The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (8 page)

“So,” said Mma Potokwane. “Here we have another young man to join our family. This is a very happy day for us.”

“This is Samuel,” said Mma Ramotswe, turning round so that the boy could look at Mma Potokwane.

Mma Potokwane smiled and gestured to Mma Ramotswe to put the child down. “I have something special for you, Samuel,” said Mma Potokwane. “I have some special cake here for you. It is just for you. A very big piece.”

She gave him the cake and then took out of a drawer some clean khaki shorts. “You take these, Samuel. They are just your size. Go out onto the verandah and put them on there. Then come back and I will give you more cake.”

With the boy out of the room, Mma Ramotswe looked apologetically at Mma Potokwane. “I know you're under pressure with numbers, Mma. But this is a special case.”

Mma Potokwane wagged a finger playfully at her friend. “Everybody says that, Mma. I have never had somebody come in here and not say it.” She paused, her face breaking into a smile. “And you know what, Mma Ramotswe, they're right. Every case
is
special.”

“You are very kind, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. Her eye had strayed to the tin from which Mma Potokwane had taken the slice of cake.

Mma Potokwane noticed. “Would you like a cup of tea, Mma?” she enquired.

Mma Ramotswe nodded. She continued to look at the tin.

“And perhaps a piece of cake?” continued Mma Potokwane.

It was not a question that required answering—looks, and body language, did it all.

B
Y THE TIME
Mma Ramotswe got out of bed the following day, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had already gone to work. Normally Mma Ramotswe would be up first and would make tea for her still somnolent husband. This she would place on the dresser at the side of the bed before going out into the garden to inspect the plants, savour the crisp morning air, and watch the sun float up over the horizon. So engrained was this routine that when she awoke that morning and found Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni no longer at her side her immediate reaction had been to assume that something terrible had happened. But then she had looked at the old Westclox alarm clock, with its shaky hands and its scratched dial, and it took only a moment or two to realise that she had slept in. Now she remembered that she was on holiday and could get up when she wished. Indeed, there was no need to get up at all: if she wished to stay in bed all day, nobody would have been any the wiser.

She thought of the children. With their growing independence, both Puso and Motholeli had been keen to show themselves capable of getting themselves off to school on their own. This had been particularly true of Puso, who almost two years earlier had mounted a successful campaign to be allowed to make his way to school without adult supervision. In pursuit of this goal he had agreed to help Motholeli with her wheelchair each morning, and he had been as good as his word. For her part, Mma Ramotswe was proud to see the boy managing to hold his own against one or two rather spoiled and unhelpful older boys who felt threatened by Puso's sporting prowess and his easy mastery of the curriculum. She had harboured some misgivings about sending such a young child off to school by himself, but she had been persuaded by a friend that refusing a child permission to stand on his own two feet could bring difficult consequences later on. “They do that in the villages,” the friend had said. “The moment they learn to walk out there, they are ready to go.”

Mma Ramotswe knew that was fundamentally true. The sight of tiny children by themselves was a familiar one in a village, but that, she thought, was only because there were many eyes in a village, and most of them, if not all, were watching out for other people. You were never alone in a village, even if you thought you were; somebody would notice if you tripped and fell down, somebody would see you if you needed help. But was that true of Gaborone, which had grown so much, and now looked so much like any bustling city? Obviously not, although there was still an intimacy to the place that marked it out from other towns: you did not change the soul of a place by simply making it bigger; you diluted its qualities, yes, but the heart of a country would still beat in this same way no matter how many new houses and shops and roads you chose to build.

She rose from her bed and went into the children's bedrooms to check that they had, in fact, left for school. Then, in the kitchen, with the kettle beginning to huff and puff itself to the boil, she saw the note that Motholeli had left her.
I have sent the Daddy to work. I made him sandwiches to take to the garage. I have made Puso change his socks. We shall not be back until five because I have garden club and Puso has to play football. He would not clean his teeth although I told him to six times. Love from Motholeli.

She held the note to her. She thought she would keep it, putting it away in a box of papers she treasured, filing it alongside the deeds to the house, her marriage certificate, the words of a Setswana song her father had once written out for her—a haunting little song about the wedding of two baboons; the baboon bride and groom wear clothing they've stolen from humans—rags, really—but they are worn with pride. There would come a time when this crumpled piece of paper would remind her of what she would by then otherwise have forgotten—the innocent words of a child.

It seemed strange to be eating her breakfast by herself, and she did not linger long at the table. A bowl of meal porridge, drowned in milk and sweetened by a spoonful of syrup, was followed by a piece of toast spread with dripping and then sprinkled with salt and pepper. The toast was an indulgence—even by Mma Ramotswe's standards—but it was the one culinary treat she felt unable to give up, even in the face of evidence that it was really not very good for you.

“We must not eat dripping any more,” warned Mma Makutsi from behind a healthy-living magazine. “We must give up such things, Mma.” This advice had been accompanied by a stern look in Mma Ramotswe's direction.

Mma Ramotswe had not taken that lying down. “Soon they will be telling us not to eat anything,” she countered. “They will say that only air is good for you. Air and water.”

Mma Makutsi had not approved. “You cannot fight science, Mma. Science is telling us that many of the things we like to eat in this country are not good for us. They say that these things are making us too large.”

“I am not fighting science, Mma,” replied Mma Ramotswe. “I am just saying that we have to have some things that we like, otherwise we shall be very unhappy. And if you are very unhappy you can die—we all know that.” She allowed that to sink in before she continued. “There are many people who have been thinking a lot about science who are now late. It would have been better for them to spend more time being happy while they had the chance. That is well known, Mma—it is very well known.”

Mma Makutsi had become silent. One could not argue against something that Mma Ramotswe claimed was well known, just as you could not argue against any view she attributed to the late Seretse Khama. She had learned that—indeed, it was well known—and so she had returned to her magazine with nothing more being said about the unwiseness of dripping.

Mma Ramotswe finished her piece of toast, licking the last of the dripping off her fingers. It was the most delicious foodstuff imaginable; there was nothing, she thought, to beat dripping. You could order the most expensive dish on the menu at the President Hotel and it would not taste anywhere near as delicious as dripping. Bread and dripping, preferably eaten outside, in the shade of an acacia tree, with the lowing of cattle not far away—what could be more perfect than that?

She stopped the reverie. I must get on, she thought. And then she asked herself: Get on where? She had nothing to do—unless, of course, she were to satisfy the curiosity that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had piqued the previous evening with his tantalising snippet of information about Mma Makutsi's new case. She deliberated, but not for long. She would find a pretext to drop into the office. It would not be a lengthy visit—she was not going to interfere—but if she timed her visit to coincide with the making of the mid-morning cup of tea, then she could stay for a chat and possibly find out what was going on.

The visit to the office would have another purpose too. Ever since she had seen the new college and spoken to the painter, she had been wondering what she should do about it. The realisation that had come to her outside the college was a starkly uncomfortable one: it was Violet Sephotho who was behind the new venture. That fact might have been of very little interest to most people, but to Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi it was of considerable significance. Violet Sephotho was Mma Makutsi's arch-enemy, the enmity between them dating back to their time together at the Botswana Secretarial College, where Violet had been a half-hearted student, keener on men than on shorthand and typing, and arrogantly dismissive of the college and its staff. Thereafter their paths had crossed on a number of occasions, when Violet, bitterly envious of Mma Makutsi's marriage to a man as well off as Phuti Radiphuti, had not missed any opportunity to sow discord and disparage everything that Mma Makutsi stood for. The news that Violet Sephotho was planning to open a college of secretarial studies would infuriate Mma Makutsi and would probably distract her from other, more important issues. So she would have to raise the matter carefully, or perhaps leave it unmentioned altogether. No, she thought, I cannot do that. I shall have to tell her—gently.

Now that she had made up her mind to visit the office, she was able to enjoy the next couple of hours at home, cleaning and tidying—taking up where she had left off the previous morning when she had made such progress with the kitchen cupboard. She decided to sort out Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's clothes. There were several shirts that had lost buttons, and she suspected that lurking in his sock drawer were socks that had long since lost their partner and could be thrown away. Men, she thought, were odd about their clothes: they liked to wear the same things until they became defeated and threadbare. For this reason, it was up to wives and girlfriends to weed out the old and outdated. The men would complain, of course, but they did not care enough about clothes to make too much of a fuss, and if you replaced a favourite item with something new, they would very quickly forget about the whole matter. Sometimes, Mma Ramotswe suspected, men did not even
see
clothes.

SHE TIMED HER ARRIVAL PERFECTLY,
as they were all there when she reached the agency. She did not knock before she entered—and why should one knock at one's own door?—but went straight into the office.

The first thing she noticed was that Mma Makutsi was sitting at her desk—not her own, but Mma Ramotswe's. That was a shock, and it took her a moment or two to compose herself. Had she given her permission to occupy her place? She did not think she had, but on the other hand, if there was an unoccupied desk, then why should somebody not sit at it?

She struggled with her feelings. No, she would not say anything. Now she took in the rest of the scene. Mr. Polopetsi was sitting at Mma Makutsi's desk, engrossed in some stationery-related task, while Charlie was leaning against the filing cabinet on which Mma Makutsi kept the kettle. Three mugs were standing ready for tea.

Mma Makutsi looked up sharply. For a moment she looked blank, as if she had suddenly found herself in the wrong place, but then she pulled herself together and managed to reply to Mma Ramotswe's greeting. “This is a big pleasure, Mma,” she said. “Charlie is making tea and can make another cup for you, Mma. Your visit is very well timed.”

“Oh,” said Mma Ramotswe casually. “There was no timing, Mma. I have just dropped in to pick up my address book. I think I have left it in my drawer. I want to write some letters while I am on holiday.”

“Very wise,” said Mr. Polopetsi. “When you are on holiday you can do many things that you do not have time to do when you are working. But—”

“But you should not do too much,” interjected Mma Makutsi. “When you take a holiday, it is important not to fill your time with all sorts of things because then you'll never have a real holiday.”

“No,” said Charlie. “When you are on holiday you must be careful not to do the things you normally do.”

“Charlie is quite right,” said Mma Makutsi. “You must be careful not to go into the office—for example.”

When Mma Makutsi used the expression “for example” it was usually to make a strong point, and that was how Mma Ramotswe read her remark.

“I'm not intending to come in here every day,” she said hurriedly. “Oh no, that would not be a very sensible thing to do.”

“Good,” said Mma Makutsi, looking at her watch—rather pointedly, thought Mma Ramotswe. She turned to address Charlie. “Now, then, Charlie, let's have this tea you've been talking about.”

“Mma Makutsi says I make very good tea,” said Charlie proudly.

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “I'm sure you do.” Her eye moved to the three mugs already laid out on top of the filing cabinet. One of them was hers, and she wondered whether Mma Makutsi had been using it regularly in her absence; to take over somebody's desk
and
her cup was a bit much, she felt.

“I see my mug over there,” she said. “I shall be able to have tea out of my own mug, which is very good—even when you are on holiday.”

Mma Makutsi looked slightly shifty, which answered that question. “Get another one, Charlie.”

Now Mma Makutsi said something about the desk. “I'm just using this while you are on holiday,” she muttered. “Mr. Polopetsi over there needed somewhere to sit down. You cannot have a man like him not sitting down.”

“Of course not,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And I do not mind if you use my desk, Mma—it is the sensible thing to do.”

Charlie now poured the tea and passed a mug to each of them in turn. Then he dusted off the client's chair, inviting Mma Ramotswe to sit down. She noticed that Mma Makutsi shifted uncomfortably in her seat, occupying, as she was, Mma Ramotswe's rightful place, but she made no comment on that. She was not one to make another feel awkward, and so she said instead, “I'm glad that you are at my desk, Mma. It is good to think that there is somebody in your place when you are on holiday.”

It was the right thing to say, as Mma Makutsi visibly relaxed. “You will be back before too long, Mma. You must enjoy your holiday.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Polopetsi from Mma Makutsi's desk. “If anyone deserves a holiday, Mma Ramotswe, it is you. Nobody would argue with that.”

Mma Ramotswe took a sip of her tea. “So, what's going on?” she asked. “Anything important?”

There was complete silence. Then Charlie said, “Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni and Fanwell have gone out to Mokolodi to collect a truck. It has a broken axle. Big problem.”

Mma Ramotswe digested this information. “That will keep them busy. But what about the agency?”

Mma Makutsi adopted a serious expression. “We are busy with the usual sort of thing, Mma. We have some new work, and some old work. We are doing both.”

Mma Ramotswe seized her opportunity. “This new work—what exactly is it?”

Mma Makutsi put down her teacup. “It is very hot again. Do you think there will be rain?”

“There might be,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But this new case—what is it, Mma?”