The Cleverness Of Ladies [Quick Reads]

by Alexander McCall Smith

  ‘Letting goals through?’ asked Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, shaking his head in disapproval. ‘That is very bad.’

  Mma Ramotswe agreed. ‘Money is very corrupting,’ she said. ‘People will do anything for money. Not everybody, of course, but some will.’ As she spoke, she thought of those people who would never accept a bribe, under any circumstances, and at the head of that list, of course, was Mr J. L. B. Matekoni.

  She reflected on the case that night, lying awake in her bed, waiting for sleep to come. If James Pikani was being bribed to let goals through, then there were two ways of tackling the problem. One was to find out who benefited from the resulting victory, and to try to trap them in the act of bribing, and the other was to follow the money. The first of these would be very difficult. The obvious suspect was the management of the winning team, but there was a feature which complicated the case.

  In the course of their conversation earlier that day, Mr Gefeli had made it clear that there had been several occasions on which James appeared to let goals through, and, in each case, the Comets had been playing against a different team. Why would one person want the Comets to lose a series of games, rather than just the one game in which they were playing against the briber’s team? Or would it be in somebody’s interest that the Comets should be less successful all round?

  The more Mma Ramotswe thought about it, the more complicated it became. And the more complicated it became, the less likely it seemed to her that she would come up with a simple answer. This might take weeks, even months of investigation, and even then she might not come up with a solution.

  She felt more confident the next day when she sat on her veranda shortly after sunrise, drinking her early morning cup of red-bush tea. It was her favourite time of day, a time when the world was new, when the air was sharp and fresh, with just a hint of woodsmoke from somebody’s fire. She had decided that the best way to tackle this case was the way in which she tackled every case: head on.

  It would be far too difficult, she felt, to find out who might be bribing the goalkeeper. So instead she would get to know James Pikani himself; that was what she would do today. She would go and see the man. She would think of a reason for visiting him, and once she found him she would rely on her greatest weapon – intuition – to work out what to do next. She would have to tread carefully, of course; one could hardly ask him outright whether he was being bribed. But there were ways of finding these things out. You could find out whether somebody was honest or not by watching his or her eyes. It was not difficult.

  In the office that morning, as she and Mma Makutsi were dealing with the day’s post, Mma Ramotswe asked her assistant what she knew about James. ‘You’re the one who seems to know everything about football,’ she began. ‘At least, you knew all about this James Pikani. Or so you said.’

  ‘I did not say that I knew everything,’ corrected Mma Makutsi. ‘I just said that I knew that he was the goalkeeper. I know a girl who was his girlfriend once. That is how I knew.’

  Mma Ramotswe leaned forward. This remark of Mma Makutsi’s, this casual reference to a girlfriend, was a possible way in to the meeting that she needed with the footballer.

  ‘This girlfriend, Mma,’ she said. ‘Who is she?’

  Mma Makutsi adjusted her spectacles – the large, round spectacles that she wore. She enjoyed imparting knowledge, and she did so with the air of a schoolteacher spelling out the obvious to a class of none-too-bright pupils. ‘She is called Alice,’ she replied. ‘She works in a shoe shop in town. It is a very good shop, and they brought in these new shoes the other day. You should have seen them, Mma Ramotswe, they were—’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ interrupted Mma Ramotswe. Mma Makutsi’s weakness for fashionable shoes was well known, and she could talk for hours on the subject. ‘But this Alice – what has she said about James? Has she told you much about him?’

  Mma Makutsi looked out of the window. ‘A little,’ she said. She paused. ‘Very little, in fact. She said that he comes from Lobatse.’ She paused. ‘She said that he was not a good boyfriend, and that she was pleased when she got rid of him. Just a little sad, maybe. You know how it is when a man goes away. You feel a bit sad, and then you get better.’

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. ‘Is that all she said about him – that he came from Lobatse?’

  Mma Makutsi thought for a moment. ‘I think so,’ she said.

  ‘Do you think you could find out anything else, Mma?’ she asked. ‘Could you phone Alice and ask her?’

  Mma Makutsi nodded. ‘She likes to talk,’ she said. ‘I don’t think that she would mind being phoned at work.’

  While Mma Makutsi dialled the number of the shoe shop, Mma Ramotswe busied herself with pen and paper. At the top of a page she wrote: James Pikani, and underneath that she wrote: Comes from Lobatse; had girlfriend called Alice; drives old car (according to Mr Gefeli). That, she thought, is all we know about him, apart from the fact that he is a very fine goalkeeper (sometimes).

  Mma Ramotswe tried to make sense of what was said on the phone between Mma Makutsi and Alice, but it was difficult to reconstruct the conversation when she could only hear one side of it. There were plenty of ahs and ohs from Mma Makutsi and at one point a sharp intake of breath, but that was all. It was clear, though, that a good deal of information was being gathered.

  ‘Well?’ she said to her assistant at the end of the call. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ said Mma Makutsi airily. ‘Most of the time she was talking about his brother, whom Alice has her eye on. He’s quite a ladies’ man, it would seem.’

  ‘And James?’ asked Mma Ramotswe. ‘What about James?’

  Mma Makutsi shrugged. ‘All she said was that he was very vain. She said that he was the vainest man she had ever met. He always looked at himself in mirrors. Even in the car he would look at himself in the mirror, just to check that he was still handsome.’

  Mma Ramotswe sighed. It was not very much information to go on. Many men were vain these days, she thought. It was something to do with women being free to look at men in the same way in which men had always looked at women. Women had not realised it, but all that this new freedom led to was the creation of a lot of vain men.

  She wrote down the word vain on her sheet of paper and then put it to one side, tucked into a file that she had opened under James Pikani’s name. The post had brought one or two letters to be answered, and she decided that she would attend to these now, dictating her responses to Mma Makutsi. Later on, she would come back to the question of how she might find out more about James Pikani before she sought him out.

  She finished dictating the letters by the mid-morning tea break. It was a fine morning, not too hot, and she thought that she would drink her tea with Mr J. L. B. Matekoni and his two apprentices. They liked to sit at the side of the garage and have their tea there, and it was an ideal spot on a day like this.

  Her teacup in hand, Mma Ramotswe surveyed the scene. Mr J. L. B. Matekoni was sitting, legs stretched out, on an old car seat that he had placed against the garage wall, while the two apprentices were perched on top of two upturned oil drums. Mma Ramotswe joined them, lowering herself on to a box which she used as a seat when she took her tea with the mechanics.

  She looked at Charlie, the elder of the two apprentices. He was looking up into the sky, smiling at something, and she wondered what it was. Probably some football victory, she imagined … Then a thought occurred to her.

  ‘Charlie,’ she said, ‘have you heard of a goalkeeper called James Pikani?’

  His daydream interrupted, Charlie looked at Mma Ramotswe in surprise. ‘Of course I have,’ he said. ‘Everybody knows James. He’s a really good player. Although recently he’s been useless. Maybe he’s getting too old. Maybe he’s lost interest.’

  ‘He’s finished,’ chipped in the younger apprentice. ‘The crowd sometimes gets angry with him, you know. They call out rude names. They shout that he’s an old man, that he needs glasses or that he’s forg
otten how to play. They make it very tough for him.’

  Mma Ramotswe had been half listening to what the younger apprentice had been saying. Now she stood up, spilling some of her tea as she did so.

  ‘Are you going somewhere?’ Mr J. L. B. Matekoni asked. ‘You haven’t finished your tea.’

  Mma Ramotswe made a vague gesture with her free hand. ‘I have to go out,’ she said. ‘There is somebody I need to speak to.’

  Inside the office, she found Mma Makutsi still drinking her tea, paging through a fashion magazine; the magazine was open at a page where people were showing off shoes. It was just the sort of thing, Mma Ramotswe thought, which Mma Makutsi would find fascinating.

  ‘Mma Makutsi,’ she said. ‘Would you like to come with me to have a word with James Pikani?’

  Mma Makutsi needed no persuading, and soon she and Mma Ramotswe were on their way together in the tiny white van. They followed the road that led to the address which Mr Gefeli had given them the day before, to the house occupied by Mr James Pikani. It was not, she noted, a fashionable address. It was a small plot on the edge of Old Naledi, a house that would never have suggested itself as the house of a famous footballer, let alone one who was being bribed with a great deal of money.

  A middle-aged woman opened the door when Mma Ramotswe knocked. She stared at her two visitors for a moment, and then greeted them politely in the traditional way.

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you, Mma,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘You must be the mother of James. He is the person we would like to speak to.’

  The woman nodded. ‘This is his house,’ she said, ‘and I am his mother.’ She paused, as if wondering whether she should let two strangers in to see her son. ‘He is resting now. Is it important?’

  Mma Ramotswe did not hesitate. ‘It is very important,’ she said.

  The woman nodded. ‘You should come in, please,’ she said, gesturing for them to follow her. ‘You can sit here, and I shall call him.’

  They sat in the small parlour, which also served as a dining room and kitchen. Mma Ramotswe looked about her, as she always did when entering an unfamiliar room. She noticed the calendar stuck on the wall, advertising football boots; she noticed the rickety display cabinet with the school sporting trophies neatly arranged along the shelves; she noticed the old photograph of a boy in scout uniform having a badge pinned on his chest. She saw some other things, and everything she saw told her: this is not the house of a man who would take a bribe.

  After a few minutes, James Pikani appeared. He looked as if he had been asleep, as his eyes were puffy and the T-shirt he was wearing was crumpled. Mma Ramotswe rose to her feet and greeted him. Then she introduced him to Mma Makutsi who, struck by the presence of a famous person, couldn’t help doing a little curtsey.

  ‘What can I do for you, ladies?’ asked James Pikani.

  Mma Ramotswe looked embarrassed. ‘Just your autograph, Rra,’ she said. ‘That would be enough.’

  James Pikani laughed. ‘Oh, is that all? Well, of course, we need to keep the fans happy!’

  ‘That is very kind of you, Rra,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘I’ve brought a little book for you to sign in, and a pencil, too.’

  She held out a small black book, which he took from her. Then she fished into the bag she had with her and took out a pencil.

  ‘Here, Rra,’ she said. ‘Catch.’

  With that, she threw the pencil towards James Pikani. The footballer reached out, but his hand was nowhere near the pencil and it dropped to the floor.

  ‘I’m sorry, Rra,’ said Mma Ramotswe, as she stooped to retrieve the pencil. ‘Here it is.’

  3

  She telephoned Mr Gefeli later that day and invited him to come to the office. She had important news for him, she said.

  ‘You have solved the case?’ he asked. ‘You have solved it so quickly?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘Come in to the office and I will tell you all about it.’

  Mr Gefeli arrived quickly. As he sat with a cup of red-bush tea in front of him, Mma Ramotswe gave him the good news.

  ‘Your goalkeeper,’ she announced, ‘is not corrupt.’

  Mr Gefeli looked doubtful. ‘Are you sure about that, Mma?’

  Mma Ramotswe smiled. ‘I am very sure,’ she said. ‘He is not corrupt – just short-sighted.’

  Mr Gefeli looked blank. ‘I do not understand,’ he began.

  ‘Male vanity,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘Here we have a sporting hero who is very vain. He realises that he needs glasses, but he is too vain to wear them. He does nothing, in the hope that the problem will go away. It doesn’t.’ Mma Ramotswe paused as her explanation sank in. ‘So all you have to do is to have a word with him,’ she said. ‘Persuade him to go to the optician.’

  Mr Gefeli scratched his head. ‘This is a very strange outcome,’ he said. ‘I had no idea.’ He stared at Mma Ramotswe in wonderment. ‘Please tell me, Mma. How did you find this out?’

  ‘It was simple,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘I listened, and I looked. Something one of those apprentices said made me think. Once I had thought, I acted.’

  ‘What did you do?’ asked Mr Gefeli.

  ‘I threw a pencil at him,’ said Mma Ramotswe, ‘and he didn’t catch it.’

  It took Mr Gefeli a few moments to work out what had happened. Then he realised, and his face broke into a broad smile.

  ‘You are a very clever lady, Mma Ramotswe,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you, Rra,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘And now – more tea?’

  A High Wind in Nevis

  Marlin House sits on top of a hill above an old port on the Caribbean island of Nevis. It was built in the late 1950s by a retired doctor, who wanted a retreat on that part of the island and who enjoyed giving parties. A celebrated American writer would come to these parties, when he was in residence at his luxurious villa further up the coast, along with other well-known and glamorous people who were passing through. The doctor was a generous host, and the maker of a legendary rum punch.

  When the doctor died, his son ignored the place, and the house fell into disrepair. The thick, jungle-like vegetation that covered the hillside was meant to be kept in check by a gardener, but this gardener’s sight was bad and became steadily worse. Either he did not see the creepers that were beginning to cover the terrace, or he had given up what must have been an unequal battle. Plants grew quickly there. Then there were the high winds – ‘the breeze’ as the locals called it – which tore down trees and branches, and the rains – the warm, pelting rain that clogged the storm drains.

  When the house was eventually put up for sale, it attracted the attention of a couple who happened to be motoring along the coast road in an old Volkswagen car. The man, a small, rather insignificant-looking person, was Dutch. The woman, who was taller and more powerfully built, was from Trinidad and of mixed ancestry.

  They had met in a club in Miami, the Blue Cocktail, and decided to cast their lot in with each other. Marcus, the Dutchman, had spent ten years as a schoolteacher on the island of Curaçao, and wanted to stay in the Caribbean. Georgina, the Trinidadian, was undecided about returning, but she wanted to travel with Marcus. Now, rather against her will, she was falling in love again with a world that she had not very long ago left with such eagerness.

  They had seen the retired doctor’s house from the road below, from where they could just make out the top of its roof. On impulse, Georgina, at the wheel of the old Volkswagen, had turned up the narrow, potholed track that led up the hillside.

  ‘You never know,’ she said. ‘When we get to the top we might see a For Sale sign.’

  ‘And?’ asked Marcus.

  ‘And then we buy it and turn it into a hotel,’ said Georgina abruptly. ‘What else?’

  Georgina had a vaguely angry way of talking, as if challenging the person to whom she was speaking to argue with her. This manner, Marcus had discovered, did not conceal a sweet personality – in fact, she was by nature irritable. But he was smitten, and would h
ear nothing against her. ‘My ever-so-slightly angry Georgina,’ he said to her. Georgina snapped back, ‘What exactly do you mean by that?’

  They had to drive slowly up the track, and at one point Marcus had to get out of the car and attempt to move a tree branch that had fallen and blocked the road. Georgina remained in the car, tapping the steering wheel with her fingers as she watched her friend’s futile efforts. Eventually, after several fruitless minutes, she got out of the car, lifted up the branch and shifted it to the side of the road.

  ‘You’re truly magnificent,’ said Marcus.

  ‘And you’re truly weak,’ said Georgina, getting back into the car.

  They drove on. There, on the rusted ironwork gate at the foot of the drive that led to Marlin House, was a sign that said ‘For Sale’. They parked the Volkswagen and walked up the drive. A pair of birds of prey circled overhead on the currents of wind from the headland; the fronds of great coconut palms moved like fans against the sky.

  ‘Our hotel,’ said Georgina.

  The hotel opened its doors three months later. The house, rescued from ruin just in time, had been renewed from floor to ceiling. Georgina oversaw all of the work, criticising the carpenters, scolding the upholsterers, snapping at the electrician. Marcus looked after the kitchen: ordering pots and pans and catering ovens, planning recipes, and contacting suppliers of eggs and vegetables.

  ‘That bossy woman,’ complained one of the carpenters to a friend. ‘She too much trouble, man. One day a coconut go fall on her head!’

  ‘Even the Lord, he frighten’ of her,’ said another. ‘People come stay in that place, they see her, they run fast, jump in sea.’

  When everything was ready, or slightly before, the guests started to arrive. They were generally enchanted with their lodgings. The view from the terrace, over the treetops to a sea of an impossible blue, took their breath away. Guests sat there, their feet up on the terrace parapet, the warm breeze in their hair, sipping at the rum cocktails which the barman brought on a silver tray. They walked down to the beach and swam in the breakers; they watched the highly coloured fishing boats, painted in bright blues and greens, nose out into the waves and then, in the evenings, Marcus’s carefully planned dinners rounded off the day. Everything seemed perfect, from the guests’ point of view, except for the management.