is; he’s the one who has to seek treatment.”

“Oh, I’ll get him to you,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You can count on that. I’ll make sure that he seeks treatment.”

The doctor smiled. “Be careful, Mma Ramotswe,” he said. “These things can be difficult.”