The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine Read online

  Mma Makutsi nodded. “I agreed with you, Mma. Remember? I said that when the person in charge of a business needs to take a holiday there is always somebody else in the office who can take over.”

  Mma Ramotswe remembered that part of the conversation, but even if the discussion had been along those lines, that was still a far cry from her actually saying that she intended to take a holiday. “I don’t think I went so far as to say that I—”

  Mma Makutsi did not allow her to finish. Appearing to ignore the beginning of Mma Ramotswe’s protest, she launched into a further encomium of those who took holidays. “People who take holidays often do so not just for themselves, Mma. Oh no, they are not selfish people, these holiday people; they are often thinking of the good of the company, you know. They realise that if they take a holiday they will be better at their job when they come back—they will avoid getting stale.” She paused, looking intently at Mma Ramotswe before continuing, “It is not a good thing to get stale, Mma. It is not a good thing at all.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked down at her hands, folded passively on her lap. Was she getting stale? She looked at her shoes, at her faithful brown shoes with their broad soles and their flat heels. Were these the shoes of a stale person? She did not feel in the slightest bit stale, but then did stale people ever recognise their own staleness? That was the problem with human failings—they were often more visible to others than to those whom they afflicted.

  Her gaze shifted to Mma Makutsi’s shoes. Mma Makutsi had always been fond of bright shoes—of shoes that some might even go so far as to describe as extravagant shoes. When she first came to the agency, in the days when she was simply the agency’s secretary, her taste for glamorous shoes had been constrained by poverty. But then had come the gradual improvement of her financial situation, initially through her setting up of the Kalahari Typing School for Men. That venture had not lasted all that long, but it had been profitable while it lasted, and it had enabled her to treat herself to a few luxuries, including more fashionable shoes. After her marriage to Phuti Radiphuti, of course, any need for parsimony had disappeared, and she had acquired a whole rack of glamorous shoes, in a wide range of styles. That morning Mma Ramotswe noticed that Mma Makutsi was wearing a pair of bottle-green patent sandals with wedge heels. The crisscross straps of the sandals were numerous, but thin—impossibly so, thought Mma Ramotswe—and could not be much stronger, she felt, than the gossamer of a spider’s web. If one had to run in such shoes, surely the straps would sunder, toppling the wearer where she stood. And yet no matter how impractical such sandals might be, they were clearly not the sandals of a stale person. No, a stale person was far more likely to wear broad brown shoes with low heels, or no heels at all.

  Suddenly she felt weary. Ever since leaving school at the age of sixteen, Mma Ramotswe had worked. She had kept house for her father, the late Obed Ramotswe; she had worked in a small local store, selling matches and soap and paraffin for stoves. She had tried her best to make a home for her first husband, Note Mokoti, and had continued with that until violence and the fear it bred had forced her out. Through all that she had never stopped working and had continued to do so even after her father’s death, and the small inheritance she received from him had enabled her to start her own business, the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. And then there had been Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni and the foster children to look after and all the burdens of making a success of a small business. All of that had taken its toll, but she had never once thought of that, never entertained any idea of taking a break of more than a couple of days. Well, perhaps now it was catching up with her and she was becoming stale, just as Mma Makutsi was effectively suggesting.

  She sighed. “Maybe we should talk about it later, Mma Makutsi,” she said. “I have to drink my tea, and sometimes it is difficult to drink tea and talk at the same time.”

  Charlie laughed. “If you do that, the tea can go up your nose,” he said.

  Mma Makutsi looked at him scornfully. “There is no need to bring noses into this, Charlie,” she said. “There are letters for you to take to the post.”

  Charlie put down his mug. “Where will you go on your holiday, Mma Ramotswe?” he asked. “There are plenty of places, you know. You won’t want to go somewhere too exciting, of course, but there are some good places for…”

  He did not finish, inhibited by Mma Makutsi’s disapproving stare. Mma Ramotswe said nothing, but thought: Plenty of places for stale people. Yes, there probably are—quiet places where the stale people sit in their chairs, warmed by the afternoon sun, undisturbed by any loud noises or activity. There would be plenty of places like that.

  —

  MR. POLOPETSI ARRIVED exactly at eight, entering the office after calling out, in the traditional way, “Ko! Ko!”

  “I am here,” he said. “It is only me, but I am here.”

  Mma Ramotswe rose to her feet and greeted him warmly. “Dumela, Rra! It is very good to see you again.”

  Enquiries were made as to the health of various members of everybody’s family—again as required by custom—and then he sat down opposite Mma Ramotswe while Mma Makutsi prepared the tea.

  “You will be surprised to see me,” said Mr. Polopetsi. “But it seems as if it’s only yesterday that I was here, helping you ladies with your work. Remember those days, Mma Ramotswe? You answered the phone and wrote the letters while Mma Makutsi did the secretarial work…”

  He was interrupted by a cough from Mma Makutsi. “I am no longer a secretary, Rra. That was a long time ago.”

  Mr. Polopetsi turned round to face her. “Oh, really? So you are an assistant now?”

  Mma Makutsi shook her head. “Co-director,” she said.

  “Well, well,” mused Mr. Polopetsi. “That is very good news. I have always thought that you would be a very important detective one of these days. I have always thought that, Mma.”

  Mma Makutsi beamed with pleasure. “And now you have been proved right, Rra.”

  Mma Ramotswe helped the conversation on. “Well, it is certainly very good to see you again, Rra. And I hear that you are teaching chemistry at Gaborone Secondary School. That must be very interesting work.”

  “It is very enjoyable, Mma,” said Mr. Polopetsi. “The children are very keen to learn about chemicals. Maybe we shall have many chemists in Botswana in future years. You never know, do you?”

  “That would be very good,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And then there is your wife—I have heard that she is very senior now in the government offices.”

  “She has two secretaries,” said Mr. Polopetsi, again turning to impart this information to Mma Makutsi, and then repeating it. “Two secretaries, Mma.”

  In Mma Ramotswe’s mind there formed the sudden mental image of two Mma Makutsis—each with an identical hairstyle and big round glasses—sitting at a desk, pencils poised above their notebooks. How would she cope if Mma Makutsi were doubled? It would be very difficult, she thought; perhaps even impossible.

  “I am glad to hear that,” said Mma Makutsi. “It is good that there are many jobs for secretaries these days. In my day it was more difficult. You could graduate from the Botswana Secretarial College with a really good result…”

  Mr. Polopetsi remembered, and grinned at the memory. “Yes, of course: with ninety-seven per cent…”

  “Exactly,” continued Mma Makutsi, acknowledging the implicit compliment with a nod of her head. “And yet even with that result you might find it hard to get a job. Even with that sort of result.”

  “They were difficult times,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Things are easier now.”

  There was silence as Mma Makutsi decanted the freshly boiled water into the two teapots, stirred each briskly, and then poured the brew into mugs.

  Mr. Polopetsi sipped appreciatively at his tea. From the other side of the desk, Mma Ramotswe eyed him fondly. She had always liked Mr. Polopetsi—they all liked him—and had her business been more profitable she would have employed him without hesitation. B
ut it was barely profitable—indeed, at the end of some months it did not even break even, and employing him would have sent the accounts deeply into the red.

  She waited for him to speak, but he did not; instead he took another sip of his tea, exhaled a slight sigh of satisfaction, and continued to look at her with a sort of benign politeness—as if to imply that being in her company was all that he wanted.

  Eventually she broke the silence. “So, Rra,” she began, “have you come to ask me anything in particular?”

  He seemed surprised by the question. “Why, no, Mma. I have no questions to ask.”

  She nodded. “I see.”

  “Yes,” he said. “There is nothing that I want to ask of you.”

  Her relief was evident. “I am glad to hear that, Rra. Many people only go to see other people when they want to ask for some favour.”

  “Except for one thing,” Mr. Polopetsi continued quickly.

  “Oh.”

  “And it is not a favour. Well, it is not the sort of favour that people usually ask other people for. I think that you might call it an offer.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “An offer?”

  “An offer of help.” He paused before continuing, and threw a glance over his shoulder at Mma Makutsi, who nodded encouragingly. “You see, Mma Makutsi told me about this holiday you’re taking…”

  Mma Ramotswe threw a glance in the direction of Mma Makutsi, who smiled innocently.

  Mr. Polopetsi noticed the glance, but continued nonetheless. “She explained that you would be taking this holiday, and I thought that I might come and work here while you are away and the agency is short-handed.”

  Mma Ramotswe held up a hand. “No, hold on, Rra. There is no money for a new post—even a temporary one. If there were such money, Rra, you would certainly be the first person I would turn to, but there just isn’t. It is a simple fact of business life.”

  She put her mug firmly down on the table after she had finished this statement—a decisive gesture intended to make it clear there could be no further discussion of a possibility precluded by economic reality. Yet Mr. Polopetsi was not dismayed. “But, Mma,” he protested, “this is not about money. I do not want to be paid. I just want to help…and to have something interesting to do. I am feeling bored at home, Mma. That is the problem for me. I am like a woman who has a rich husband and just sits about at home all day. I am like such a person, Mma.”

  After he had finished, for a few moments Mma Makutsi looked at him admiringly before she turned to Mma Ramotswe. “You see, Mma,” she said, “it is all pointing one way. You must take a holiday. You can be sure that I shall run things here. I shall have Mr. Polopetsi to help me. I shall have Charlie as well. It will be a first-class team.”

  Mma Ramotswe stared through the window at the acacia tree that grew behind the building. It was home, on and off, to a pair of Cape doves, gentle, cooing creatures that led their innocent uxorious existence in its branches. But they were not there then, their place having been taken, briefly, by a small, unidentifiable bird that perched hesitantly on a swaying twig before launching itself into the air again. They have their work to do, she thought. The birds have their work to do.

  Behind and above the branches of the tree was the sky, the great, empty sky of Botswana, indifferent, as the sky always was, to the things that went on beneath it: to the sudden animal dramas of life and death that took place on the plains of the Kalahari, to the grubby conflicts of the human world, the cruelties, the plotting…

  Plotting. She looked at Mma Makutsi. She had done everything she could for her, right from that fateful day when she had appeared and more or less barged her way into the job of secretary to the fledgling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. She had advised her, supported her, paid her when there was very little in the coffers and it had meant the curtailing of her own drawings; she had done all that, and now here she was plotting with Mr. Polopetsi of all people—although Mma Ramotswe accepted that he might be an innocent pawn—to dispatch her on some open-ended and possibly even permanent holiday; and all of this so that she, Mma Makutsi, could run the business as managing director.

  Mma Ramotswe was not a vindictive woman—anything but—yet now she felt that something had to be said, even if her words might be little more than a mild reproach. Mma Makutsi could not be allowed to get away with this; could not be permitted to imagine that her machinations had not been seen for what they so clearly were.

  “You know, Mma Makutsi,” Mma Ramotswe began. “You know, anybody who listened to all this could well say: ‘Why do they want to get her out of there?’ Such a person might listen to all this and ask herself: ‘Why are they so keen to send her off on a holiday that she does not want to take?’ And then, if such a person got round to answering that question, the reply might be: ‘Because a certain person wants to run the place and there is another lady in the way.’ But if you get that lady out of the office, then everything will be in place to go ahead with the plan to do whatever it is that you want to do. Perhaps to change everything. Perhaps to do things that the other lady would not permit. Things like that.” She paused briefly to take a breath. “What does the hyena do when the lion is away? He does all the things that hyenas would like to do but that lions will never allow. That is what he does. We all know that, Mma—we all know that.”

  She finished. She had held Mma Makutsi’s gaze throughout the speech, but now she lowered her eyes and looked instead at the floor. She still felt the other woman’s eyes upon her, though, and saw, at the edge of her field of vision, the flash of light from the large round lenses.

  Mr. Polopetsi shifted awkwardly in his chair. “Oh, I don’t know, Mma. I don’t know—”

  He was cut short by Mma Makutsi. “Mma Ramotswe,” she blurted out. “I am very, very sad that you think that. I would never, never do anything like that, Mma. I would never do that. You, who have been my mother—yes, my mother, Mma—who took me on when I was just a nothing and gave me my chance. How could I forget that, Mma? How could I ever forget that?”

  Mma Ramotswe swallowed. She looked up and saw that Mma Makutsi had removed her spectacles and was dabbing at her cheek with a handkerchief. It was not an empty gesture; it was not an affectation. Mma Makutsi was in tears. And she knew immediately, and with utter clarity, that she had been wrong.

  “I was only thinking of you, Mma,” Mma Makutsi continued, the words coming out between the sobs that now began to erupt. “I have been worried, you see, that you work all the time and never have a rest. You are always thinking of other people, Mma, and you never think of yourself. Well, you have to do that, Mma. You have to have some time to rest. You have to, Mma, or one day you will die, Mma. You will fall over like a cow and die, Mma.”

  She paused, which was the opportunity for Mr. Polopetsi to voice his view. “She is quite right, Mma Ramotswe. She did speak to me about it—yes, she did, but all she said was, ‘I am very worried about Mma Ramotswe. She is working too hard.’ That is what she said, Mma. That was all there was to it. And she is right when she said you could fall over like a cow. You could, you know, Mma. Just like a cow.”

  Mma Ramotswe rose to her feet and, brushing past Mr. Polopetsi, she crossed the floor to where Mma Makutsi was seated, head lowered in private anguish, wiping her glasses furiously to demist them. She bent down and put her arm about her friend.

  “Oh, Mma Makutsi, I am so sorry,” she said. “I should never have thought all that…all that nonsense. You are right, Mma—I need a holiday and you have been the one to tell me that. I can see that now. I am so sorry, Mma.”

  Mma Makutsi sniffed. She reached up and put a hand on Mma Ramotswe’s arm. “I am the one who should say sorry, Mma. I am the one who sometimes is not as tactful as I should be. They have always said that, you know. They said it up in Bobonong—they said you must not speak so directly. You must be more careful. And I think I know everything when I actually do not, Mma. I do not know everything.”

  “You know a very great dea
l,” whispered Mma Ramotswe. “You got ninety-seven per cent, remember? You cannot get that mark if you do not know a lot.”

  Mr. Polopetsi voiced his agreement. “That is true. That is absolutely true.”

  “So,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I shall start my holiday soon. I shall hand everything over to you and Mr. Polopetsi and I shall go and sit under a tree.”

  Mr. Polopetsi clapped his hands. “That is just the thing to do, Mma.” He paused, and then added, “Which tree, Mma?”

  Mma Ramotswe, surprised by the question, waved a hand airily. “Oh, there are many trees in this life,” she said. “It does not matter too much which tree you choose, as long as you choose the right one.”

  Mma Makutsi and Mr. Polopetsi both nodded. They thought the answer very wise, although, on contemplating it a little later, Mr. Polopetsi felt that it required a bit of further consideration: if it did not matter which tree you chose, then…But that was not the time for such reflection; not then.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE GREAT MAN-EATER OF THE KALAHARI

  “SO, MMA,” announced Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni over the breakfast table. “So, there we are.”

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. She was not sure exactly what he meant, but she saw nothing to disagree with in what he had said. “Yes,” she replied, shelving the freshly washed cooking pot in which she had prepared his sorghum porridge. “Here we are.”

  “The first day of your holiday,” he went on, licking a small amount of butter off a finger. “That is always a good feeling, isn’t it? It’s like a Saturday with a whole lot of other Saturdays stretching out beyond it. Just like that, don’t you think, Mma?”

  She was not quite sure she agreed. It was actually a Wednesday, as she had finally left the office late on a Tuesday afternoon, and as far as she could make out the day had nothing about it that distinguished it from any other Wednesday.