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  Mma Ramotswe looked up from her desk. “Charlie, Mma Makutsi? But we have always been worried about Charlie, right from the beginning.” She smiled at her assistant. “I’m sure that even when he was a very small boy, this high, his mother was shaking her head and saying that she was worried about Charlie. And all those girls, I’m sure that they have been saying the same thing for years. It is what people say about him.”

  Mma Makutsi smiled too, but only weakly. “Yes, Mma,” she said. “But this time it’s different. I think now that we have to do something about him.”

  Mma Ramotswe sighed. Whatever it was, Mma Makutsi was probably right. But she was not sure that it was the responsibility of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency to deal with Charlie’s problems—whatever they were. Charlie was an apprentice of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, and it would have to be Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni who took action.

  She looked across the room at her assistant, who was frowning with concentration as she poured the boiling water into the teapot. “Very well, Mma Makutsi,” she said. “Tell me what the trouble is. What has our young friend been up to now?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE CHARLIE PROBLEM

  THAT EVENING, Mma Ramotswe pondered what she had been told by Mma Makutsi. She thought about this while she prepared the evening meal, in an empty house, as Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had taken Puso and Motholeli to choir practice in the school hall. Both children had good voices, although Puso was plagued by embarrassment when he sang, closing his eyes as a result.

  “Puso,” the choirmaster scolded him, “we do not close our eyes when we sing. We keep them open so that people who are listening know that we are not asleep. If you close your eyes, then maybe next you will start to close your mouth, and that is not good for singing, is it?”

  In spite of this public upbraiding, Puso continued to close his eyes. The choirmaster learned to ignore the matter, though: the boy had a naturally good ear for music, and that was something that was worth cultivating in spite of other failings.

  Mma Ramotswe went over Mma Makutsi’s revelations about Charlie and made sure that she knew how best to relate them to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. It was a matter for adults to discuss among themselves, not one for the ears of children, so when the three of them eventually returned she fed the children first; that way, she and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni would be able to talk freely.

  “We shall have our dinner a bit later,” she said to her husband. “If you are too hungry to wait, I can give you something. But it might be better not to eat until we can talk privately.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni nodded, and sniffed at the cooking smells drifting out from the kitchen. “It smells very good, Mma Ramotswe,” he said. “So I shall wait.”

  “I have made—” she began, but he silenced her with a finger to his lips.

  “It will be a surprise.” He paused, before whispering, “What do we have to talk about that cannot be spoken of in front of the children? Is it one of your cases?”

  She shook her head. “No, it is one of your cases, Rra.”

  He was puzzled. “I have no cases,” he said. “You are the detective; I am only—”

  She leaned forward. “Charlie,” she whispered. “He is your responsibility, is he not?”

  He looked grave. Ever since he had taken on Charlie as his apprentice—and that had been an inordinately long time ago—he had worried about the young man. At first his anxiety had been kept in check by the knowledge that apprenticeships do not last forever, but then the realisation slowly dawned on him that some apprenticeships appeared to disprove that rule. Charlie and Fanwell, his fellow apprentice, should have finished their training years earlier. Fanwell, at least, was now only a month or two short of completion, having at last passed the examinations of the Mechanical Apprenticeship Board and needing only a final period of assessment—a formality—before being registered as a fully qualified mechanic. Charlie, however, had failed his examinations time after time, mainly because he never bothered to prepare himself.

  “You could pass very easily, you know,” Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni told him after the last unsuccessful attempt. “All it needs is a bit of study. You are not a stupid young man—you have a brain in that head of yours, and yet you will not use it. You are like a farmer who has good rich soil and plants no melons in it. That is what you are like.”

  “Mmm,” said Charlie, licking his lips. “I like melons, Boss!”

  “There you are,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, with exasperation in his voice. “You are talking about melons when you should be talking about engines. That is exactly what I mean.”

  “But you are the one who started talking about melons,” said Charlie. “I did not start it, Boss!”

  It was extraordinarily frustrating, but it seemed that there was little that could be done. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was not only the finest mechanic in Botswana, he was also the kindest. And it was for this reason that he could not bring himself to dismiss the young man and give his place to another who was more willing to learn. Charlie would have to content himself with being an unqualified mechanical assistant—a sort of perpetual apprentice.

  There were other reasons to worry, of course. There was Charlie’s preoccupation with girls, and his constant talking about them. This distracted Fanwell, who was an altogether more serious young man, and it was also potentially bad for the image of the garage. On more than one occasion, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had been embarrassed in the presence of a client when the idle, girl-focused chatter of his apprentices had been quite audible. This had even happened once when a client who was a man of the cloth had been collecting his car and had heard Charlie talking about a girl. The two young men were under a truck and were probably unaware of the presence of the minister, but even so it had been a very awkward moment for their employer.

  “Boy, oh boy,” Charlie had said, “that one is very fast! She is fast all right!”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had cleared his throat and done his best to spare the minister’s blushes. “They are talking about a car,” he explained hurriedly. “A very fast car. You know how young men are about speed.”

  He had raised his voice as he gave this explanation, in the hope that Charlie would realise they were not alone. But this had been to no avail.

  “And she drinks too,” Charlie continued. “I’m telling you, Fanwell, she likes her drink. Ow!”

  “That is fuel consumption,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to the minister. “Some cars these days have a very thirsty engine. It’s because modern engines are so powerful. Unlike your car here, Reverend.” And with that, he had given the side of the minister’s car a loud tap, again in the hope of sending a message to the young men.

  It made Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni feel hot at the back of the neck just to think about that moment—the minister had not been fooled—and he did not like to remember it. So when Mma Ramotswe told him that they needed to talk about Charlie, he sighed with a dread that seemed quite to take away any pleasure brought by the anticipation of dinner. A good meal is not nearly so attractive, he mused, if it is accompanied by thoughts of young men like Charlie.

  SO, MMA RAMOTSWE,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “So you have made me a very good stew.” He sniffed at the delicious steam rising up from his plate. “But you have also warned me that we have a Charlie problem. Tell me: Is it a big Charlie problem or a little one?”

  Mma Ramotswe could not stop herself from smiling.

  “Did I say something funny?” asked Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “You did say that—”

  “Oh yes, Rra. I did say that we have to talk about Charlie. And it is a serious matter. It’s just that the answer to your question is that this problem is both big and little.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni stared at her. Perhaps his wife had spent too long a time as a private detective and solver of mysteries; maybe too much time in that profession made one inherently enigmatic. He had seen that sort of thing before—cases where people had been so affected by their jobs as to change in their very nature. His cousi
n who had worked for the immigration authorities had become so suspicious that he began to suspect that just about everybody was in the country illegally. And then there was that butcher who had ended up not eating meat at all and would only eat potatoes and beans—that had been a very surprising development in a country as committed to cattle as was Botswana. Was something similar happening to Mma Ramotswe, he wondered?

  “You’ll have to explain, Mma Ramotswe,” he said. “I am a simple mechanic; I am not a solver of puzzles and things like that.”

  Mma Ramotswe dipped her fork into her mashed pumpkin. “It is a big problem because it’s serious,” she said. “It is a small problem because it involves something small. A small person. In fact, it involves … a baby.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni closed his eyes. It did not matter if Mma Ramotswe said nothing more. He understood.

  He opened his eyes again. Mma Ramotswe was looking at him, and she was no longer smiling. “Yes,” she said. “You know what I’m going to say, don’t you, Rra?”

  “Charlie has a baby.”

  “Yes.” And then she added, “Two. Twins. Two boys.”

  There was a silence.

  “You had better tell me, Mma Ramotswe. I am strong. I have heard everything before. There can be no surprises when it comes to that young man.”

  “Listen to this, then,” she said.

  She retold the story she had heard from Mma Makutsi. It was related in a quiet, matter-of-fact way, without any of the short gasps of disapproval and tut-tuts with which Mma Makutsi had punctuated her narrative. But it was still enough to distract Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni from his stew, which became colder and colder on the plate.

  Mma Makutsi had heard the story from an entirely unimpeachable source—the mother of the young woman who had given birth to Charlie’s twins. She was related in a distant way to Phuti Radiphuti, and together with her husband ran a painting and decorating business in the west of the city. The business had prospered and now employed more than fifty painters; its name, Second Coat, could be seen on vans throughout the town, and they had several important contracts with large concerns, including diamond companies.

  This couple, Mma Makutsi had gone on to explain, were called Leonard and Mercy Ramkhwane. They were hard-working and were thought to have deserved every bit of their success. They had only one child, Prudence, who was now in her early twenties. She had been at Gaborone Secondary School and had been a very well-known high-school athlete who had taken all the trophies for running. “It was a big pity that she did not run away from Charlie,” Mma Makutsi had observed. “Many girls would do far better to run away from men, Mma.”

  The story continued. Charlie had met Prudence when Leonard brought a car into the garage for attention. On hearing this, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni groaned. “I know that man,” he said, putting a hand to his head. “I do not know him well, but I know him.”

  Mma Ramotswe lowered her eyes. “Well, he brought his daughter with him to the garage.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni groaned again. “So that means she met Charlie under my roof.”

  “No,” said Mma Ramotswe. “The garage roof is not your roof. This is your roof here—in this house. There is a difference, Rra.”

  He shook his head. “It is my roof. I own it. When it leaks, I am the one who must fix it. That means it is my roof, and I am responsible for what happens under it.”

  She tried, with gentle persuasion, to convince him that he could not possibly be held responsible for Charlie’s meeting Prudence, but his view was not to be changed. So she continued the tale, just as it had been told her by Mma Makutsi.

  Charlie had somehow managed to make an arrangement with Prudence—under the very eyes of her father—to meet at a club that young people favoured. Good music, he had said; the latest thing. And what girl could resist such an invitation? Not Prudence, it seemed, and the inevitable happened. At first their relationship was kept secret from her parents; she still lived at home, but, at twenty, was largely independent. But then Charlie became the established boyfriend, and although not what Leonard and Mercy had had in mind for their daughter, he was treated with the courtesy and graciousness a couple like that would always accord to others.

  “They are good people, you see,” said Mma Ramotswe. “They follow the old Botswana ways. They are polite.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni nodded. Charlie did not follow the old Botswana ways. The old Botswana ways would never have approved of using a hammer to move a reluctant nut on an engine manifold. The old Botswana ways respected the thread of a bolt; the old Botswana ways understood the consequences of putting diesel in a petrol engine; the old Botswana ways … You could go on.

  The relationship had been going on for a month or two when Prudence realised that she was pregnant. She told Charlie, and then she told her parents. Charlie left.

  “Left her entirely?” asked Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “Altogether?”

  It was Mma Ramotswe’s turn to sigh. “No more calls on that phone of his, the silver one. No more going round to her parents’ house. Nothing.”

  “They call that leaving somebody in the lurch,” muttered Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “So what happened, Mma Ramotswe?”

  “The girl calmed her father down. Apparently the old Botswana ways deserted him for a while, but he did not do anything. And that was that. Twins arrived. So Charlie is now the father of twins.”

  “He knows that?”

  “Oh, he knows that all right. I’m sure she told him.”

  “And …”

  Mma Ramotswe spread her hands in resignation. “And nothing. Charlie has done nothing.” She sat back in her chair, indicating that this was the end of the story, or at least the end of what she knew of the story.

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked down at his plate. He had touched very little of the stew she had made him—that delicious serving of Botswana beef—and now it was quite cold.

  “I shall heat it up again for you,” offered Mma Ramotswe.

  He shook his head, reaching for his fork. “I do not mind, Mma. Your cooking is always so good that it does not matter whether it is hot or cold. Either way it is all that a man could ever desire. And that is the truth.”

  She smiled at him. This was how a man should be, she thought. And there was Charlie, working every day with this great man, this embodiment of all that the country stood for, and none of it, not one tiny bit, seemed to rub off on the young man.

  She wondered whether to bring up the subject of what they were to do now, or whether to move on. She decided on the latter. It was sometimes best, she believed, to let things sink in before you took a decision. So they would sleep on this disclosure and talk about it the following day, or even the day after that. Not that there was much to be said, as there was really only one thing to do in these circumstances. And that was to try to get Charlie to face up to his responsibilities.

  It was easier said than done—Mma Ramotswe was well aware of that. Charlie would either deny that he was the father, or he would shrug his shoulders in that stubborn way of his and say that the twins were the young woman’s affair. “Children are not men’s business,” he had said once. “It is women who must look after them, not men. These people who say that men must do that work too are talking nonsense, and they are all women anyway. Men have far more important work to do than that. Ha!”

  Mma Makutsi had overheard this remark and had been so cross that her glasses misted over; that was always a bad sign, Mma Ramotswe knew. The recollection of this gave her an idea: they could ask Mma Makutsi to deal with the problem of speaking to Charlie. They would give her their full support, she thought, but the leader of the campaign—the general, so to speak—should be Grace Makutsi, recipient of the highest mark in history in the final examinations of the Botswana Secretarial College (ninety-seven per cent) and scourge of all those who would shift their feet, look the other way, or, for that matter, deny the existence of twins.

  Yes, she was the one.

  CHAPTER THREE

 
YOU ARE THE LADY TO HELP PEOPLE

  SEATED AT THEIR RESPECTIVE DESKS, at a time when the morning air was still fresh and clear and the sky quite empty of clouds, Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi surveyed what the day had in store for them. There were two appointments, one at ten o’clock and one not until well into the afternoon. The second appointment was straightforward enough—a discussion about a statement Mma Ramotswe was to make in a child custody case: simple, perhaps, but emotionally testing nonetheless. “You cannot divide a child’s heart in two,” she had observed to Mma Makutsi, “and yet that is what some people wish to do. A child has only one heart.”

  “And the rest of us?” Mma Makutsi had asked. “Do we not have one heart too?”

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. “Yes, we have only one heart, but as you grow older, your heart grows bigger. A child loves only one or two things; we love so many things.”

  “Such as?”

  Mma Ramotswe smiled. “Botswana. Rain. Cattle. Friends. Our children. Our late relatives. The smell of woodsmoke in the morning. Red bush tea …”

  That was the afternoon appointment; ten o’clock would be different. She knew nothing about the man who had telephoned and arranged to see her, nothing beyond his name and the fact that he lived outside town. He had not wanted to come into the office—a common concern for clients, who appeared to worry they might be seen entering the premises of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Mma Ramotswe understood this, even if she sought to reassure them that nobody really paid much attention to those who crossed her doorstep. She wanted to believe that, and almost convinced herself, but she was not sure that it was entirely true. People noticed things in Botswana; they saw who went into which house and they speculated as to what took them there; they noticed who was driving which car and who was in the passenger seat. People saw these things, in much the same way as an expert tracker in the Kalahari will look at the ground and see, written in the sand, the history of all the animal comings and goings.