The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon

by Alexander McCall Smith

  ‘I’m glad you like it,’ said Phuti. ‘We will only use it as his second name, of course. The first name will be a Motswana name. We haven’t decided on that one yet. There are many family names that we need to consider before we finally decide.’

  Mma Ramotswe agreed that a child’s name should be chosen with some care, and only after carefully imagining how the child himself or herself might be expected to feel about it. There was a distressing habit in Botswana of calling people by names that might have amused the parents but would dog the child for the rest of his life. She remembered a boy at school in Mochudi whose name, when translated from Setswana, meant: One who cries at the top of his lungs. That might have seemed appropriate to the parents of a crying baby, but it would require a lot of explaining, and acceptance, on the part of the child in later life.

  Phuti now moved on from names. ‘Grace said that she had not discussed maternity leave with you yet,’ he said. ‘She was going to talk to you about it today, but then… Well, I am talking on her behalf.’

  Mma Ramotswe made light of this. ‘Sometimes people don’t want to talk about these things too early,’ she said.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ said Phuti. ‘But I think that it might have been better if she had discussed it with you a little earlier. She will need some maternity leave, you see.’

  Mma Ramotswe said that she had assumed this would be the case. ‘I shall be able to get somebody in,’ she assured him. ‘There are always people coming out of the Botswana Secretarial College. We get letters asking for a job almost every day. We have a big file of them.’

  Phuti seemed relieved. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘But you will only need that maternity leave person for a very short time. Grace does not want to sit about the house. She wants to get back to work.’

  Mma Ramotswe was relieved. ‘I’m very glad, Rra. It would be difficult to train somebody up to be an assist – an associate detective. How many months does she want?’

  ‘Days, Mma. She said a few days.’

  Mma Ramotswe let out a gasp of astonishment. ‘That is not long at all, Rra.’

  ‘It is the modern thing,’ said Phuti. ‘We shall have a girl to feed the baby. There is already somebody there.’

  ‘A wet nurse?’ asked Mma Ramotswe. She was surprised, and wondered why this would be necessary. Phuti meanwhile looked puzzled, and it occurred to Mma Ramotswe that he might not have understood what she meant.

  ‘Wet nursing is where some other woman feeds the baby,’ said Mma Ramotswe.

  ‘That is what we are going to do,’ he said. ‘We already have a girl working in the kitchen. She will be feeding me too.’

  Mma Ramotswe tried to keep a straight face. ‘I think we are talking about different things, Rra. A wet nurse is a woman who feeds the baby with her own milk.’

  Phuti frowned. ‘From her fridge?’

  Mma Ramotswe lost the battle against laughter. She chuckled, and then went on. ‘No, from herself. Mother’s milk, not cow’s milk.’

  Phuti shook his head. ‘You mean one woman – a different woman – gives another woman’s baby the milk that her own baby…’

  ‘That is exactly what I mean,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘It is unusual, but it happens. It may be a sister or a cousin who helps in this way if the woman herself cannot manage to feed the baby. It is a kindness, you see.’ She paused. ‘There is usually a reason.’

  He looked at her with interest, and she thought, This is a man who needs to go to those classes they have for new fathers.

  ‘What is the reason?’ he asked.

  ‘It may be uncomfortable for the mother,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘That is a good reason. But I believe that there are some places where the mother just doesn’t have time to feed the baby. Maybe she is too important.’

  ‘But feeding a baby is very important,’ said Phuti.

  Mma Ramotswe was inclined to agree. You passed on more than mere sustenance in feeding a baby – you passed on love, and tenderness, and a bit of Botswana too, she thought. A bit of what it was to come from this place and be born into this nation.

  ‘So the young woman in the kitchen —’

  He interrupted her. ‘No, she will not be doing that – certainly not. She will make the baby’s food and give it to him if Grace is busy at the office.’ He paused. ‘Grace also thought that it would be all right to bring the baby to the office. Not every day, of course, but from time to time.’

  Mma Ramotswe was on the point of saying that she would be delighted to have the baby in the office, but then she thought, Will I? She was very fond of babies, and sometimes when she went to see Mma Potokwani at the orphan farm she would spend hours playing with the babies they had there. But offices were different. One had to work in an office, and babies sometimes did not realise that – indeed, they never realised it. And what would happen if an important client were to arrive at the office for a meeting and the baby should choose that moment to protest about any one of the numerous things that babies tended to protest about? What then? Or if the baby needed changing and, in the middle of a meeting at which a prospective client needed to be impressed, Mma Makutsi started to change him in full sight of the client? Of course, she could take him through to the garage, but somehow Mma Ramotswe hardly dared to imagine a baby being changed in a garage alongside a lot of cars that were having their oil changed.

  Her answer was cautious. ‘Well, I’m sure that it will be nice to see him – from time to time. But I don’t think we really have suitable facilities for him to come too often. Poor baby! What baby wants to sit about in an office? No babies I know would like that.’

  Phuti appeared to weigh her response. ‘Our baby will probably sleep a lot of the time. I don’t think he will make a noise.’

  Mma Ramotswe looked at Phuti incredulously. ‘I’m sorry, Rra, but I’m not sure I’d agree with you there. Babies are very noisy things. That is well known.’ She paused, before adding, ‘At least to some.’

  ‘Oh, I know a lot about babies,’ said Phuti.

  ‘That is very good, Rra. That is definitely a good thing.’

  Phuti smiled. ‘I asked them at the hospital if babies came with instruction books – you know, like fridges do, or cookers, or any electrical appliance. You get those instruction books, sometimes with pictures, telling you what to do.’

  ‘That would be very funny,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘But on a serious note, Rra, you can get books. There are many books on babies.’

  He seemed surprised. ‘Whole books, Mma?’

  She nodded. She had recently read about a new one in one of the magazines. It was a book that told you how to raise very intelligent babies. You had to read to the baby all the time and show it how to add and so on. It would not be very much fun being one of those babies, thought Mma Ramotswe. Babies – ordinary babies – liked to look at the sky, or watch chickens, or suck on blankets. They did not want to add.

  ‘I think it is mostly common sense,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘Give babies lots of love and keep them warm and don’t let flies settle on their noses. Those are all matters of common sense, and if you do things like that, the baby will be happy.’

  Phuti nodded. ‘I agree with you, Mma. Everybody can raise a baby.’ He hesitated. ‘Of course, it is best to learn a few special things, and I have been told all those by Grace. She has given me lists of things I should know about, and she has made up a few small tests for me. It has been very helpful in making me an expert.’

  Once again, Mma Ramotswe reached out to take his hand. She pressed it in congratulation and empathy. ‘Your baby will make you very happy, Phuti. That is something that babies are very good at.’

  He nodded. ‘I am already happy. I have Grace, and a furniture store, and now a baby. Three big things in my life.’

  ‘Well, there you are,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘It is a very good idea to make a list like that – to remind yourself of what you have.’

  ‘And you, Mma,’ said Phuti quietly. ‘You have many things in your life too. You hav
e…’ He nodded in the direction of the garage. ‘You have a very fine husband. You have your own business. You have that white van of yours.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘I am lucky. But I have the two children I look after – Motholeli and Puso. They are the most important things I have, I think.’

  ‘Yes, they are very important.’

  ‘And I have a very good assistant.’

  Phuti beamed with pleasure. ‘Yes, her too.’

  ‘And the assistant’s husband and the assistant’s baby. All of these are good things in my life.’ She paused. ‘And this country, of course. I have this country too.’

  She gazed out of the window, towards the acacia tree. The birds that had been nesting in its branches – the two Cape doves – were not there, but they would return at some point in the day. For a moment she imagined what, if birds could think about these things, they might think they had, and what their list would be. It would be a simple list, but the few things on it would be good: the shelter of an acacia tree, sky, air, Africa.

  Chapter Five

  The Modern Husband Course

  Of course, she had to buy a present for Mma Makutsi’s baby, which she would take with her when she went to see him for the first time. Following his early morning visit to her office, Phuti rang her up later the same day and told her that his wife would be coming out of hospital after two or three days and Mma Ramotswe was welcome to visit any time after the weekend. Grace and the baby were not going to the aunt’s house after all; he had spoken to his aunt about that and had stood his ground, as Mma Ramotswe suggested he should.

  ‘Grace is looking forward to seeing you,’ said Phuti.

  ‘I would not like to bother her too soon,’ Mma Ramotswe said. ‘Perhaps I should wait until she has been at home for three or four days. Then I should come.’

  ‘No, Mma Ramotswe, that is not what Grace wants. She said to me in the hospital that she was looking forward to showing you her baby as soon as she came home. She said that it would be good for the baby to meet people like you right at the beginning.’

  ‘I doubt if the baby will take much notice of me,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘Babies are busy enough sleeping and… doing the other things that babies do. They don’t really notice us very much.’

  Phuti disagreed. ‘Babies are like blotting paper. They soak up everything they see. They start learning Setswana more or less from the first day, or so I’m told.’

  Mma Ramotswe doubted that, but did not wish to disillusion him. New fathers were famous for attributing all sorts of abilities to their first-born, and it was harmless enough. Indeed, it was a good thing; a parent who did not believe in a child was not much of a parent. Most parents – mothers, in particular – believed the best of their children, come what may. A boy, or even a man, would always be forgiven by his mother, even if he did something unspeakable. She remembered Note Mokoti’s mother who had thought her son incapable of wrong, even in the face of all the evidence to the contrary. She had heard her say, ‘My son is a very good man – one of the best men in the country. He is so kind.’

  So kind! She closed her eyes. She would not allow herself to remember how Note had treated her, and many others too, she suspected. She had forgiven him, yes, but she still did not like to remember. And perhaps a deliberate act of forgetting went along with forgiveness. You forgave, and then you said to yourself: Now I shall forget. Because if you did not forget, then your forgiveness would be tested, perhaps many times and in ways that you could not resist, and you might go back to anger, and to hating.

  Then Phuti said something that worried her.

  ‘There is plenty of help for her in the house, Mma. There is that girl who works in the kitchen – she is a very good cook. And she keeps things clean too. And then there is my aunt.’

  ‘Your aunt?’ Mma Ramotswe said sharply.

  Phuti sighed. ‘She is coming to the house for six weeks,’ he said. ‘Grace’s mother is late now, and she says that there must be a senior female relative to help with the baby and all the things that need to be done. She says that it is her duty to come, since we will not let the baby go to her place. In fact…’

  She waited for him to continue but he was having difficulty with the words. Mma Makutsi had told her that it was always like that – when Phuti was upset or nervous about something, the words would not come, or would come out in pieces, or sometimes in the wrong order.

  ‘Has she already come to the house?’ she asked.

  ‘Y… yes. She is there now.’

  Mma Ramotswe was not sure what to say. Phuti’s aunt was a difficult woman, by any standards, and could try even the patience of Dr Moffat, the most patient of men, who would listen to people talking about their problems and their sorrows for any length of time and never urge them to hurry up, because our problems and our sorrows may be a story that is very long in the telling, and he understood that. And Professor Tlou had been the same – that wise man who knew more about the history of Botswana than anybody else, but who had always been prepared to listen to people telling their own story, even if he had heard similar things from many others before. He was late now, but he had not been forgotten and it was as if his wisdom and kindness were still there; which they were, in a way, because people still remembered and that made them a little bit wiser and kinder themselves.

  The aunt was not in that company. She was, Mma Ramotswe feared, someone who would probably never improve very much, even if there were times that she appeared to be a little less difficult. But it was always worth trying; there were few people who were so unpleasant that you could not get through to them with courtesy or praise. That was often what such people really wanted – to be praised, to be loved – and that was what could change them.

  ‘I am sure that she will be a great help,’ she said. ‘It is important for a new mother to have support, and aunts are just the right people for that.’ But not that aunt, she thought. She did not say so, of course, though she sensed that Phuti himself felt it but was prevented by loyalty, of which he had a good measure, and decency, of which he had even more, from expressing doubt as to the helpfulness of his difficult relative.

  Mma Ramotswe thought that Mma Makutsi had probably agreed to the arrangement in a moment of weakness, or possibly even in a state of drowsiness. You were never at your best in hospital, and after having given birth you might agree to all sorts of things. Mma Makutsi was saddled with the aunt for now, but perhaps would be capable of dealing with her when she became a bit stronger. Those six weeks that the aunt proposed to stay might, with a bit of skilful negotiation, become six days. That would be bearable, Mma Ramotswe thought.

  On the day on which Mma Makutsi was due to return home, Mma Ramotswe closed the office early. It had been a slow day, with not a single client appointment, no mail to speak of, and few continuing investigations. It had, in fact, been a rather quiet period at the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, which was not unusual, Mma Ramotswe had noted, in the weeks before the onset of the rains. It was always hot then, and it seemed as if people felt too lethargic to be aware of their problems, or, if they were aware, to be bothered to do anything about them. Once the rains came, it would be different. That was a time when life seemed to start all over again, and this meant that people who had something to worry about – some matter of doubt or uncertainty that required the services of Mma Ramotswe – would think about doing something about their problem. And she, of course, was just the person for that. As the motto of the agency proclaimed: Satisfaction Guaranteed.

  She wrote out a note to leave on the door, in case a client should turn up. Closed, she wrote, but open again tomorrow morning as normal. Please return with your problem then. Having dashed off the note, she looked at it more closely. She was not sure whether it was enough to say that a business was closed. Somebody who had made a special trip to consult her might be forgiven for being annoyed at not receiving an explanation; might conclude, perhaps, that this was a business that could close for no
reason at all – on a whim. There were businesses like that, she knew; their owners thought nothing of bringing down the shutters because they fancied an afternoon of shopping, or because they felt a little bit tired and wanted to go home to rest, or simply because they were fed up with working. So she felt that she should give some explanation, and perhaps also change the word problem to matter. She had found that people rather liked their problems being described as matters, a term that, she had observed, was much used by lawyers. It was more tactful, she thought.

  She reached for a fresh piece of paper and wrote, in large, easy-to-read letters: We are closed today on account of the joyful arrival of the first-born son of Mma Makutsi (Associate Detective). We shall re-open for business matters tomorrow morning, same as usual. Signed, Precious Ramotswe, Owner, No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.

  It was a good sign, one that would reassure even the most troubled of clients – and all the clients of detective agencies were troubled, no matter how much they might try to conceal it. If anybody could help them to become less troubled, then undoubtedly it was the signatory of that sign.

  She parked her van near the coffee shop at the edge of Riverwalk and made her way past the cluster of traders’ stalls. These stalls were a fruitful source of presents, but not, she decided, ones for a new baby. There were leather belts, and jewellery, and animals made out of polished soapstone, but her real destination was a shop near the large supermarket. This was Mother and Baby, a small shop sandwiched between a men’s clothing store – Kalahari Fashions – and an electronics store – Loud Sounds. She had noticed the store before, having been attracted by the colourful displays mounted in its window, but had never gone inside. It belonged, she had heard, to a woman whose husband was the proprietor of an unsuccessful – but determined – football team unkindly referred to by nearly everybody as the Gaborone All-time Losers. Mma Ramotswe had met this man on one or two occasions as he brought his car to Mr J. L. B. Matekoni for servicing. For the proprietor of a lost cause, he always seemed very cheerful, and she had heard that his wife had a similar approach to life.