The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon

by Alexander McCall Smith

  ‘I didn’t like the look of him to begin with,’ she said. ‘He was wearing one of those ridiculous hats that young men wear. I know it means nothing, but it put me against him.’

  ‘It is a sign,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘A hat can be a sign.’

  ‘Yes, but you have to be careful. Remember what Clovis Andersen says in the book? Remember how he says that the shirt a man wears is not always the shirt he would like to wear?’

  Mma Makutsi remembered that. ‘Have you heard from him?’ she asked.

  ‘From?’

  ‘From Mr Andersen? I thought that perhaps he might have written again.’

  ‘No, he has not, Mma. He has many important things to do.’

  There had been one letter since Clovis Andersen had returned to Muncie, Indiana. It had arrived shortly after his trip to Botswana had come to an end and it had been read and reread by both Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi before being filed away in a file specially devoted to it.

  Dear ladies,

  There are some letters that are easy to write and some that are hard. This is a hard letter, not because I have anything unpleasant to say – as some hard letters require – but because I am not sure that I can find the words to express what I feel I need to say. And that is to thank you not merely for all your kindness to me when I was in your wonderful country, but to thank you for helping me come to terms with what has happened to me and with who I am. I could say so much more about that, but I know that it would make you embarrassed. We Americans can sometimes say too much about how we are feeling when other people keep those things to themselves. So I will not say much more than I have said because I know that you will understand. Here may be a wide sea between us, and many thousand of miles of it, but that sea and those miles are nothing to true friends, which is what I hope you will allow me to call you.

  Yours truly,

  Clovis Andersen

  Now Mma Makutsi mused, ‘I might write to him and tell him about my baby.’

  In Mma Ramotswe’s view this was a good idea. ‘He would be very interested, Mma.’

  ‘Especially in the name,’ said Mma Makutsi.

  Mma Ramotswe looked up. ‘You have chosen it now?’

  Mma Makutsi nodded. ‘Phuti and I have agreed.’

  Mma Ramotswe took a sip of her tea, glancing at Mma Makutsi over the rim of her cup. ‘And, Mma?’

  ‘Itumelang,’ said Mma Makutsi.

  It was a reasonably common name in a country where names were highly individual and there were many thousands from which to choose.

  ‘It is a good name,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘Itumelang Radiphuti sounds very good to my ear, Mma.’ She paused. ‘Have there been many Itumelangs in Phuti’s family?’

  ‘His father’s brother,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘But that is not the reason we have chosen it. We like the name for its own sake.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But he has other names too,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘His full name will be Itumelang Clovis Radiphuti.’

  Mma Ramotswe clapped her hands in pleasure. ‘That is wonderful, Mma! That is a very good name. Phuti told me you might do that.’

  Mma Makutsi smiled demurely. ‘I am glad that you like it, Mma. It is a tribute to Clovis Andersen.’

  ‘Of course it is. Of course it is. And Rra Andersen will be very pleased when he hears it, I think. You must write to him. Send him a photograph and tell him that this baby has been given his name. People like that.’

  ‘I will do that, Mma.’

  They reverted to the subject of Liso. ‘I was not sure of him at first, Mma,’ continued Mma Ramotswe, ‘but then I ended up liking him. You know how that can happen – you start off being wary of somebody and then you realise that your suspicions are wrong.’

  Mma Makutsi had experienced that, but it was possible, she pointed out, that exactly the opposite might happen. ‘You may meet people who you think are all right and then you realise that they are not. That happens too, Mma.’

  Mma Ramotswe moved on to describe the anxiety that Liso’s aunt had felt about leaving him alone with her. ‘And every time I asked him a question, she answered. It was as if she was worried that he would say something that would give him away.’

  Mma Makutsi looked thoughtful. ‘Sometimes people are like that,’ she said. ‘They feel anxious about what their relatives will say. I have an aunt in Bobonong who replies for her husband all the time. Now he never opens his mouth at all when anybody speaks to him – he just looks at her and she tells that other person what he is thinking.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘That can happen. But there is something more, Mma.’

  ‘Yes?’

  Mma Ramotswe lifted her teacup and tilted it to make sure that she got the last few drops. Mma Makutsi saw this; it was a signal that they had both used many times and was picked up immediately.

  ‘I shall get you more tea,’ she said. ‘Then you can tell me.’

  Their cups refreshed, Mma Makutsi listened while Mma Ramotswe related what Gwithie had told her about Liso calling his aunt his mother. Mma Makutsi weighed this for some time before she gave her response.

  ‘There is something that Clovis Andersen says,’ she began. ‘He says that you should always ask who has an interest in something. Remember that, Mma? Remember how he said: find out who has a stake?’

  She did remember.

  ‘So, Mma,’ continued Mma Makutsi, ‘you must ask yourself: who has a stake in all this?’

  Mma Ramotswe thought it was obvious. ‘The aunt. The nephew.’ She paused as she tried to imagine who else had an interest in the outcome of the Molapo succession. Eventually she said, ‘And the lawyer too, I suppose.’ She had her suspicions about Mma Sheba, and perhaps it was now time to spell them out.

  Mma Makutsi looked thoughtful. ‘Her? Why would a lawyer be interested?’

  ‘She is a lawyer who is giving us opinions. And if anybody gives you an opinion, then you have to ask what they want to achieve by that opinion.’

  Mma Ramotswe reached out to touch the tablecloth on the table at which they were sitting. It had been embroidered round the edges with brightly coloured images of Botswana flowers. She touched a motif of a jacaranda blossom – more purple.

  ‘I suppose,’ she said, ‘that lawyers may want a case to work out in a particular way. If you are defending somebody and you think he is innocent, then…’

  Mma Makutsi became animated. ‘Exactly. Or if you are looking after an inheritance and you think that the person who stands to get it is not a good person, then you might want to do all you can —’

  ‘To prevent that happening,’ supplied Mma Ramotswe.

  They stared at one another.

  ‘So you need to look at the will, Mma,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘Anybody can do that, you know.’

  It was Mma Ramotswe who had first told Mma Makutsi about the government registry where wills, and all sorts of other documents, could be seen – for a fee.

  ‘I do know that, Mma,’ she said. ‘In fact, I think I may have told you about it a few years ago.’

  Mma Makutsi shrugged. ‘Maybe. But have you looked at the will, Mma?’

  ‘No, I haven’t. Not yet.’

  ‘Because it will show who stands to gain if Liso is not Liso,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘And that is what we really need to know.’

  Mma Ramotswe was thoughtful. ‘I shall do this,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘There is a man. Phuti told me about him. He bought a sofa.’

  Mma Ramotswe waited for her to continue. Since she had married Phuti Radiphuti, sofas and chairs and all sorts of furniture regularly entered Mma Makutsi’s conversation, and people were described in terms of the furniture they had bought. Thus a prominent politician had been identified as a man who had a large dining room table made of Zambian mukwa wood; or a rising businesswomen had been referred to as having recently acquired a set of expensive office chairs.

  ‘This man with the sofa,’ Mma Makutsi went on, ‘ i
s called the Master of the High Court. He keeps all the wills.’

  ‘A big filing task,’ said Mma Ramotswe.

  Mma Makutsi rolled her eyes heavenward as she contemplated the immensity of filing all the wills made in Botswana. She would have no trouble in coping with it herself, of course, but the Master of the High Court, whatever else his training, would not have had the benefit of studying at the Botswana Secretarial College. Had he done that, then he would have studied filing under the tutorship of the legendary teacher who had taught Mma Makutsi, a woman who was now living in retirement in one of the western suburbs but whom she saw occasionally doing her grocery shopping. It pleased Mma Makutsi that her tutor remembered her name. It can be difficult for teachers, through whose hands pass so many students every year, but she had remembered, saying, ‘My goodness, Grace Makutsi, you are the one who did so well. And now I hear that you are a very senior investigator. We are proud of you, you know.’

  Mma Makutsi agreed with Mma Ramotswe. ‘I am sure, though, that they have it under control, Mma. It may take them some time to find it, but they will have it.’

  They moved on to discuss Mma Soleti. Mma Ramotswe told Mma Makutsi about the whispering campaign and the identification of the potential enemy. Her assistant listened with interest.

  ‘It may be that woman,’ she said once Mma Ramotswe had finished. ‘It may be that she is angry because Mma Soleti has stolen her husband. You should go and see her.’

  ‘I am intending to do that,’ said Mma Ramotswe.

  Mma Makutsi bit her lip. ‘May I ask you something, Mma?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘May I come with you? You see, I want to get back to work as soon as possible, and if I can do the occasional small thing then that will help me so much. It is not that I do not like being here with my baby – with Itumelang – but it’s just that… well, Mma Ramotswe, I know I’ve only been away for a few days, but I’m missing our office, I’m missing the conversations we have, the discussions. I miss making tea for you. I even miss filing.’

  Mma Ramotswe was taken aback to learn that, even with a new baby to care for, her assistant shared the same feelings she had experienced, but then she knew that, were we suddenly separated from them, we all would miss the things that made up our daily lives – even if these things were mundane and inconsequential.

  ‘Your filing is exceptional,’ said Mma Ramotswe. And the compliment was received with all the gravity accorded to those compliments that are fully intended – and fully justified.

  ‘I think I’ll come back very soon,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘The baby is small, but —’

  Mma Ramotswe interrupted her. ‘The baby is very, very small, Mma.’

  ‘Yes, but that makes him easier to carry. And I think it’s good for babies to get out and about; I am a modern person in that respect, Mma Ramotswe.’ She paused. ‘So, if you have no objection, Mma…’

  Mma Ramotswe smiled. ‘I have no objection, Mma.’

  ‘I’ll come in for a few hours at a time.’

  ‘As you wish, Mma Makutsi.’

  They remained silent after that, sitting in the silence of a friendship that was the greatest and deepest and most valuable friendship that either of them had ever had, or ever would have. Then it was time for a further cup of tea and the conversation shifted to the subject of husbands, on which they both declared themselves to be most fortunate.

  ‘I would not want Phuti to change,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘He is perfect just as he is.’

  ‘And I would not like Mr J. L. B. Matekoni to change either,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘For the same reason.’

  This was not strictly speaking true. Neither husband was perfect – as both wives knew – but then who among us is perfect? Nobody, thought Mma Ramotswe. And Mma Makutsi thought much the same thing, but perhaps slightly more forcefully.

  Chapter Twelve

  Shoes Are Wasted on Men

  Mma Soleti had given Mma Ramotswe the name of her enemy and Mma Ramotswe had written it down on a scrap of paper. The following day, sitting in the office of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, she examined what she had written. Daisy Manchwe, runs a photocopy shop in town. That was all that Mma Soleti had said about her; she clearly found the subject distasteful. That did not surprise Mma Ramotswe a great deal: we do not, in general, like to discuss those we have wronged, and it seemed to her that whatever Mma Soleti said about Daisy Manchwe’s husband being ready to leave, it was likely that this was a simple case of husband-grabbing. In her experience, those who took the husbands or wives of others could rewrite history – not always, but often – and the marriage they had broken up would be portrayed as being in much worse condition than it really was.

  She had no real idea what she would find when she went to see Daisy Manchwe, but she felt the likelihood was she would find that Daisy had done nothing to justify her husband’s departure and would, indeed, be nurturing antagonism towards Mma Soleti. One could never really understand other people’s marriages. Mma Ramotswe was as well aware of that as anybody – perhaps even more so, given that her work often required her to investigate the conjugal arrangements of others. A marriage, she had learned, is seldom what it seems to be on the surface; what appears to be the most equable, well settled of arrangements might be a seething mass of discontent and resentment underneath. And conversely, chaotic and noisy relationships, littered with conflict and infidelity, might prove to be the most durable of unions. There was simply no telling, she felt, and you had to be prepared to find anything.

  This did not mean, though, that she thought Mma Soleti was wrong about the enmity of Mma Manchwe. You could be mistaken about many things in this life, thought Mma Ramotswe, but one thing that you were very rarely wrong about was whether somebody disliked you – that you could always tell. If Mma Soleti thought that Daisy Manchwe nursed an undying hatred towards her for stealing her husband, then she was probably right. She would have seen the daggers in the other woman’s eyes; daggers in the eyes were always visible, sometimes even through sunglasses.

  It was not difficult to locate Daisy Manchwe’s details in the Gaborone Trade Directory. This was a publication heavily relied upon by Mma Makutsi, who believed that most tasks of identification could be completed by the simple expedient of looking through the telephone book or any of the other public directories she kept in the top drawer of her desk.

  ‘It’s all there,’ she said to Mma Ramotswe. ‘You just have to know where to look – which I do, Mma. I know my way around these things.’

  The trade directory revealed that there were three photocopying businesses in the town. Daisy Manchwe’s, known as Clear Image Copies, was located in the new cluster of shops that had been set up near Kgale Hill. It was not a place that Mma Ramotswe liked to go, as she was loyal to the older and more sedate Riverwalk shopping centre. She also liked small, local shops; places where you were able to buy pins and candles and tins of syrup – the sort of real things that you needed, rather than the insubstantial clothes and flashy electrical goods that newer, louder shops sold.

  The directory entry for Clear Image Copies put the matter of ownership beyond doubt. Founded and under the management of Daisy Manchwe, it read, before going on to reveal that the prices at which copies could be made could not be bettered elsewhere in Gaborone. From one to one thousand copies, came the claim, we are the cheapest and the clearest in town.

  The directory entry provided even more interesting information than these advertising puffs. At the bottom of the entry was a picture of Daisy Manchwe herself, standing proudly in front of a large photocopying machine. Mma Ramotswe studied the picture with interest. It was not very clearly printed – a sorry thing for a company that boasted of clear images – but then they had not printed the directory and would presumably have done a much better job themselves. What struck Mma Ramotswe about the picture was the cheerful look of Daisy Manchwe. People smiled when having their photographs taken, of course, but if you were heartbroken inside, your cam
era smile would always be unconvincing. Daisy Manchwe did not look like the abandoned spouse; far from it – she appeared happy with the world.

  It was a passing reflection and did not amount to much, but it was something that she mentioned to Mma Makutsi when she picked her up from her house. She felt extremely cheerful herself when they set off in the van together. This was just like it used to be – the two of them heading off on some investigation, going over the details of the case together in the cab of the tiny white van as they watched Botswana pass by.

  ‘There was no trouble leaving Itumelang?’ she asked, as Mma Makutsi settled herself in the van on their departure.

  Mma Makutsi shook her head. ‘He is sleeping, and the girl I have helping me is very good. There is his bottle in the fridge and he will be given that. It is personal milk.’

  Mma Ramotswe had not heard the expression personal milk before, but she rather liked it. ‘Personal milk is very good,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, it is. And I am having no trouble with that side of things, Mma, so I will soon be able to come back to work more or less full-time.’

  ‘I will be very happy when that happens,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘Of course, you have Phuti’s aunt to help with running the house. I suppose that will make it easier.’

  Mma Makutsi shook her head. ‘I do not, Mma. The aunt has gone.’

  Mma Ramotswe looked at her companion, a lapse in attention that caused the van to swerve towards the side of the road. She corrected quickly.

  ‘Well, Mma, that’s an interesting piece of news. Was there a…’ There must have been a fight, she thought, and for a moment she imagined Mma Makutsi and the aunt locked in battle, the aunt perhaps clutching at Mma Makutsi’s large glasses and Mma Makutsi struggling to hold on to them.

  ‘An argument?’ supplied Mma Makutsi. ‘Yes, there were arguments, but I did not antagonise her. I felt too weak and tired to do that. I thought that I would have it out with her later on, once I was stronger.’

  ‘That is wise,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘They say that it is very important to choose your moment.’ She paused. ‘Some people never find their moment. You see them waiting and waiting, but never finding it.’