The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Unless, thought Mma Ramotswe, you are lying to protect him.

  There was a knock on the door, a voice muttering Ko! Ko!

  Pelenomi looked up in alarm and began to scramble to her feet. Moeti? wondered Mma Ramotswe. The door opened before she could reach it and a man stepped into the room. He stood for a moment, confused by the unexpected presence. It was not Moeti. Oreeditse Modise, the teacher at the school.

  He’d come in with the confidence of one entering the house of his lover. And that, Mma Ramotswe decided at that moment, was exactly what he was. She did not have to think about it: the dwarf was the lover of Mpho’s mother. And more than that: he was the man who had attacked the cattle. Of course he was; why else had he and his secretary exclaimed their outrage over the incident with such forcefulness? That had been an act: he was the perpetrator, and the secretary must somehow have come into that information. But why had he done it? Pelenomi had given a clue to that in saying that she had made up a story about her being a victim of Moeti. Well, she had not made it up; she was. And Modise had avenged her in the way they knew would cause maximum distress to Moeti.

  They looked at each other wordlessly. Then Mma Ramotswe rose to her feet and dusted off her skirt. “I mustn’t stay, Mma,” she said. “Now that you have another visitor.”

  The teacher was staring at her. She met his gaze.

  “I have been looking into this cattle problem,” Mma Ramotswe said quietly. “Now I must go. But there are a few questions I would like an answer to. Please think carefully before you give me your reply.”

  Pelenomi and Modise exchanged glances. Then Modise nodded. “What are these questions, Mma?”

  “My questions,” began Mma Ramotswe, “are these ones, Rra. Would I be right in thinking that this very bad thing that has happened here will not happen again? Would I be right in thinking that if I were to tell Moeti that everything is over, that not one more of his cattle will suffer, then there would be no more of this sort of thing happening? Would I be right in thinking that the person who did this would realise that I could go to the police if I wanted to and insist that they sorted it all out? Would that person—whoever he might be—also understand that there is no excuse for settling one wrong with another?”

  There was a further exchange of glances between Modise and Pelenomi. Then he spoke: “I think you would be right, Mma. I am sure of it.”

  “Good,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Then that is the end of that, I think.”

  SHE LEFT THE VAN where it was and walked over to the Moeti farmhouse. She found him in his living room, listening to the Radio Botswana news. He greeted her cheerfully and offered her a cold beer, which she declined.

  “I hoped that you might have celebrated with me, Mma Ramotswe,” he said. “But I can drink your beer too! A bigger celebration for me.”

  She was puzzled. “Celebrating, Rra?”

  “Yes. Celebrating your solving the issue of my poor cattle.” He reached for a beer from a tray on his side table. “Here goes, Mma Ramotswe. Here’s to the top detective who sorts everything out one hundred per cent. Here’s to you!”

  “You are happy, Rra?” she said lamely.

  “Happy? Yes, of course I am. Seleo came to see me. Not to complain this time but to tell me that he had arranged for the fencing work to start on Tuesday. So no more trespassing by his cattle. But he did something else—to make up for all my inconvenience. He has given me six months’ supply of cattle-lick for my cattle.”

  Mma Ramotswe was at a loss as to what to say.

  “I think what happened was that you must have put the fear of God into him, Mma. Once he realised that the country’s top detective was on to him, he must have caved in and decided to apologise. And there’s another thing, Mma. He gave me the cash value of the cattle he did that terrible thing to. A good price. So I am happy now to say that it is all over. We can be good neighbours again. That is the Botswana way, and that is what I want.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked up at the ceiling. She had no idea what to make of this, but she knew that whichever way one looked at it, this was an entirely satisfactory outcome. She might not be completely certain who carried out the attack on the cattle, but the issue was well and truly put to bed. It was not Mpho, she thought; and although until a few moments ago she had thought it was the teacher, that conclusion had now been called into question. Pelenomi had effectively blamed Modise, but if he had done it, why had Seleo acted as he had? She had advised him to make some sort of friendly approach to Moeti and to give him a gift of cattle-lick. He had then gone further than that—much further—and had more or less acknowledged his guilt by compensating his neighbour for the loss of his cattle. Why would he do that? Unless, of course, he was trying to protect the real culprit—the teacher? But what possible reason could he have to do that?

  She continued to stare up at the ceiling. Perhaps everybody is lying, she thought. And as she thought this, she remembered a passage from Clovis Andersen. There are some cases where everybody tells lies, he wrote. In these cases you will never know the truth. The more you try to find out what happened, the more lies you uncover. My advice is: do not lose sleep over such matters. Move on, ladies and gentlemen: move on.

  She continued to think about it as she drove home. She was now inclined to acquit Mr. Seleo, who was exactly as the security guard had described him. He was a good man who had decided to see whether a generous approach to his neighbour would heal their rift. And it had. No, it was not him. It was the teacher, then—the jealous lover who resented the way Mr. Moeti had treated the woman he loved. Or—and she kept coming back to this possibility—it really had been Mpho, that poor little boy who was desperate for attention and filled with anger at the man who had harmed his mother in some unspoken way. And the mother had then so engineered things that Mma Ramotswe would think it was the teacher, in order to cover for her son … or for herself.

  These questions occupied her mind all the way back to Gaborone. She was sure that it was one of the three: Mpho, his mother, or the teacher. The mother had been genuinely surprised at Mpho’s confession, and that pointed to his innocence. If it was not the boy, then, it was the mother, or the teacher. Of the two, she favoured the teacher as the culprit; the attack itself did not seem to be the work of a woman. She was not sure why she felt that; she just did. A woman knows what another woman will do, she thought.

  But then, as she reached the edge of the city, she suddenly smiled and said to herself: “Does it really matter? The milk is spilled. It will not be spilled again.” There would be no further attacks—that was clear, and the damage had been set right by one who was not responsible for it. All that was lacking was the punishment of the one responsible. But punishment often did not do what we wanted it to do. If the teacher were to be denounced, he could lose his job and then Mpho and his mother could lose the man who was their one chance of something better. There was no reason for her to bring that about.

  This thought of milk brought tea to her mind. She needed tea—a large cup of it—and that was what she would make when she returned home to Zebra Drive. She would say to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni: “A dreadfully difficult case, Rra, all sorted out now. But don’t ask me to explain how it worked out, Rra. There are some things that are just too hard to explain, and I think that this is one of them.”

  Perhaps she would say that. Perhaps. But she was not sure whether she would think that, as she was now reaching a firmer conclusion. The teacher did it. It was him. Yes, definitely. Or perhaps …

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SHE CRIED FOR JOY

  WHEN HE READ ALOUD the wedding invitation Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had said, “At long last the elder Mr. Radiphuti and the late Mrs. Radiphuti have pleasure in inviting you to the wedding of their beloved Phuti Edgar Radiphuti, to Grace Makutsi, Dip. Sec. RSVP.”

  He had corrected himself immediately. “It doesn’t actually say at long last, Mma Ramotswe. That was me. It just says The elder Mr. Radiphuti, and so on.”

  Mma Ram
otswe smiled. “I see that the invitation is also from the late mother,” she said. “I’m not sure whether that wording is quite right, but that does not matter. The important thing is, as you say, that at long last those two are getting married.” She also had some doubt about putting RSVP so close to Dip. Sec. as some people—perhaps some of the older country guests—might interpret RSVP as a qualification and wonder what it was.

  These were little things, though, as Mma Ramotswe pointed out. What counted was that on that particular Saturday, Mma Makutsi was to become Mrs. Phuti Radiphuti; that the weather was behaving itself, with no unexpected storm to disrupt proceedings ; that the bus bringing the Makutsi guests down from Bobonong had made the journey with no greater disaster than a flat tyre just outside Mahalapye; and that all the arrangements for the wedding feast had gone as smoothly as could possibly be hoped for.

  This last achievement was partly to the credit of Mma Potokwane, who had interpreted Mma Makutsi’s acceptance of help with the pots and with cake as a green light to take over control of all aspects of the feast. Nobody had objected to this, not even Mma Makutsi, who, although she had in the past been irritated by Mma Potokwane’s controlling tendencies, found them a great reassurance now.

  “She is like a hurricane,” Mma Makutsi whispered to Mma Ramotswe on Friday morning when Mma Ramotswe phoned her to check that all was well. “She is in the next room right now, and there is a lot of banging of pots and some big thumping sounds that I cannot make out.”

  “Cakes,” suggested Mma Ramotswe. “That is the sound of her cakes being taken out of their tins.”

  “Maybe, Mma. Now I think they are chopping something, but I do not know what it is.”

  “She will make sure that everything is all right,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I remember what she did at my own wedding. She got all the house-mothers at the orphan farm to do the cooking. She was like a general telling the Botswana Defence Force what to do. March this way, march that way—that sort of thing.”

  “I don’t think she will let anything go wrong,” said Mma Makutsi, not without relief.

  In this, she proved to be right. With the same efficiency and determination with which she organised the affairs of the orphan farm, Mma Potokwane ensured that everything was cooked and ready well before the guests began to file into the church where the ceremony was to be held. So while the guests waited in their pews, craning their necks to look at and admire the fine outfits that everybody had donned for the occasion—the bright traditional print dresses of the women, the smartly pressed blue suits of the men, the colourful voile frocks of the little girls—back in the grounds of the Radiphuti house the tables along the sides of the tent were already stacked with pots of meat, with large bowls of gravy, with pumpkin and peas, with every sort of dish that anybody present might wish for. Mma Potokwane had left nothing to chance, and had been delighted to discover the generosity of the catering budget that the Radiphuti family had made available. If anybody came to the feast hungry or undernourished, she felt, then they would not go away in that state. Belts could be loosened if necessary, collars unbuttoned; it would be a memorable feast.

  Mma Ramotswe had been allocated a seat in the front row, alongside Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. Puso and Motholeli were in the row immediately behind them, seated beside two other children from Bobonong, with whom they had formed those instant friendships that children seem to manage so effortlessly. A little further behind, Charlie and Fanwell, both wearing shiny suits and bright ties, studied their hymn sheets conscientiously. When the time came to sing, as the bride entered on the arm of her uncle, the two young men proved to be enthusiastic singers, even if in different keys from each other.

  As Mma Makutsi entered the church, a ripple of applause broke out at the back and spread through the congregation. Children waved, and some of the women ululated—a traditional sign of pleasure, pride, and congratulation. Mma Makutsi’s eyes were moist behind her large glasses; it had been so long a journey for her, and now she was at its culmination, in the presence of her family and those whom she loved. She saw their faces—the aunt who had helped her financially, in every small way that she could, who had paid for that first bus journey that she made to Gaborone all those years ago; the cousins who had written to her regularly and had so generously congratulated her on each small triumph; and there, halfway down the church, in an aisle seat and turned to face her as she took those few steps to the altar, was the retired Principal of the Botswana Secretarial College, smiling with pride at her own, indirect role in bringing about the career that had led to all this.

  Mma Ramotswe’s eyes, and the eyes of every woman present, were on the dress. It was magnificent: a floor-length creation of ivory satin, with large puffed sleeves and a sash round the waist. At the back, this sash was tied in a giant bow, like the wings of a butterfly. The bodice was trimmed with white lace, and around her neck Mma Makutsi wore a delicate gold chain with a pendant cross, a gift from Phuti Radiphuti, the groom who now awaited her at the altar.

  There would be many speeches in the wedding tent later on. Now, as Phuti Radiphuti stepped forward to take his bride from the uncle, and as the congregation finished the opening hymn, the minister cleared his throat.

  “Dearly beloved,” he began, “we are gathered here in this place to bring together in marriage two people, our brother and our sister, Phuti and Grace. They are being married here because they love one another and they declare that love now before you, this congregation, and before all Botswana. If there is any person who knows of any reason why these two people cannot be joined together in marriage by the laws of this country, then that person must now speak.”

  There was silence. Charlie glanced at Fanwell, and winked.

  The minister continued, “And so I shall now ask them to exchange their vows. Phuti, please take Grace’s hand. That is right. Now then …”

  The marriage was solemnised. Mma Ramotswe watched, and from her position so close to the front heard every word of the vows. She had so many memories: of her first meeting with Mma Makutsi, who had presented herself for interview with such confidence and determination; of her initial difficulties in coming to terms with her new assistant’s rather prickly behaviour; of her growing appreciation for her many fine qualities; of her pleasure when eventually she had found Phuti Radiphuti and her delight in their engagement. Mma Makutsi had been fortunate in finding Phuti, but fortune had also smiled on Mma Ramotswe, who now glanced tenderly at Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni at her side. He noticed her glance, and touched the sleeve of her dress lightly, a small gesture that conveyed so much.

  Mma Ramotswe cried, privately and unseen. She, the only begetter of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, cried. She cried for joy.

  AFTERWARDS, they left the church and went to the wedding tent at the Radiphuti house. Now the sound of voices rose, and there were children and dogs, and even one or two interested birds circling overhead. The uncle with the broken nose—the greedy one from Bobonong—made the main speech on Mma Makutsi’s side. Mma Ramotswe tried to follow what he had to say, but it seemed to her that it was hopelessly confused—some story of a cow that had run off to another field but who never forgot the cows back in the first field. It was a message of some sort, she assumed, but nobody seemed to be very interested in it. It was not very tactful, she thought, to use cow metaphors when one was talking about a bride, but Mma Makutsi herself did not seem to mind, and clapped as loudly as everybody else did when the uncle eventually sat down.

  Mma Makutsi moved from table to table, from chair to chair, talking to the guests, accepting good wishes, showing her bouquet of flowers to the children, and doing her duty as hostess, as the new Mma Radiphuti. When she reached Mma Ramotswe’s table, at first she did not say anything, but leaned forward and embraced the woman who had given her her one great chance in life, who had been such a good friend to her.

  Then she spoke. “I am still going to be coming into the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, Mma,” she said. “This will
not change things. I shall still be working.”

  “I will be waiting for you,” said Mma Ramotswe. “After your honeymoon, of course.”

  She looked at the bride. She saw the shoes.

  “The shoes you gave me, Mma,” Mma Makutsi said. “They are very beautiful.”

  Mma Ramotswe smiled. “Charlie did his best, didn’t he?”

  Mma Makutsi inclined her head graciously. “He did. It was very good of him to try.”

  They both laughed. Charlie had tried to fix the original pair of broken shoes, and had not done too bad a job. He had done it discreetly, unasked, taking the shoes from a cupboard in the office and returning them a couple of days later. Mma Makutsi had been touched by this, even if his repair had in the end been inadequate. It was a peace offering, and she accepted it, for her part apologising for jumping to unwarranted conclusions in the affair of the twins. And that brought forth an apology from him. “You are not a warthog,” he said. “I am very sorry, Mma, for saying that.”

  Mma Ramotswe had then slipped out and bought a new pair of shoes for Mma Makutsi—ones that she thought would be suitable for the wedding. These had proved perfect, and Mma Makutsi had shown them to Phuti Radiphuti at the same time as she confessed to the destruction of their predecessors. He had not minded in the least. “The important thing is that you didn’t hurt your ankle,” he said. “That is what counts.”

  THERE WERE MANY SPEECHES, mostly by relatives on either side. Weddings and speeches went together, and the guests listened patiently, knowing that there would be more food later on. That food kept the guests busy for the best part of two hours. Then there was music, provided by the Big Time Kalahari Jazz Band. This led to dancing, with Mma Makutsi and Phuti Radiphuti taking to the floor to general applause and whistles. The dance lessons they had both taken all that time ago came in useful, and Phuti, who had not been a particularly good dancer to begin with, proved competent enough now, even with his artificial foot. After that first dance, Mma Makutsi danced with Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, and Mma Ramotswe was invited to dance with the uncle with the broken nose. She put on a brave face over this, managing to control her winces as the uncle trod heavily on her toes and pushed her clumsily about the floor of the tent. It was a great relief to her when the band stopped and she was able to make her way back to her chair.