The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (13) (5 page)

With such memories, what could one do but love shoes, long for them, dream of the day when one might have several pairs safely stacked away; comfortable shoes, shoes that fitted one’s feet, shoes with no history of other owners, of other feet? That day dawned for her, of course, and it brought its expected pleasure. But then something rather extraordinary happened—Mma Makutsi began to imagine that her shoes talked to her. It happened quite unexpectedly, and at first she assumed that the voice had come from some passer-by; some person who had perhaps passed by and not been seen, but who had for some reason chosen to mutter
Hallo there, Boss
. But then it had happened once more, again unexpectedly, when the shoes had said to her:
Watch out, Boss, rough ground ahead
.

She had felt none of the alarm that one might normally be
expected to feel on hearing voices: a worrying development for some. Rather, she had dismissed it as a mere figment of her imagination, similar to those snatches of melody that we sometimes hear—the memory of music; those half-formed sentences—the memory of conversation; in short, nothing to worry about. Our heads are full of such things, Mma Ramotswe had once pointed out to Mma Makutsi, and she had agreed. If, then, one heard one’s shoes talking, it was really coming from oneself, and was nothing more alarming than that.

So she came to accept that the shoes would occasionally express an opinion. And she also accepted that this view might sometimes contradict what she was thinking, or even be slightly rude, or hectoring, perhaps. One cannot expect complete compliance from one’s shoes, or unqualified admiration—although that would certainly be nice. One must be prepared, she thought, for at least
some
criticism from one’s footwear, the occasional sharp comment, the odd note of jealousy sounded by working shoes of party shoes—that sort of thing.

Now that she was married to Phuti Radiphuti there would be plenty of opportunities to purchase new shoes, but only in good time. Mma Makutsi was very aware that there were people watching her behaviour to see whether her newly acquired position would go to her head. She was determined to deny such people the chance to crow and to make remarks such as:
Give money to a person from Bobonong and that’s what you get—every time!
She would not have that; she would be discreet and would not surround herself with the trappings of prosperity.

Except for a house … And that was the reason she would be late in to work that morning: she and Phuti Radiphuti were due to meet the man whom Phuti had selected to build the house that they were planning to live in and where, both he and Mma Makutsi fervently hoped, they would raise their children. For this task he
had chosen a man to whom he had recently sold two large sofas: Mr. Clarkson Putumelo, the holder of a diploma in building from the Botswana School of Construction and Allied Trades, and proprietor and managing director of the This Way Up Building Company. The sale of the sofas had been an easy and satisfying transaction. Phuti had come across Mr. Putumelo browsing through the soft-furnishings section of the store and had asked if he could help him. Mr. Putumelo had enquired about sofas and had been shown several. He had selected a very large one, in bright green leather, and had gone off to fetch his wife, a woman whose dimensions were almost as generous as those of the sofa. Mr. Putumelo had suggested that his wife try the sofa, which she did, expressing immediate satisfaction with its comfort in a voluble and high-pitched voice. But then, when she had attempted to get up, she had been so embraced by the padding that she had been unable to do so, and both Phuti and Mr. Putumelo had been obliged to pull hard at her outstretched arms to bring her back to her feet. Mr. Putumelo had not been in the slightest bit embarrassed, and had simply said, “This is always happening with this woman.” Phuti might have suggested a less commodious option—there were several sofas that had clearly been designed with this issue in mind—but this proved not to be necessary. Mr. Putumelo asked about a possible discount for two, was offered ten per cent off, and immediately committed himself. This painless transaction had put the idea into Phuti’s mind that this might be the man to undertake the building of his house. He had heard that building a house could be a traumatic and distressing task: if the builder you chose was as affable as Mr. Putumelo, then presumably that difficult process would be all the easier. He asked, and Mr. Putumelo readily agreed. “I am the man to build you a house,” he said with a smile. “I can tell that a mile off. Your house has got my name on it.”

THE PLOT THAT
Phuti Radiphuti had chosen for their marital home was well placed from more than one point of view. Gaborone had grown, with the result that many people now had a long journey into work each day, making their way into the city in swaying, crowded minibuses. It would have been easy for Phuti to find a plot of land in one of these new suburbs, but neither he nor Mma Makutsi wanted to spend hours on the roads. So when Mma Makutsi noticed that there was a small parcel of building land not far from Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors and the contiguous office of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, Phuti was quick to inspect it—and equally quick to snap it up.

“It’s perfect,” he said, when he reported back to her. “It will take you five or ten minutes to get to work—no more. And I will need fifteen minutes to drive to the store. It could not be better.”

The plot was at the end of an untarred road, a cul-de-sac that led nowhere and down which few cars would venture. There were one or two houses not far away, but nothing close by, and on at least two sides of what would become their garden, there was acacia scrub—thorn trees, low-lying bushes with twisted brown leaves, tussocks of hardy grass that would miraculously become green within hours of the arrival of the first rains. It looked like poor earth—dusty and unwelcoming—but it was enough to keep cattle happy, and they could be seen wandering across this landscape, picking at what nourishment they could find, the soft sound of their bells filling the air.

Negotiations for the purchase of the plot were swift and uncomplicated, and within days of Phuti’s seeing the plot it was theirs. Now came the task of designing the house that would be erected on the newly acquired land. Phuti Radiphuti, it transpired, had a friend who was a draughtsman. “You do not need to pay an
architect for this,” he announced to Mma Makutsi. “My friend can do all the drawings for nothing.”

Mma Makutsi was slightly concerned over this. She was not sure that it was a good idea to get a friend to design one’s house, even if that friend happened to be a draughtsman. There were many technical issues, were there not? Did you not need to take into account the weight of the roof and the size of the doors? And had there not been a house up in Francistown that had collapsed because these things had been ignored and the walls built far too thin? There had been a picture of it in the paper, she recalled. A woman had been captured standing outside what looked like a pile of rubble, and above it the paper had printed,
Poor lady sees her house fall down
. Mma Makutsi had been struck by the poignancy of this photograph; it must be devastating, she felt, to see one’s house collapse. Presumably everything inside was covered by tumbled bricks and pieces of shattered timber: all the poor lady’s pots and pans, all her clothing, all her shoes …

She did not feel that she could argue with Phuti. It was his money, after all, even if their wedding vows had made reference to sharing everything, and she had to accept that he knew all about how to deal with builders and suppliers and the like. If he decided that his draughtsman friend should design the house, then she would not question his judgement, no matter what private reservations she might harbour. And this view, she thought, would be approved of by Mma Ramotswe herself, who had once remarked to her, “Men are very sensitive, Mma Makutsi. You would not always think it to look at them, but they are. They do not like you to point out that they are wrong, even when they are. That is the way things are, Mma—it just is.”

Now Mma Makutsi was gazing at the plot with Phuti Radiphuti beside her, waiting for the arrival of their builder who was coming to discuss the project.

“It is ours now,” said Phuti. “Look at it. That is where our house will be, and over there will be your vegetable garden—if you want one, that is. You do not have to have a vegetable garden if you do not want to have it.” He looked at her anxiously, almost as if he were concerned that he might be taken to be the sort to impose vegetable gardens on people.

“I will be very happy to have a vegetable garden,” she said. “We will start it as soon as the house is built.”

“Oh, I am so excited,” said Phuti. “I have never built a house before.”

Mma Makutsi tried not to look concerned. “I don’t think you will find it hard,” she said.

“I think there is nothing to it,” said Phuti. “As long as everything is straight. You have to get things level, and not like this.” He made an up-and-down movement with his hands. “If you do that, then the house will be a good one.”

Mma Makutsi nodded. That sounded perfectly reasonable to her. She could hardly believe her good fortune: to be standing here with her husband, her real, legal husband, surveying a small square of Botswana soil that actually
belonged
to them. To own earth was a great and awe-inspiring thing; to be able to run through one’s hands the very soil that was yours and nobody else’s; that you could stand upon not under sufferance, but as of right; land that you could turn to your own purpose and plant with your own crops, or allow your own cattle to graze—not that they were planning to run cattle in the garden, but if by some whim they chose to do so, then they could. Such things, such freedoms, such privileges were grave things, and might turn the head, unless you were careful to remind yourself of who you were—Grace Makutsi, from Bobonong, daughter of a very humble man and woman who never had much more than a few goats and scrawny cattle, but who had nursed hopes for their children and had encouraged them to make the best of their
lives. She had done that, of course, and through hard work and the inspiration provided by a particular teacher, a slight man with spectacles who rode to school each day on an ancient black bicycle and who believed with all his heart in the power of education, she had somehow got herself to Gaborone and become a trained secretary. That powerful word,
secretary
—she was so proud of it; she rolled it about her mouth and uttered it as one might pronounce a shibboleth:
secretary, secretary
. That would have been enough, she now thought; to have achieved that would have been sufficient, but she had gone further and become an
assistant detective
, and then an
associate detective
, which was where she now was. What heights lay beyond? She had not really thought about it, but now, as she surveyed the plot with Phuti Radiphuti, it suddenly occurred to her that she should become a
principal detective
, if not a
chief detective
. No, that last description was perhaps going too far; Mma Ramotswe was a chief detective, she assumed, and no matter what improvements there might be in her own status, it was definitely not appropriate for her to claim equality in that field with Mma Ramotswe. That would be … it would be
pushy:
yes, there was only one word for it
—pushy
.

They stood for a few moments in complete silence, and around them, too, there were no sounds, beyond the faint screech of the insects that provided that wallpaper of whirring that was always there, but one did not notice unless one stopped and listened. There was nothing to say, really; there were no words Mma Makutsi could use to describe the sense of fulfilment that she felt. So nothing was said until they heard the sound of a vehicle making its way up the road and Phuti turned and announced, “That will be Mr. Putumelo now, Grace.”

The vehicle was one of those ubiquitous pick-up trucks favoured by people who had things to do: carpenters, gardening contractors, electricians. It was dark brown and on its side bore the
legend
This Way Up Building Co. (Pty) Ltd.
In the back were a workman’s toolbox, a stepladder, and several rough-hewn planks.

Clarkson Putumelo got out of the van and walked briskly towards Phuti Radiphuti. “Very good land,” he said, even before greetings were exchanged. “Good building land.”

He did not address Mma Makutsi. He did not greet her in the proper, approved way. He did not even appear to see her.

Phuti smiled at the builder. “I chose it carefully,” he said. “Or rather, my wife and I chose it.” He turned to Mma Makutsi and smiled as he spoke.
My wife
.

Clarkson Putumelo half turned his head towards Mma Makutsi, but did not look at her. For a moment it seemed as if he was going to greet her, but that moment passed and he turned away again. “Good building land,” he repeated. “No problems here. You’ll want to put the house over there, in the middle, right? Then you can make a drive which goes from there to there.” He pointed out the proposed route of the drive. “There will be no problem with that. Simple as one, two, three.”