The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “I do not wish to come into your office, Mma,” the caller had said. “I do not wish to offend you, but when you have a business like mine, you have to be careful. People might see.”

  “If that is what you wish, Rra, then that is not a problem for me. We can meet somewhere else. There is a café I know at Riverwalk. You know that place?”

  There was a mumbling at the other end of the line, as if somebody was being consulted. Then the voice said, “I am a bit out of touch with town, Mma, but I can find out about it. I have friends who know Gaborone well. I can be there.”

  The caller had given his name, Botsalo Moeti, and had said that he would be coming into town from a place to the south of Gaborone. “Not a village you will know, Mma, as it is very small. I need not give you its name.”

  “But that would be helpful, Rra. I might know it.”

  This was greeted with silence. “I do not think so, Mma. As I said, it is very small.”

  She had not pressed the issue, and the matter was left there. But after she had rung off and replaced the telephone handset in its cradle, she had looked across the room at Mma Makutsi and said, “That man is scared, Mma. I can tell it in his voice.”

  Mma Makutsi’s eyes had widened behind her large round glasses. “There are many people who are frightened of something or other, Mma,” she said. “Even here in Botswana there are people who are frightened.”

  They had looked at each other without saying anything. Each knew what the other meant; each knew that there were things that people preferred not to acknowledge, not to admit, lest the admission encourage that which needed no encouragement.

  It was Mma Ramotswe who broke the silence. “I am not going to be frightened, Mma Makutsi.”

  Her assistant took off her glasses and polished them energetically with her handkerchief. “And I am not going to be frightened either, Mma. Even if …”

  “Even if what, Mma?”

  Mma Makutsi shook her head; she had said enough, she felt.

  AT NINE-FIFTEEN, three-quarters of an hour before Mma Ramotswe was due to meet Mr. Botsalo Moeti, Mma Makutsi made tea. This was an occasion that was an established fixture in the timetable of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, but less observed in the daily programme of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, with whom Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi shared premises. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was happy to punctuate the day with tea, but only downed tools if the work in which he was engaged had reached a natural break. This meant that out of every five tea-breaks, he and his apprentices usually took only three, or sometimes just one or two.

  “Everybody else has a regular tea-break, Boss,” complained Charlie. “Go into a government office and what do you see? Everybody drinking tea. Same thing in the banks. More tea. Why not us?”

  “Because we are not an ordinary business,” sighed Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “Nor are we a government department. We are like a hospital—a hospital for cars. Hospitals do not suddenly say, ‘We have had enough; we are going to stop curing people while we have a cup of tea.’ They do not say that, Charlie.”

  The analogy with a hospital appealed to him, and he developed it in an attempt to get Charlie to understand the need to care about his work. “Yes, we are a hospital for cars, and you and I—what are we? We are surgeons, Charlie; that is what we are. And if you go into a hospital, do you see the surgeons using hammers on their patients? Spanners, not hammers: remember that.”

  The question was a pointed one. He had tried so often to stop Charlie’s tendency to use a hammer on recalcitrant engine parts, but his efforts had met with little success.

  “They don’t use spanners either,” said Charlie, winking at Fanwell.

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni sighed. He sighed a great deal in his conversations with Charlie. “It is not something to laugh about.”

  Charlie adopted a serious expression. “I am not laughing, Boss, even if I’m thinking of a surgeon using a spanner on some poor man. Ow! Like this. Ow!”

  “He would use an anaesthetic before he got out his spanner,” said Fanwell. “We do not give anaesthetics to cars.”

  That morning the making of tea came at a time when the workshop was quiet, so both apprentices and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni joined the two ladies in the agency office. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni came in first, to be greeted politely by Mma Makutsi. Then came Fanwell, wiping his hands on a blue paper towel, and finally Charlie. As Charlie entered, Mma Makutsi glanced over at Mma Ramotswe. Nothing further had been said since their discussion the previous day, and Mma Ramotswe had not yet raised with her assistant the question of her tackling the young man; but nonetheless a meaningful look was exchanged. Mma Ramotswe hoped that Mma Makutsi would not launch into her own attack there and then: she could be impetuous, and might not judge her moment too well. Holding her assistant’s eye, she mouthed the word “No.”

  Returning to her chair, Mma Makutsi took a sip of tea. “Well, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni,” she said brightly, “any well-known cars in trouble?”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni nursed his mug in cupped hands. “Nothing,” he said. “We fixed Bishop Mwamba’s car last week, and that tall government minister’s car the week before that. This week it is just ordinary cars—no well-known ones.”

  “All cars are important, Boss,” ventured Fanwell. “You said that yourself.”

  “Of course they are,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “We treat all cars the same.”

  Mma Makutsi was watching Charlie, who was leaning against a filing cabinet. Becoming aware of her scrutiny, the young man gave her a deliberately nonchalant stare.

  “What about those vans?” she asked.

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni frowned. “What vans?”

  Mma Makutsi spoke slowly and deliberately. “The painters’ vans. The ones that belong to that nice man—what is his name?—Leonard something-or-other.”

  There was a sudden silence, at least in that small office; outside, the cicadas, indifferent to human drama, continued their screech. Charlie stood quite still, his mug of tea suspended in mid-air, unsipped.

  Mma Makutsi continued regardless. “I thought you were hoping that he would bring all those vans in here. That would be very good business, wouldn’t it?”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked anxiously in Mma Ramotswe’s direction. “Yes,” he muttered, “that would be good. But I’m sure that he has an arrangement in place for his vans. They do not seem to be breaking down—somebody must be looking after them.”

  “I thought he was a very nice man,” continued Mma Makutsi. “But I don’t know him, really.” She paused. “Phuti does, though. He knows that whole family. The husband, the wife, the daughter—”

  “Mma Makutsi,” blurted out Mma Ramotswe, “look at the time! Here we are drinking tea, and I have to get ready to go to meet a client. We must get ourselves organised. Come on, everybody, drink up. Tea-time over. Right now. Over.”

  SHE WAS EARLY for her appointment and decided to spend a few minutes window-shopping at one of the clothes shops inside the rambling Riverwalk complex. She had no intention of buying anything—money was tight, with several clients being slow to pay their bills that month—but she felt that it never did any harm just to look. In fact, Mma Ramotswe found as much pleasure in looking as in an actual purchase; more perhaps, because looking involved no guilt, whereas purchasing often did.

  This was something that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, in common with most men, simply did not understand. “The whole point about shopping,” he had remarked, “is that you go somewhere and you buy something you need. Then you take it home and use it. That is what shopping is about.”

  Mma Ramotswe had shaken her head. “No, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. You are right about many things, Rra, but you are not right about that. That is not what shopping is about.”

  He had been perplexed. “Then perhaps I’m missing something.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Tell me, then, Mma Ramotswe, what is shopping for? It seems that I have misunderstood the whole thing.”

  She smi
led. There was much that men simply did not understand, but she had never been much concerned about this lack of understanding. Indeed, in her view it was one of the things that made men so appealing. There were men’s things and then there were women’s things. The list of which was not written in stone, and it was quite possible for a woman to enter the world of men—and the other way round—but she saw no point in denying that women liked to do certain things and men liked to do other things. Nor did she doubt that these preferences were one of the reasons why women liked men and men liked women. So it was perfectly possible that there were men who liked shopping, and who understood exactly what it was all about, but Mma Ramotswe had yet to meet such a man. Maybe they existed elsewhere—in France, perhaps—but they did not seem to be much in evidence in Botswana.

  Of course, she knew that you had to be careful about this sort of thing. Like all women, she had suffered the put-downs of men, and there were still plenty of men who were prepared to say to women, You cannot do this, you cannot do that, because you are just a woman. She remembered many years ago, as a girl in the national school at Mochudi, hearing a teacher—a man—say to the class: “These are good jobs for boys, but not for girls; girls can do something else.” She had smarted at the injustice. Why could women not do those jobs? You did not have to be strong, with bulging muscles, to be a pilot or an engineer, or a president, for that matter. Such men, she discovered, such men who put women down, were really rather weak themselves, building themselves up by belittling women. A truly strong man would never want that.

  A truly strong man … Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was one such, and so, too, had been her father, the late Obed Ramotswe, that great man, that good man, who had never suggested that there were any limits to what she could do with her life. He had been old-fashioned, it was true, but he had always said that women should stand on their own two feet and do what they wanted. And in many respects he had clearly been in advance of his time when he had remarked, as he often did, that the day when women took over important jobs from men would be the day that things got better. But not even Obed Ramotswe, her precious daddy, understood shopping as a woman understands it. He would not have wanted to linger, as Mma Ramotswe now did, before the window of a clothing shop and admire the tempting display within.

  She gazed at the window. The proprietors of this shop had understood the situation very well: they sold clothing for both men and women, but in their window the women’s clothes were tastefully displayed, adorning coquettishly posed mannequins or draped temptingly on small supports, whereas the men’s clothing, distinctly less colourful, was simply placed on a low wooden table with the price tags showing. She saw that the women’s clothing had no prices; that was as it should be, because if the price were to be displayed then that would spoil the fun of potential customers outside. They might be put off by realising that they could not afford this dress or that dress, whereas with no prices attached, they could dream of affording them all.

  She noticed, too, that the mannequins modelling the dresses—those posturing moulded figures—were all waif-like and thin, as if the slightest wind might come and blow them away like so many leaves. Why were there not any traditionally built mannequins? Why were there not comfortable ladies in the window, ladies with whom those on the other side of the glass—not thin and hungry ladies, but ladies whose breakfast had clearly been generous enough to see them through the day—could identify? That was another thing that women had to be wary of, thought Mma Ramotswe; that was another way of putting women down—telling them that they should stop eating.

  Her eye wandered to a small display of women’s shoes in one corner of the window. One pair, in particular, caught her attention: cream-coloured, with high heels and two small buttons to fasten the straps. These shoes, she thought, would very much appeal to Mma Makutsi, and would be suitable for her wedding. There was talk of a date now, and she must be thinking about her bridal outfit. These shoes would go well with a white dress, but especially appealing to Mma Makutsi would be the buttons, each of which had a single mock diamond, winking even now in reflected light like little beacons. She would tell her about them; perhaps she would even suggest that they visit the shop together so that she could advise.

  She glanced at her watch and dragged herself away from the window display. The café, which was round the corner, overlooking a parking lot, was a favourite of hers as it afforded a good view of one of the entrances to the shopping centre. If you sat there long enough, as Mma Ramotswe occasionally did, you might observe all Botswana pass by, or at least a large part of it, and you would never fail to see at least one friend to whom you might give a wave.

  As she approached the café, she realised that she had said nothing to her client as to how they might recognise one another. What if there were several men sitting at tables by themselves, as sometimes happened? Would she have to go up to each and say, “I am Mma Ramotswe”? This could be embarrassing, as the man would be obliged to give his own name and enquire after her health—if he had any manners at all—and then there would be an awkward silence. And Mma Ramotswe would then say, “And what is troubling you, Rra?” and he would reply, “Well, nothing actually,” because he would not be the client but a perfect stranger instead.

  She looked about the café. There were several places to sit in the indoor part, and these were all empty. Outside, spilling onto the pavement that ran alongside the parking lot, there were more tables, and these were mostly occupied: a young couple, completely self-absorbed; two middle-aged women with shopping bags at their feet; two teenage girls discussing a photograph one of them was holding—of a boy, no doubt—and highly amused by something—by the boy, of course; and a man sitting by himself. She knew immediately that he was her client and, as he looked up, he knew that she was Mma Ramotswe.

  She made her way to his table.

  “Mma Ramotswe?”

  She reached out and they shook hands.

  “Mr. Moeti. Dumela, Rra.”

  There were the usual enquiries of the formal greeting, while she sat down. He had risen to greet her and sat down too, awkwardly, even furtively. Nervousness, she thought. And then, looking for the first time into the eyes of her new client, she saw something else, and that was fear.

  It surprised her at first, because this Moeti was a large man, not in girth but in height, and she never expected tall men to show fear. As the waitress came over to take their order, Mma Ramotswe noticed further things about Mr. Moeti: she looked at his shoes and saw that they were well polished, but with a fine layer of dust that had settled since he put them on that morning; she saw the well-pressed khaki trousers, and the two pens in the top pocket of his shirt. So he was a farmer, but he had not been born to it; she was sure of that.

  But there was still the fear: that was the predominant impression, and it intrigued and troubled her.

  She opened the conversation brightly. “You found this place all right, Rra. I like coming here. You can see everybody.” She made a gesture towards the car park. “These big shops are not like the markets we used to have, are they? So we need places like this instead.”

  He looked out over the car park. Forty-five, she thought. Maybe fifty; old enough to remember how things used to be.

  “Yes,” he said. “It is a good place.”

  “And you can talk here,” she went on. “The tables are far enough apart to do that. Nobody can hear, except those two girls over there, perhaps, and they would not be interested in what we have to say—their heads are full of boys.”

  He glanced in the direction of the girls; the photograph was still coming under intense scrutiny. He turned to Mma Ramotswe and smiled weakly. “And their phones,” he said.

  “Ah,” said Mma Ramotswe, “their mobile phones. Yes, that is a big problem, isn’t it? So much talking going on. The air above Botswana must be almost full by now with all these words.”

  He looked down at the ground.

  She leaned forward. “I can tell that you are anxious, R
ra.” She wanted to say that he was frightened, but decided that to refer to anxiety, rather than fear, was more polite—at this stage.

  He kept his eyes fixed on the ground. His hands were clasped together on his lap; now she saw them tighten involuntarily. “It is not easy to talk about some things,” he muttered.

  “Of course it isn’t, Rra. I know that. I have many people who come to me who find it very hard. I understand that very well.” She paused, watching the effect of her words. “But do you know something, Rra? Talking about it—just saying a few words—is often enough to help. Words can make big things little, you know.”

  He lifted his gaze. There was still fear in his eyes, she thought; every bit as much fear as there had been at the beginning of their meeting.

  “I am a farmer,” he said quietly.

  “Yes?”

  She waited for him to say something more, but he was silent.

  “You told me that you lived just south of town,” she prompted. “But you did not say where.”

  “Over there,” he said, indicating vaguely. “It’s off the Lobatse road. Half an hour.”

  “Cattle?” she asked.

  “Of course.” Everyone had cattle, Mma Ramotswe included.

  “I was not always a farmer,” he continued. “I worked for many years with a mining company. I was in charge of recruitment.”

  She nodded. “My father was a miner … over on that side.” She inclined her head in the direction of South Africa.