“So soft,” said Mma Makutsi quietly. “Some of these leather chairs you see are very hard. They are from old, old cows.”
“Chairs like that are called cowches,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, and laughed.
Mma Makutsi looked at him. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was a good man, and much admired, but he was not noted for his witty remarks. Now it was possible that he had said something very amusing, and she found herself so taken by surprise that she did not laugh.
Phuti Radiphuti fiddled nervously with a shirt button. Making a conscious effort to relax, he opened his mouth again and made a statement. This time the words came more easily.
“A couch usually has two or three seats,” he said. “It is also called a sofa. That chair over there—the big one—is a couch. This one is just a chair.”
Mma Makutsi nodded. She had been taken aback by his sudden appearance and now she was uncertain what to do. She had imagined that she would start their conversation by asking after his health, as was polite, but now he had launched into a technical discussion of couches, and so she explained that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was looking for a new chair and they wondered whether something like this would be suitable.
Phuti Radiphuti listened attentively. Then he turned to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “Do you like this chair, Rra?” he asked. “Why don’t you sit down in it and see how you feel? It is always best to sit in a chair before you make up your mind.”
“I was just looking around,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni hurriedly. “I saw this chair, but there are many other chairs …” He had seen the price on the ticket and had realised that the chair was not cheap. One could get an engine re-bore for the price of that chair.
“Just sit in it, Rra,” said Phuti Radiphuti, smiling at Mma Makutsi. “Then you will know for sure if it is a good chair.”
He sat down, and Phuti Radiphuti looked at him enquiringly.
“Well, Rra?” said Phuti. “It is very comfortable, isn’t it? That chair is made in Johannesburg, in a big chair factory there. There are many chairs like that in Johannesburg.”
“It is very comfortable,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “Yes, it is very comfortable. But I must look at some other chairs. I think that there will be many other good chairs in your store.”
“Oh, there are,” said Phuti. “But when you find a chair that is right, then it is a good idea to choose that one.”
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni glanced at Mma Makutsi. He wanted her help now, but she seemed to be having thoughts of her own. She was watching Phuti Radiphuti, staring at him in a way which Mr J.L.B. Matekoni found rather disconcerting. It was as if she was expecting him to say something which he was not saying; some private business between them, he thought, which they should go away and discuss rather than exchanging glances like this. Women always had private business to raise with men, he reflected. There was always something going on in the background—some plotting or mulling over some slight or lack of attention, quite unintended, of course, but noted and filed away for subsequent scrutiny. And much of the time men would be unaware of it, until it all came out in a torrent of recrimination and tears. Fortunately, Mma Ramotswe was not like that, he thought. She was cheerful and direct; but this Mma Makutsi, with her big round glasses, might be different when it came to men, and this poor man, this Phuti Radiphuti, could be in for a difficult time. He would not like to be engaged to Mma Makutsi.
Certainly not. He would be terrified of her, with her ninety-seven per cent, or whatever it was, and her determined ways. Poor Phuti Radiphuti.
Mma Makutsi had not said anything since the arrival of Phuti Radiphuti, but now she spoke. “It is very important for a man to have a good chair,” she announced. “Men have so many important decisions to make, they need to have good chairs in which to sit and think about these things. I have always thought that.”
When she had finished making this observation, she stole a glance at Phuti Radiphuti and then looked down at her shoes. It was almost as if she expected the shoes to contradict her, to reproach her for this sudden departure from the view that she had always held that women made the really important decisions for men, subtly and without letting the men know that they were doing it, but doing it nonetheless. She had enjoyed countless conversations with Mma Ramotswe along those lines, and the two women had always agreed on that point. And now here she was cravenly suggesting that it was men, seated in their comfortable chairs, who did all the deciding. She stared at her shoes for a moment, but they were silent, stunned into speechlessness, perhaps, by the suddenness of the volte-face.
Phuti Radiphuti looked at Mma Makutsi. He was smiling, as a man might when he makes a new and pleasant discovery. “That is true,” he said. “But everyone deserves a good chair. Women too. They have important things to think about.”
Mma Makutsi was quick to nod her assent. “Yes, they do, but, and you can call me old-fashioned maybe, but I have always thought that men are particularly important. That is just the way I have been brought up, you see.”
This remark seemed to make Phuti Radiphuti smile even more. “I hope that you are not too traditional in your views,” he said. “Modern men do not like that. They like wives who have their own views.”
“Oh, I have those all right,” said Mma Makutsi quickly. “I do not let anybody else do my thinking for me.”
“That is g … g … good,” said Phuti Radiphuti. He had realised that he had been speaking smoothly and without a stutter, and the realisation made him stumble slightly, but he felt relieved that his omitting to tell Mma Makutsi why he had not arrived for dinner seemed not to have upset her. And now the words came tumbling out, as he explained about his aunt’s illness and about his trip to the hospital. She reassured him that although she had noticed his absence, she had realised that he must have a good reason and that she had not been worried.
You’re such a liar, Boss, her shoes suddenly said to her. But Mma Makutsi, listening to the man who, once again, was to be her husband, had no time for the grumbling of shoes and did not hear them.
“Now, then,” said Phuti Radiphuti. “Shall we look at other chairs, or is that the one you like?”
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni stroked the leather stretched across the arms of the chair. It had a soft feel, and he could imagine himself in the sitting room at Zebra Drive, ensconced in the chair, stroking the leather on the arms and staring up at the ceiling in contemplation. In the background, in the kitchen, Mma Ramotswe would be preparing the evening meal and the tantalising smell of one of her rich stews would come wafting down the corridor. It was a vision of perfection, a glimpse of what heaven might be like, if one ever got there. Was there anything wrong with men sitting in such chairs and thinking such thoughts? he asked himself. Not really, although there did seem to be rather a lot of people about these days who wanted to make men feel guilty about that. He had heard one on the radio recently, and she had said that men were fundamentally lazy and just wanted to be waited on hand and foot by women. What a thing to say! He, for one, was not in the slightest bit lazy. He worked hard all day at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, he never let his customers down, and he handed over all the money he earned to Mma Ramotswe for their joint expenses. And if he wanted to sit in a chair from time to time and rest his weary bones, then was there anything wrong with that? Mma Ramotswe liked cooking, and if he went into the kitchen to try to help her, she would chase him out with very little ceremony. No, such people were very unfair about men, and very wrong too. But then he thought of the apprentices, and suddenly he realised that perhaps there was some truth in what had been said. They were the ones who gave men a bad name, with their slipshod ways and their arrogant attitudes towards women. They were the ones.
“So that’s the chair you like?” Phuti Radiphuti’s question brought Mr J.L.B. Matekoni back to the Double Comfort Furniture Shop and to the realisation that he was sitting in a chair that he would be unlikely to be able to afford.
“I like it,” he said. “But I think that perhaps we should look at something tha
t is not quite so costly. I do not think that Mma Ramotswe …”
Phuti Radiphuti raised his hands to stop him. “But that chair has just gone on sale,” he said. “It is fifty per cent off. Right now. Specially for you.”
“Fifty per cent!” exclaimed Mma Makutsi. “That is very good. You must buy that chair, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. It is a very big bargain.”
“But what will Mma Ramotswe …”
“She will thank you for it,” said Mma Makutsi firmly. “Mma Ramotswe likes a bargain as much as any other woman. She will be very pleased.”
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni hesitated. He longed for a comfortable chair. His life had been full of axles and engine parts and grease. It had been a battle, all of it; a battle to keep engines going in spite of the dust and the bumps in the road that were such enemies of machinery; a battle to keep the apprentices from ruining any engine they touched. It had all been a struggle. At the end of the day a chair like this could make up for a lot. It was irresistible.
He looked at Phuti Radiphuti. “Can you deliver it to Zebra Drive?”
“Of course,” said Phuti Radiphuti. He reached out and patted the back of the chair. “You will be very happy in that chair, Rra. Very happy.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
BLOOD PRESSURE
IF ONE PRESSED Mma Ramotswe on the point, really pressed, she would admit that very little happened in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Very little in general, that was; certainly there were spikes of activity, in which suddenly there would be several problems to be looked into at once. These, though, were the exception; normally the issues with which the agency was required to deal were very small ones, which were readily solved by Mma Ramotswe’s simple expedient of asking somebody a direct question and getting a direct answer. It was all very well for Clovis Andersen to go on about the complexity of many investigations, and indeed the danger in at least some of them, but that was not really what life in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency was like.
But there were times, thought Mma Ramotswe, when even Clovis Andersen would be impressed by the number of major issues with which she and Mma Makutsi had to deal, and over the days that followed the trip out to Mokolodi, it seemed to her that this was rapidly becoming one such period.
On the morning after she and Mr Polopetsi had paid their visit, one of those glorious mornings in which the sun is not too fierce, when the air is clear, and when even the doves in their leafy kingdoms seem to be more alert and alive than usual; on that morning Mma Makutsi announced that she could see a woman standing outside the door of the agency, hesitant about knocking.
“There is a lady wanting to come in,” she said to Mma Ramotswe. “I think that she is one of the ones who are embarrassed to come to us.”
Mma Ramotswe craned her neck to see. “Go and invite her in,” she said. “Poor woman.”
Mma Makutsi rose from her desk. Adjusting her glasses, those big, round glasses that she wore, she made her way to where she had seen the woman standing.
She greeted their caller politely. Then she asked, “Are you wanting to come in, Mma? Or are you just standing?”
“I’m looking for Mma Ramotswe,” said the young woman. “Are you that lady?”
Mma Makutsi shook her head. “I am a different lady,” she said. “I am Mma Makutsi. I am the assistant detective.”
The young woman glanced at her, and then looked away. Mma Makutsi noticed that she was fiddling with a handkerchief that she was holding in her hands, twisting it in her anxiety. I used to do the same thing, she thought. I used to do exactly the same thing with my handkerchief when I was anxious. I twisted it at interviews; I twisted it in examinations. And the thought made her feel a rush of sympathy for this woman, whoever she was, and for the problem that had brought her to their doorstep. It would be a man problem, of course; it so often was. She would have been treated badly by some man, perhaps by a man to whom she had lent money. Perhaps she had taken the money from her employer and then lent it to some worthless man. That happened so often that it was hardly a matter of remark. And now here was another case.
Mma Makutsi reached out and touched the young woman lightly on the arm. “If you come with me, my sister,” she said, “I will take you to Mma Ramotswe. She is sitting inside.”
“I do not want to trouble her,” said the woman. “She is very busy.”
“She is not busy right now,” said Mma Makutsi. “She will be happy to see you.”
“How much does …”
Mma Makutsi put a finger to her lips. “We do not need to talk about that just yet,” she said. “It is not as expensive as you think. And we charge according to how much people can afford to pay. We do not charge very much.”
The reassuring words had their effect, and as she entered the office with Mma Makutsi, the young woman was visibly more relaxed. And seeing Mma Ramotswe sitting behind her desk, beaming at her encouragingly, seemed to allay her fears even more.
“Mma Makutsi will make us some tea,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And I believe we have some doughnuts too! Are there doughnuts this morning, Mma Makutsi?”
“There are doughnuts,” said Mma Makutsi. “I bought three, just in case.” She had bought the third one for herself, to eat on the way home, but she would happily give it to this young woman who was now settling into the chair in front of Mma Ramotswe’s desk.
“Well,” said Mma Ramotswe. “What is it, Mma? What can the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency do for you?”
“I am a nurse,” began the young woman.
Mma Ramotswe nodded. This did not surprise her. There was something about nurses that she could always pick up—a neatness, a clinical carefulness. She could always tell.
“It is a good job,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But you have not told me your name yet.”
The young woman stared down at her hands, which she had folded across her lap. “Do I have to tell you who I am? Do I have to?”
Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi exchanged glances across the room.
“It would be better if you did,” said Mma Ramotswe gently. “We do not speak to other people about what we hear in this room, do we, Mma Makutsi?”
Mma Makutsi confirmed that they did not. But there was still some hesitation from the young woman.
“Look, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “We have heard everything that there is to be heard. There is no need to be ashamed.”
The young woman gave a start. “But I am not ashamed, Mma,” she protested. “I have done nothing wrong. I am not ashamed.”
“Good,” said Mma Ramotswe.
“You see, I am frightened,” said the young woman. “I am not ashamed; I am frightened.”
For a few moments, the young woman’s words hung in the air. Mma Ramotswe sat at her desk, her elbows resting comfortably on its surface, her shoes slipped off, allowing the cool of the polished concrete floor to chill the soles of her feet. She thought:This is the second time in two days in which I have heard these words . First there was her cousin at Mokolodi, and now there was this woman. Fear might be talked about in the clear light of day, when people were going about their business, and when the sun was strong in the sky, and yet it was nonetheless chilling for that. She looked at the woman before her, this nurse who worked in a world of white walls and disinfectant, and who was, in spite of that, preyed upon by something dark and dangerous. Fear was like that; it worked from the inside and was indifferent to what was going on outside.
Mma Ramotswe signalled to Mma Makutsi. The kettle needed to be switched on and tea made. Whatever was troubling this young woman, the making and drinking of tea would help to take her mind off her fears. Tea was like that. It just worked.
“You need not be frightened here,” said Mma Ramotswe gently. “We are your friends here. You need not be frightened.”
The young woman looked at her for a moment and then she spoke. “My name is Boitelo,” she said. “I am Boitelo Mampodi”
Mma Ramotswe nodded encouragingly. “I am glad that you have told me,
” she said. “Now, Mma, we can have some tea together and you can tell me what is frightening you. You can take your time. Nobody is in a hurry in this place. You can take as long as you like to tell me what this trouble is. Do you understand?”
Boitelo nodded. “I’m sorry, Mma,” she said. “I hope that you did not think that I distrusted you.”
“I did not think that,” said Mma Ramotswe.
“It’s just that you are the first person I have talked to about … about this thing.”
“It is not easy,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It is not easy to talk about things that are worrying you. Sometimes we cannot even talk to our friends about these things.”
From the back of the room there came the hissing sound of the kettle as it began to bring the water to the boil. Outside, in the branches of the acacia tree that shaded the back wall of the building, a grey dove cooed to its mate.They mate for life , thought Mma Ramotswe inconsequentially. Those doves For life.
“Do you mind if I start from the beginning?” asked Boitelo.
This was more than most people did, thought Mma Ramotswe. Most people started at the end, or somewhere around the middle. Very few people put events in order and explained clearly to others what happened. But Boitelo, of course, was a nurse, and nurses knew how to take a history from people, separating unrelated facts from each other and getting to the bottom of a matter that way. She gestured to Boitelo to begin, while Mma Makutsi spooned red bush tea into one tea-pot and black tea into another (for herself). It is important to give the client a choice, thought Mma Makutsi. Mma Ramotswe, by contrast, imagined that everybody would like bush tea, and not everybody did. She, for one, preferred ordinary tea, and so did Phuti Radiphuti. Phuti Radiphuti! Just the thought of him made her feel warm and contented. My man, she thought; I have a man. I have a fiancé. And soon I shall have a husband. Which is more, I suspect, than this poor Boitelo has.
“I AM FROM A SMALL VILLAGE,” began Boitelo. “Over that way. Near Molepolole. You will not have heard of it, I think, because it is very small. I trained at the hospital in Molepolole—you know the one? The one they used to call the Scottish Livingstone Hospital. The one where Dr Merriweather worked.”
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