Alexander Mccall Smith - Ladies' Detective Agency 05 (22 page)

“We don’t have to help
him make any decision,” replied Mma Potokwane firmly. “He has
already made the decision to marry you, has he not? What is an engagement? It
is an agreement to marry. That decision is made, Mma. No, all we have to do is
to arrange for him to carry it out. We need to get a date, and then we need to
make sure that he gets to the right place on the date. And in my view that
means that we should make all the plans and then pick him up on the day and
take him there. That’s right, we’ll
take
him
there.”

At this, Mma Makutsi spun round and stared at Mma
Ramotswe open-mouthed. Surely Mma Ramotswe would see the danger in this? If you
took a man to the church, he would simply run away. No man would be forced in
this way, and certainly not a mature and intelligent man like Mr J.L.B.
Matekoni. This was the stuff of disaster, and Mma Ramotswe should put a stop to
these ridiculous fantasies at once. But instead—and here Mma Makutsi drew
in her breath in astonishment—instead she was nodding her head in
agreement!

“Good,” said Mma Potokwane enthusiastically.
“I can see that you agree with me. So now all we have to do is to plan
the wedding and get everything ready—in secret of course—and then
on the day get him into a suit somehow …”

“And how
would you do that?” interrupted Mma Ramotswe. “You know the sort of
clothes that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni normally wears. Those overalls. That old hat
with grease round the rim. Those suede veldschoens. How will we get him out of
those and into suitable clothes for church?”

“Leave that
side of it to me,” said Mma Potokwane confidently. “In fact, simply
leave the whole thing to me. We can have the wedding out at the orphan farm. I
will get my housemothers to cook all the food. I will make all the arrangements
and all you will have to do is to get there at the time I will tell you. Then
you will be married. I promise you.”

Mma Ramotswe looked doubtful
and was about to open her mouth to say something when Mma Potokwane continued.
“You needn’t worry, Mma Ramotswe. I am a very tactful person. I
know how to do these things. You know that.”

Mma Makutsi’s
eyes widened, but she knew that there was no stopping Mma Potokwane now, and
that events would run their course whatever she tried to do. And what was there
for her to do? She could attempt to persuade Mma Ramotswe to forbid Mma
Potokwane from proceeding with her plan, but that would be unlikely to happen
once Mma Ramotswe had agreed to it. She could warn Mr J.L.B. Matekoni that he
was in danger of being pushed into his own wedding, but then that would seem
appallingly disloyal to Mma Ramotswe, and if she did that she might be
responsible for his doing something really foolish, such as calling off the
engagement altogether. No, there was only one thing for Mma Makutsi to do, and
that was to keep out of the whole affair, although she would allow herself one
remark, perhaps, just as an aside, to register her disapproval of the whole
scheme.

Mma Potokwane did not stay long, but every minute of the visit
seemed to drag terribly. An icy atmosphere had developed, with Mma Makutsi
sitting in almost complete silence, responding to Mma Potokwane’s remarks
only in the briefest and most unhelpful of terms.

“You must be
very busy,” the matron said to her, pointing to the papers on her desk.
“I have heard that you are a very efficient secretary. Perhaps you will
come out to the orphan farm one day and sort out my office! That would be a
good thing to do. You could have a big bonfire of all the spare papers. The
children would like that.”

“I am too busy,” said Mma
Makutsi. “Perhaps you should employ a secretary. There is a very fine
secretarial college, you know, the Botswana Secretarial College. They will
provide you with a name. They will also tell you what the right salary will
be.”

Mma Potokwane took a sip of her tea and looked at Mma
Makutsi over the rim of the cup.

“Thank you, Mma,” she
said. “That is a good suggestion. But of course we are an orphan farm and
we do not have very much money for secretaries and the like. That is why kind
people—people like Mr J.L.B. Matekoni—offer their services
free.”

“He is a kind man,” agreed Mma Makutsi.
“That is why people take advantage of him.”

Mma Potokwane
put down her cup and turned to Mma Ramotswe. “You are very lucky to have
an assistant who can give you good advice,” she said politely.
“That must make your life easier.”

Mma Ramotswe, who had
been quite aware of the developing tension, did her best to smooth over the
situation.

“Most tasks in this life are better done by two
people,” she said. “I am sure that you get a lot of support from
the housemothers. I am sure that they have good advice to give too.”

Mma Potokwane rose to her feet to leave. “Yes, Mma,” she said,
glancing at Mma Makutsi. “We must all help one another. That is very
true.”

One of the apprentices was detailed to drive Mma Potokwane
back to the orphan farm, leaving Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi alone in the
office once again. Mma Makutsi, sitting at her desk, looked down at her shoes,
as she often did in moments of crisis; her shoes, always her allies, but now so
unhelpfully mute, as if to convey:
don’t look at us, we said nothing.
You were the one, Boss
. (In her mind, her shoes always addressed her as
Boss, as the apprentices addressed Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. This was right for
shoes, which should know their place.)

“I’m sorry,
Mma,” Mma Makutsi suddenly burst out. “I had to stand there making
tea while that woman gave you that terrible, terrible advice. And I
couldn’t say anything because I always feel too small to say anything
when she’s around. She makes me feel as if I’m still six years
old.”

Mma Ramotswe looked at her assistant with concern.
“She is just trying to help. She’s bossy, of course, but that is
because she is a matron. Every matron is bossy; if they weren’t then
nothing would get done. Mma Potokwane’s job is to be bossy. But she is
just trying to help.”

“But it won’t help,”
wailed Mma Makutsi. “It won’t help at all. You can’t force Mr
J.L.B. Matekoni to get married.”

“Nobody’s forcing
him,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He asked me to marry him. I said yes. He
has never once, not once, said that he does not want to get married. Have you
ever heard him say that? No, well there you are.”

“But he
will agree to a wedding one day,” said Mma Makutsi. “You can
wait.”

“Can I, Mma?” said Mma Ramotswe quickly.
“Can I wait forever? And why should I wait all this time and put up with
all this uncertainty? My life is going past. Tick, tick. Like a clock that is
running too fast. And all the time I remain an engaged lady. People are
talking, believe me. They say: there’s that lady who’s engaged
forever to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. That’s what they are saying.”

Mma Makutsi was silent, and Mma Ramotswe continued, “I don’t
want to force Mr J.L.B. Matekoni to do anything he doesn’t want to do.
But in this case I think that there is some sort of block—there is some
sort of reason why he cannot make up his mind. I think it is in his nature. Dr
Moffat said that when people had that illness—that depression
thing—then they might not be able to make decisions. Even when they seem
quite well. Maybe there is a little corner of that in Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. So
all we are trying to do is help him.”

Mma Makutsi shook her head.
“I don’t know, Mma. You may be right, but I am very worried. I do
not think that you should let Mma Potokwane stick her nose into this
business.”

“I understand what you are saying to me,”
said Mma Ramotswe. “But I have reached the end of waiting. I have waited,
waited, waited. No date has been mentioned. Nothing has been said. No cattle
have been bought for the feast. No chairs have been fixed up. No aunties have
been written to. Nothing has been done. Nothing. No lady can accept that,
Mma.”

Mma Makutsi again looked down at her shoes. This time the
shoes were vocal:
you just be quiet now
, they said rather rudely.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

MR SPOKES SPOKESI, THE AIRWAVE RIDER

I
F MMA Ramotswe was still on the shelf, then the following day she
was on the wall. She was sitting on the wall in question, the waist-high wall
that surrounded the car park of Radio Gabs, enjoying the effervescent company
of two seventeen-year-old girls. They were attractive girls, dressed in jeans
and bright-coloured blouses that must have cost them a great deal, thought Mma
Ramotswe; too much, in fact, because the most expensive parts of their outfit,
the labels, were prominently displayed. Mma Ramotswe had never been able to
understand why people wanted to have their labels on the outside. In her day,
labels had been tucked in, which is where they belonged in her view. One did
not walk around the town with one’s birth certificate stuck on
one’s back; why then should clothes have their labels on the outside? It
was a very vulgar display, she felt, but it did not really matter with these
nice girls, who were talking so quickly and in such an amusing way about all
the things which interested them, which was not very much, at the end of the
day; in fact which was only one subject when one came to think of it, or two,
possibly, if one included fashion.

“Some people say that there
are no good-looking men in Gaborone,” said Constance, the girl sitting to
Mma Ramotswe’s right. “But I think that is nonsense. There are many
good-looking men in Gaborone. I have seen hundreds, just in one day.
Hundreds.”

Her friend, Kokotso, looked dubious. “Oh?”
she said. “Where can I go to see all these good-looking men? Is there a
club for good-looking men maybe? Can I go and stand outside the door and
watch?”

“There is no such club,” laughed Constance.
“And if there were, then the men would not be able to get near it, for
all the girls standing at the door. It would not work.”

Mma
Ramotswe decided to join in. It was many years since she had participated in
such a conversation, and she was beginning to enjoy it. “It all depends
on what you mean by good-looking,” she said. “Some men are
good-looking in one department and not so good-looking in another. Some men
have nice wide shoulders, but very thin legs. Very thin legs are not so good. I
know one girl who left a good boyfriend because his legs were too
thin.”

“Ow!” exclaimed Kokotso. “That girl made
a very bad move. If he was a good boyfriend in other ways, then why leave him
because of his thin legs?”

“Perhaps she felt that she
wanted to laugh whenever she saw his legs,” suggested Constance.
“That would not have made him happy. Men do not like to be laughed at.
Men do not think they are funny.”

This made Mma Ramotswe smile.
“That is very amusing! Men do not think they are funny! That is very
true, Mma. Very true. You must not laugh at a man, or he will go and hide away
like a village dog.”

“But there is a serious point,”
said Kokotso. “Can you call a man good-looking if he has a handsome face
but very short legs? I have known men like that. They are good-looking when
they are sitting down, but when they stand up and you see how short their legs
are you think Oh my God, these are short, short legs!”

“And sometimes, have you noticed,” Constance interjected,
“have you noticed how men’s legs go out at the knees and make a
circle? Have you seen that? That is very funny. I always want to laugh when I
see men like that.”

Kokotso now lowered herself off the wall and
began to walk in a circle, her arms hanging loose, her chin stuck out.
“This is how men walk,” she said. “Have you seen it? They
walk like this, almost like monkeys.”

It was difficult not to
laugh, and if she had thought that these girls seriously entertained this low
opinion of men she would have frowned instead, but she knew that these were
girls who liked men, a great deal, and so joined Constance in shrieking with
laughter at Kokotso’s imitation of … of the apprentices! How
accurate she was, and she did not even know them. To imitate one young man of
that sort, then, was to imitate them all.

Kokotso resumed her seat on
the wall and for a moment there was silence. Mma Ramotswe was rather surprised
at herself, sitting there on a wall with two young women less than half her
age, talking about good-looking men. She had seen them when she had driven past
the Radio Gabs station at lunch-time, not intending to call in until later that
afternoon, but realising that this was exactly the opportunity she was looking
for. So she had parked the tiny white van round the corner and had walked back,
casually, as one who was spending the lunch hour in a quiet ramble. She had
stopped at the entrance to the car park and had gone up to the girls to ask
them if they knew the correct time. From there it had been easy. The question
about the time had been followed by a remark on how tiring it was to have to
walk all the way into town and would they mind if she sat on the wall with them
for a few minutes while she summoned up her energy?