The Full Cupboard of Life

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Mma Holonga shrugged. “I don’t know what you do. It is the same with every job, I suppose. Look at hairdressing. You braid one head of hair and then another head of unbraided hair comes along. And so it goes on. You cannot finish your work.” She paused. “Even you, Mma. Look at you. You deal with one case and then somebody knocks at the door and there is another case. Your work is never finished.”

  They were both silent for a moment, thinking of the endless nature of work. It was true, thought Mma Ramotswe, but it was not something to worry too much about. If it were not true, one might have real cause to be concerned.

  “Tell me more about this Mr Bobologo,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Is he a kind man?”

  Mma Holonga thought for a moment. “He is kind, I think. I have seen him smiling at the schoolchildren and he has never spoken roughly to me. I think he is kind.”

  “Then why has he not been married?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “Or is his wife late?”

  “There was a wife,” said Mma Holonga. “But she died. He did not have time to get married again, as he was so busy reading. Now he thinks that it is time.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked out of the window. There was something wrong with this Mr Bobologo; she could sense it. So she wrote on her piece of paper: No wife. Reads books. Tall and thin. She looked up. It would not take long to deal with Mr Bobologo, she thought; then they could move on to the second, third, and fourth man. There would be something to worry about with each of them, she thought pessimistically, but then she corrected herself, reminding herself that it was no use giving up on a case before one even started. Clovis Andersen, author of The Principles of Private Detection, would never have countenanced that. Be confident, he wrote—and Mma Ramotswe remembered the very passage—Everything can be found out in time. There are very few circumstances in which the true facts are waiting to be tripped over. And never, ever reach a decision before you start.

  That was very wise advice, and Mma Ramotswe was determined to follow it. So while Mma Holonga continued to talk about Mr Bobologo, she deliberately thought of the positive aspects of this man who was being described to her. And there were many. He was very neat, she heard, and he did not drink too much. On one occasion, when they had a meal together, he had made sure that she had the bigger piece of meat and he had taken the smaller. That was a very good sign, was it not? A man who did that must have very fine qualities. And of course he was educated, which would mean that he could teach Mma Holonga things, and improve her outlook on life. All of this was positive, and yet there was still something wrong, and she could not drive the suspicion from her mind. Mr Bobologo would have an ulterior motive. Money? That was the obvious one, but was there something more to it than that?

  MMA HOLONGA had just finished talking that morning when Mr J.L.B. Matekoni arrived at the garage. He was preoccupied with his encounter with the butcher and he was eager to tell Mma Ramotswe about it. He had heard a great deal about that other garage, and from time to time he had seen the results of their fumbling when one of their disgruntled clients had switched to Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. But those cases were but as nothing compared with the deliberate fraud—and there really was no other word for it—which his glance at the engine of the Rover 90 had revealed. This was dishonesty of a calculated and prolonged variety, all perpetrated against a man who had trusted them, and, what was perhaps even more shocking, against an important car that had been placed in their hands. That was a particular and aggravated wrong: a mechanic had a duty towards machinery, and these ones had demonstrably failed to discharge that duty. If you were a conscientious mechanic you would never deliberately subject an engine to stress. Engines had their dignity—yes, that was the word—and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, as one of Botswana’s finest mechanics, was not ashamed to use such terms. It was a question of morality. That was what it was.

  As he parked his truck in its accustomed place—under the acacia tree at the side of the garage—Mr J.L.B. Matekoni reflected on the sheer effrontery of those people. He imagined the butcher going into the garage and describing some problem, and being reassured, when he collected the car, that it had been attended to. Perhaps they even lied about the difficulties of obtaining parts; he was sure that they would have charged him for the genuine spare parts, which they would have had to order from a special dealer in South Africa, or even England, all that way away. He thought of the factory in England where they made Rover cars; under a grey sky, with rain, which they had in such abundance and of which Botswana had so little; and he thought too of those Englishmen, his brother mechanics, standing over the metal lathes and drills that would produce those beautiful pieces of machinery. What would they have felt, he wondered, if they were to know that far away in Botswana there were unscrupulous mechanics prepared to put all sorts of unsuitable parts into the engine which they had so lovingly created? What would they think of Botswana if they knew that? It made him burn with indignation just to contemplate. And he was sure that Mma Ramotswe would share his outrage when he told her. He had noticed her reaction to wrongdoing when she heard about it. She would go quiet, and shake her head, and then she would utter some remark which always expressed exactly what he was feeling, but in a way which he could never achieve. He was a man of machinery, of nuts and bolts and engine blocks, not a man of words. But he appreciated the right words when he heard them, and particularly when they came from Mma Ramotswe, who, in his mind, spoke for Botswana.

  Rather than enter the garage through the workshop, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni went round to the side, to the door of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Normally this was kept open, which meant that chickens sometimes wandered in and annoyed Mma Makutsi by pecking at the floor around her toes, but today it was closed, which suggested that Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi were out, or that there was a client inside. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni leaned forward to listen at the keyhole, to see if he could hear voices within, and at that moment, as he bent forward, the door was suddenly opened from inside.

  Mma Holonga stared in astonishment at the sight of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, bent almost double. She half turned to Mma Ramotswe. “There is a man here,” she said. “There is a man here listening.”

  Mma Ramotswe shot Mr J.L.B. Matekoni a warning glance. “He has hurt his back, I think, Mma. That is why he is standing like that. And anyway, it’s only Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, who owns the garage. He is entitled to be standing there. He is quite harmless.”

  Mma Holonga looked again at Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, who, feeling that he had to authenticate Mma Ramotswe’s explanation, put a hand to his back and tried to look uncomfortable.

  “I thought that he was trying to listen to us,” said Mma Holonga. “That’s what I thought, Mma.”

  “No, he would not do that,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Sometimes men just stand around. I think that is what he was doing.”

  “I see,” said Mma Holonga, making her way past Mr J.L.B. Matekoni with a sideways glance. “I shall go now, Mma. But I shall wait to hear from you.”

  “Well, well!” said Mma Ramotswe as they watched Mma Holonga get into her car. “That was very awkward. What were you doing listening in at the keyhole?”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni laughed. “I was not listening. Or I was not listening, but just trying to hear …” He trailed off. He was not explaining it well.

  “You wanted to see if I was busy,” prompted Mma Ramotswe. “Is that it?”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni nodded. “That was all I was doing.”

  Mma Ramotswe smiled. “You could always knock and say Ko, Ko. That is how we normally do things, is it not?”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni took the reproach in silence. He did not wish to argue with Mma Ramotswe over this; he was keen to tell her about the butcher’s car and he looked eagerly at the tea-pot. They could sit over a cup of bush tea and he would tell her about the awful thing that he had discovered quite by chance and she would tell him what to do. So he made a remark about being thirsty, as it was such a hot day, and Mma Ramotswe immediately suggested a cup of tea. She could sense
that there was something on his mind and it was surely the function of a wife to listen to her husband when there was something troubling him. Not that I’m actually a wife, she told herself; I’m only a fiancée. But even then, fiancées should listen too, and could give exactly the same sort of advice as wives gave. So she put on the kettle and they had bush tea together, sitting in the shade of the acacia tree, beside Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s parked truck. And in the tree above them, an African grey dove watched them from its branch, silently, before it flew off in search of the mate which it had lost.

  MMA RAMOTSWE’S reaction to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s story was exactly as he had thought it would be. She was angry; not angry in the loud way in which some people were angry, but quietly, with only pursed lips and a particular look in her eye to show what she was feeling. She had never been able to tolerate dishonesty, which she thought threatened the very heart of relationships between people. If you could not count on other people to mean what they said, or to do what they said they would do, then life could become utterly unpredictable. The fact that we could trust one another made it possible to undertake the simple tasks of life. Everything was based on trust, even day-to-day things like crossing the road—which required trust that the drivers of cars would be paying attention—to buying the food from a roadside vendor, whom you trusted not to poison you. It was a lesson that we learned as children, when our parents threw us up into the sky and thrilled us by letting us drop into their waiting arms. We trusted those arms to be there, and they were.

  Mma Ramotswe was silent for a while after Mr J.L.B. Matekoni finished speaking. “I know that garage,” she said. “A long time ago, when I first had my white van, I used to go there. That was before I started coming to Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors of course.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni listened intently. This explained the state of the tiny white van when he had first seen it. He had assumed that the worn brake pads and the loose clutch were the results of neglect by Mma Ramotswe herself, rather than a consequence of the van having been looked after—if one could call it that—by First Class Motors, as it had the temerity to call itself. The thought made his heart skip a beat; it would have been so very easy for Mma Ramotswe to have had an accident as a result of her faulty brakes, and if that had happened he might never have met her and he would never have been what he was today—the fiancé of one of the finest women in Botswana. But he recognised that there was no point in entertaining such thoughts. History was littered with events that had changed everything and might easily not have done so. Imagine if the British had given in to South African pressure and had agreed to make what was then the Bechuanaland Protectorate into part of the Cape Province. They might easily have done that, and then there would be no Botswana today, and that would have been a loss for everybody. And his people would have suffered so much too if that had happened; all those years of suffering which others had borne but which they had been spared; and all that had stood between them and that was the decision of some politician somewhere who may never even have visited the Protectorate, or cared very much. And then, of course, there was Mr Churchill, whom Mr J.L.B. Matekoni admired greatly, although he had been no more than a small boy when Mr Churchill had died. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had read in one of Mma Makutsi’s magazines that Mr Churchill had almost been run over by a car when he was visiting America as a young man. If he had been standing six inches further into the road when the car hit him he would not have survived, and that would have made history very different, or so the article suggested. And then there was President Kennedy, who might have leaned forward just at the moment when that trigger was pulled, and might have lived to change history even more than he had already done. But Mr Churchill had survived, as had Mma Ramotswe, and that was the important thing. Now the tiny white van was scrupulously maintained, with its tight clutch and its responsive brakes. And Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had fitted a new, extra-large seat belt in the front, so that Mma Ramotswe could strap herself in without feeling uncomfortable. She was safe, which was what he wanted above all else; it would be unthinkable for anything to happen to Mma Ramotswe.

  “You will have to do something about this,” said Mma Ramotswe suddenly. “You cannot leave it be.”

  “Of course not,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “I have told the butcher to bring the car round here next week, and I shall start to fix it for him. I shall have to order special parts, but I think I know where I can find them. There is a man in Mafikeng who knows all about these old cars and the parts they need. I shall ask him.”

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. “That will be a kind thing to do,” she said. “But I was really thinking that you would have to do something about First Class Motors. They are the ones who have been cheating him. And they will be cheating others.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked thoughtful. “But I don’t know what I can do about them,” he said. “You can’t make good mechanics out of bad ones. You cannot teach a hyena to dance.”

  “Hyenas have nothing to do with it,” said Mma Ramotswe firmly. “But jackals do. Those men in that garage are jackals. You will have to stop them.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni felt alarmed. Mma Ramotswe was right about those mechanics, but he really did not see what he could do to stop them. There was no Chamber of Mechanics to which he could complain (Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had often thought that a Chamber of Mechanics would have been a good idea), and he had no proof that they had committed a crime. He would never be able to convince the police that fraud had been perpetrated because there would be no proof of what they had said to the butcher. They could argue that they had told him all along that they would have to put in substitute parts, and there would be many other mechanics who could go into court and testify that this was a reasonable thing for any mechanic to do in the circumstances. And if there were no help from the police, then Mr J.L.B. Matekoni would have to speak to the manager of First Class Motors, and he did not relish the prospect of that. This man had an unpleasant look on his face and was known to be something of a bully. He would not stand for allegations being made by somebody like Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, and the situation could rapidly turn threatening. It was all very well, then, for Mma Ramotswe to tell him to go and deal with the dishonest garage, but she did not understand that one could not police the motor trade single-handed.

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni said nothing. He felt that the whole day had taken an unsatisfactory turn—right from the beginning. He had encountered a shocking case of dishonesty, he had been suspected of listening in at doors (when all he had been doing was listening in), and now there was this uncomfortable expectation on the part of Mma Ramotswe that he would confront the unpleasant mechanics at First Class Motors. This was all very unsettling to a man who in general only wanted a quiet life; who liked nothing more than to be bent over the engine of a car, coaxing machinery back into working order. Everything, it seemed to him, was becoming more complicated than it need be, and—here he shuddered as the thought occurred to him—there was also hanging over him the awful threat of an involuntary parachute descent. This was far worse than anything else; a summons to a seat of judgment, an undischarged debt that sooner or later he would have to pay.

  He turned to Mma Ramotswe. He should tell her now, as it would be so much easier if there was somebody to share his anxiety. She might accompany him to see Mma Potokwane to make it clear to her that there would be no parachute jump, at least not one made by him. She could handle Mma Potokwane, as women were always much better at dealing with other dominant women than were men. But when he opened his mouth to tell her, he found that the words were not there.

  “Yes?” said Mma Ramotswe. “What is it, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni?’

  He looked at her appealingly, willing her to help him in his torment, but Mma Ramotswe, seeing only a man staring at her with a vague longing, smiled at him and touched him gently on the cheek.

  “You are a good man,” she said. “And I am a very lucky woman to have such a fiancé.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni sighed. There were ca
rs to fix. This hill of problems could wait for its resolution until that evening when he went to Mma Ramotswe’s house for dinner. That would be the time to talk, as they sat in quiet companionship on the verandah, listening to the sounds of the evening—the screeching of insects, the occasional snatch of music drifting across the waste ground behind her house, the barking of a dog somewhere in the darkness. That was when he would say, “Look, Mma Ramotswe, I am not very happy.” And she would understand, because she always understood, and he had never once seen her make light of another’s troubles.

  But that evening, as they sat on the verandah, the children were with them, Motholeli and Puso, the two orphans whom Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had so precipitately fostered, and the moment did not seem to right to discuss these matters. So nothing was said then, nor at the kitchen table, where, as they ate the meal which Mma Ramotswe had prepared for them, the talk was all about a new dress which Motholeli had been promised and about which it seemed there was great deal to say.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  EARLY MORNING AT TLOKWENG ROAD SPEEDY MOTORS

  MMA MAKUTSI woke early that day, in spite of having been to bed late and having slept very little. She had arisen at five, just before the first signs of dawn in the sky, and had gone outside to wash at the tap which she shared with two other houses. It was not ideal this sharing, and she looked forward to the day when she would have her own tap—and perhaps even a shower. This day was coming, which was one of the reasons why she had found it difficult to sleep. The previous afternoon she had found a couple of rooms to rent in another, rather better, part of town, which made up almost half—and the best half, too—of a low-cost house, and which had rudimentary plumbing all of their own. She had been told that it would not be expensive to install a simple shower, and was assured that this could be arranged within a week or two of her moving in. The information had prompted her into paying a deposit straightaway, which meant that she could make the move in little more than a week.