The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon Read online

  She got to her feet and approached the workman.

  ‘Dumela, Rra,’ she said. ‘You are doing a very good job.’

  The man, breathless from his exertions, mopped his brow again. ‘It is too hot to be working, Mma.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The only thing to do in weather like this is to sit in some cool place somewhere. But…’ She paused as she peered into the shop’s interior. ‘But business has to go on, Rra, and, as it happens, I know this lady. I know Mma Soleti.’

  The man scrutinised her for a moment. ‘You have been a client, Mma?’

  Mma Ramotswe smiled. ‘Not really, Rra. I am not a lady who spends a lot of time on fashion and such things. And you, Rra? Have you…’ She left the question unfinished.

  He laughed. ‘Men do not go to these places.’

  ‘Perhaps they should, Rra. Perhaps men should go and have the wrinkles taken out of their faces.’

  For a moment the workman looked anxious, and his hand went involuntarily to his face.

  ‘I am not being serious,’ Mma Ramotswe reassured him. ‘Women do not notice the wrinkles on men’s faces. Women are mostly interested in what is in a man’s heart. Is he a kind man? That is the question, Rra. And there are many kind men who have many wrinkles.’

  The workman nodded. ‘This woman, this Mma Soleti, is coming here soon to open up her shop. That is why we are getting it ready.’

  ‘Soon soon?’ asked Mma Ramotswe.

  ‘Yes. She should have been here already, but maybe there is traffic and she is delayed.’

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. The traffic was getting worse – particularly at lunchtime and in the late afternoon – and one could no longer say with certainty when one would arrive. There were too many cars, and it would be a good idea to round up all the cars and throw away half of them, to make things better for the surviving vehicles. Such a solution, though, was hardly practicable and of course there was Mr J. L. B. Matekoni to think of. Cars were his livelihood and by extension hers too, in a way, until the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency became much more profitable – which it would not, unless people started to have rather more problems than they currently did, and who would wish more problems on other people?

  She became aware of somebody approaching, and she turned round.

  ‘Mma Ramotswe!’

  Mma Soleti, carrying a bulging canvas bag in each hand, was struggling towards her. Instinctively Mma Ramotswe reached out to help her, but this only caused the other woman to lose her grip on one of the bags. A cascade of plastic bottles – shampoos, creams, lotions – scattered about their ankles.

  Apologising profusely, Mma Ramotswe scooped up the bottles and jars and stuffed them back into the bag.

  ‘This is the last load,’ said Mma Soleti, fumbling for her keys with her free hand. ‘Once we have these on the shelf, I shall be ready for business.’ She looked at Mma Ramotswe as if she were planning something. ‘In fact, Mma, would you like to be my official first customer?’

  It took Mma Ramotswe a little while to answer. She realised that she did not have very much money on her – the purchase of the baby shoes had been more expensive than she had expected, and the remaining one hundred and fifty pula she had in her purse had been earmarked for the purchase of groceries. It would hardly do for her to reveal to Mr J. L. B. Matekoni that there was nothing to put on the table because she had spent the housekeeping money on beauty treatments. Tolerant though he was, no man could fail to be disappointed by such information; some would even be angry, but those particular men would do well to ask themselves how much of the household budget went on beer. If men bought beer, thought Mma Ramotswe, then women should be entitled to spend money on beauty treatments. At least beauty treatments made you look better, while beer generally made you look worse. She had to admit, though, that both were capable of making you feel more cheerful – in moderation, of course.

  Mma Ramotswe clapped her hands in gratitude. ‘That is very kind, Mma, but I’m afraid that I’m having to watch my pula these days and I don’t have much money on me. Some other day perhaps.’

  Mma Soleti shook her head vigorously. ‘Oh no, Mma. I was not going to charge my first customer. The treatment would be entirely free. On the house. Nothing to pay.’

  Mma Ramotswe was grateful, but still felt unable to accept. ‘That is very kind, Mma, but it is not a good way to run a business. If you did not charge for your treatments, then you would be out of business pretty quickly.’

  Mma Soleti was having none of this. ‘But of course I’m going to charge for the treatments. All I’m saying is that I won’t charge you, Mma Ramotswe, as you will be the first customer in my new premises. That is all I’m saying.’

  Mma Ramotswe looked at her watch. The supermarket would be quite busy, she thought, and she would need time to cook Mr J. L. B. Matekoni’s dinner. She also had to call on Mma Makutsi to deliver the present. ‘Time is the problem for me,’ she said. ‘There are so many things to do.’

  ‘It would not take long, Mma,’ said Mma Soleti, peering at Mma Ramotswe’s face. ‘I think the main thing would be doing something about those slightly enlarged pores at the side of your nose. And there’s a bit of dry skin near your ears, if I’m not mistaken. It’s this weather, Mma. The sun dries a lady’s skin very quickly and when we have as much sun as we’re getting on days like this, then moisturiser is the only solution.’

  ‘Fifteen minutes?’ asked Mma Ramotswe.

  ‘Twenty,’ countered Mma Soleti.

  ‘Then I accept. Thank you, Mma.’

  Mma Ramotswe was impressed by the interior of the Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon.

  ‘This is very luxurious, Mma,’ she said as she lay down on Mma Soleti’s treatment couch. ‘Your last place was… very nice, but it was a…’

  ‘Shack,’ said Mma Soleti. ‘You have to start somewhere, Mma, and that is where I started. Now we have this new salon complete with hot and cold running water and a fan to keep the customers cool. It is very different.’

  ‘It must have cost a lot,’ said Mma Ramotswe. Through her mind was going the question that always went through people’s minds but they never liked to ask: Where did the money come from?

  Mma Soleti would understand that question – everybody in Botswana was familiar with it. In rural Botswana, everybody, no matter how long they had lived in a town, helped one another, would not let another go hungry and were polite in their dealings with their fellow villagers; yet there was one major failing shared by all – a human enough trait, of course, but a failing nonetheless – envy. People could be envious of the material success of others, and almost everybody knew of some case where something spiteful had been done purely out of envy. So if somebody suddenly had a lot to spend, it was envy that fired up curiosity as to where the money had come from.

  ‘You will be wondering where I got the money,’ said Mma Soleti. This was no accusation – her tone was matter-of-fact.

  ‘I must admit the thought crossed my mind, Mma,’ said Mma Ramotswe.

  Mma Soleti twisted the lid off a jar of cold cream. ‘I had some money saved,’ she said. ‘A good amount, in fact, but not nearly enough to pay the rental deposit on this shop. Nor to pay the builder. No, I was able to borrow money, Mma – and at a very competitive rate of interest.’

  ‘That is good because you must have needed a lot,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘Even this couch…’ She ran her hand over the surface. It looked expensive and it felt expensive too.

  ‘Two thousand pula,’ interjected Mma Soleti. ‘It came all the way from Johannesburg. It is the latest thing. Except it’s second-hand, of course.’

  ‘Many old things are very good,’ said Mma Ramotswe diplomatically. ‘Things are rather like people in that respect, Mma…’

  Mma Soleti waited for Mma Ramotswe to finish, but her voice died away. Perhaps, thought the beautician, that is all she wanted to say; perhaps there was no conclusion to the observation.

  From her supine position on the couch, Mma Ra
motswe looked up at the ceiling. Two flies were engaged in a display of complicated footwork – an upside-down argument over upside-down territory. Or a dance of love perhaps. From the flies’ perspective, she thought, the ground was the sky, the thing you looked at when you craned your neck and looked up. And what were we to them? Great elephants lumbering around, strangely attached to that sky; our exposed flesh, moist with sweat in this heat, wide expanses of swamp for courageous flies to explore; our hair the jungle; our nostrils great caves emitting gales of heated air, places into which only a foolhardy insect would venture.

  At length Mma Soleti spoke. ‘I think you’re right, Mma Ramotswe. Many people improve as they grow older. They become less foolish. They behave more thoughtfully towards others. There is a long list of these things.’

  Mma Ramotswe smiled. ‘I suppose that is what I meant. Mr J. L. B. Matekoni thinks that about cars, you know. He says that an old car has a big soul. Those were the words he used – the exact words.’

  Mma Soleti had now arranged three jars of cream on a tray beside the couch. ‘Close your eyes,’ she said. ‘This will feel nice and cool.’

  Mma Ramotswe did as she was bidden. The cream, applied by Mma Soleti’s gentle fingers, felt pleasant, and it smelled good too. She wrinkled her nose slightly in an effort to identify the scent.

  ‘That cream is made of aloes,’ said Mma Soleti. ‘But they have added lemon to it. That is what you’re smelling, Mma.’ She paused, spreading the cream in generous quantities across Mma Ramotswe’s brow. ‘Lemon juice is a very good skin cleanser, Mma,’ she continued. ‘It is good for oily skin and when you mix it with aloe then it heals very well too. You can drink lemon juice with honey in the mornings – that will clean your skin from within.’

  Mma Ramotswe frowned. ‘I drink tea in the mornings, Mma. I drink redbush tea.’

  ‘That is very good for the skin too,’ said Mma Soleti. ‘You can put cold redbush tea on your skin if you have a rash. Then you can drink what’s left over so that you are cleansed inside and outside.’

  Mma Ramotswe relaxed. She liked the idea of being cleansed inside and outside. And then she thought of Mma Makutsi and her difficult complexion. She had never broached the matter with her assistant, but she knew that skin problems had troubled Mma Makutsi for some time, although more recently her complexion seemed to have settled down. She was not the easiest person with whom to raise delicate issues, but Mma Ramotswe wondered whether she might suggest that her associate put lemon juice in her tea rather than milk. Perhaps it would be possible to do that tactfully, for instance by saying that she had heard that people who were concerned about their skin spoke highly of lemon juice. Not that she would be implying that Mma Makutsi was a person who needed to worry about her skin; she would not say anything like that.

  Of course, having a husband always took the sting out of your minor imperfections. Now that Mma Makutsi was married to Phuti Radiphuti she would no longer have to be concerned about attracting men and could stop worrying about skin issues and having to wear very large round glasses and so on. Mind you, no woman, Mma Ramotswe thought, should give up entirely and not concern herself with looking good for her husband. The best solution lay somewhere in the middle, as it always did: you could relax a bit but you should always remember that it gave your husband pleasure to gaze at a beautiful wife over the breakfast table. And beauty, she reminded herself, was both an inside and an outside quality. You could be very glamorous and beautiful on the outside, but if inside you were filled with human faults – jealousy, spite and the like – then no amount of exterior beauty would make up for that. Perhaps there was some sort of lemon juice for inside beauty… And even as she thought of it, she realised what it was: love and kindness. Love was the lemon juice that cleansed and kindness was the aloe that healed.

  Neither woman spoke for the rest of the treatment. Mma Ramotswe found herself feeling drowsy and at one point came close to sleep. It was very comforting sensing the potions on one’s skin and breathing their perfume. It was highly relaxing to feel Mma Soleti’s fingertips coaxing tension out of the skin. And so, when the creams were rubbed off and some final unguent applied, Mma Ramotswe found herself feeling vaguely disappointed, as when the final drops of a much looked-forward-to cup of tea are drained.

  ‘There we are,’ said Mma Soleti. ‘You can open your eyes now, Mma. The treatment is over.’

  Mma Ramotswe sat up. Her face felt as if it was glowing, as if she were basking in the first rays of an early morning sun. She raised a hand to touch her cheek. ‘It feels very smooth, Mma.’

  ‘That is because the creams have done their work and now it is smooth,’ said Mma Soleti, a note of pride in her voice. ‘Just like a baby’s skin.’ She paused. ‘Mma Ramotswe, I’m glad that you have enjoyed being my first customer in this new salon. First free customer. Free, remember.’

  Mma Ramotswe noticed the emphasis on the word free. Some things that are free are not free, she thought. She was wary.

  ‘You were very kind, Mma. Thank you.’

  Mma Soleti had her back turned to her as she was replacing the jars on the shelf. ‘Mma Ramotswe,’ she said, ‘there is something that is worrying me.’

  Mma Ramotswe realised that her instinct had been right: this free beauty treatment came at the cost of a favour. Well, that was how the world worked, and she knew that she should not be surprised. Life was a matter of exchanges; you did things for people and they did things for you. And it had to be that way because you started life with the assistance of the one who brought you into the world – the midwife – and you ended it with the assistance of those who laid you in the ground. Between those two extremes, you often needed the help of others; you needed their company, you needed their love, and they, in turn, needed those things from you.

  She did not show her feelings. She was there to help, after all – that was what being a private detective was about, even if whatever problem Mma Soleti had looked as if it would not involve any remuneration. It would not be the first pro bono case she had undertaken; there had been many of those and there would no doubt be many more. One client had even suggested that she – Mma Ramotswe – should pay her to investigate her case. That was unusual by any standards, but the fact that it had occurred went to show that one should not be surprised by anything that people suggested – or did, for that matter.

  ‘Tell me what is worrying you, Mma,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘Sometimes, you know, the things that worry us are not so bad when you tell another person about them.’

  Mma Soleti turned to face her. She looked at the shop’s glass front door. ‘Can we speak in the office at the back, Mma?’

  Before Mma Ramotswe had the chance to reply, Mma Soleti took her by the arm and started to lead her into a room at the back of the salon. This was furnished with a desk, some chairs and a telephone. An unopened cardboard packing case labelled Beauty Products: Urgent stood on the floor near the desk. Mma Ramotswe could not conceal a smile. She wondered how anybody could consider beauty products to be urgent. Medicines yes, but not aloe extract and lemon juice. Of course, everybody considered their own orders of supplies urgent. Mma Makutsi often became concerned if her stationery orders took longer than a week to arrive. ‘How do they think we are going to be able to write to people, Mma?’ she complained. ‘Perhaps on scraps of old newspaper? Perhaps on the back of envelopes?’

  Mma Soleti invited her to sit on one of the chairs and then settled herself on the other one. ‘I have received a parcel,’ she said. ‘Through the post.’

  Mma Ramotswe looked down at the case of beauty products.

  Mma Soleti shook her head. ‘Not that, Mma. This was a very small parcel – about the size of a packet of cigarettes.’

  Mma Ramotswe waited for her to continue. Mma Soleti had lowered her voice, although there was nobody who could possibly hear them. People did that, Mma Ramotswe had observed – and it was usually a sign that they were frightened.

  ‘I opened it,’ went on Mma So
leti.

  Mma Ramotswe nodded her encouragement. ‘And, Mma?’

  ‘I wish I hadn’t.’

  Mma Ramotswe reached out to soothe her. Mma Soleti was shivering. This was unfeigned fear.

  ‘It is very difficult not to open a parcel, Mma Soleti.’

  ‘I know that. But in this case I wish that something had happened to this parcel before it arrived at my house.’

  ‘May I ask why, Mma?’

  ‘Because it contained something very bad, Mma.’

  Mma Ramotswe was silent. She had an idea what Mma Soleti was going to say.

  ‘It was a feather,’ whispered Mma Soleti.

  Mma Ramotswe had not been expecting this. She had expected a bone, or a powder of some sort. Those were the usual devices of witchcraft, and no matter how logical or modern one was in one’s outlook, such things were capable of bringing terror. People had died simply because they received such things. There was no scientific reason for them to do so, but the heart and the head were not the same thing in the darkness of the night.

  ‘Was there anything with the feather?’ she asked. ‘Any muti?’ She used the word commonly used for such things. Muti was at the heart of curses and spells – at least for those who believed in such things, which she did not. But she knew very well that it took only a handful of gullible people to give a witchdoctor his lucrative practice.

  Mma Soleti shook her head. ‘I did not know what the feather meant, and so I took it to a person I know who is a big expert in birds. He took one look at it and told me. It was a feather from a ground hornbill.’

  Mma Ramotswe let out a sigh. ‘So, they have sent you a sign from that bird.’

  Mma Soleti nodded miserably. ‘I threw it away immediately. I washed my hands, more than once – three or four times, I think – but I had already touched it. I already had had it in my pocket.’

  Mma Ramotswe tried to make light of the incident. ‘But, Mma, listen to me: I know people say that this poor bird is bad luck, that it will bring all sorts of bad things —’