In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

by Alexander McCall Smith

  It did not help to imagine what that woman would be thinking; it would be far better to ignore her, or, better still, to remind herself that it was the other woman who deserved the pity. After all, what did she have in life? She would have no career, that woman, only a life of running around with men. And the problem with that is that as you get older it becomes harder and harder to interest men. There would be a new generation of young women then, women with young faces and flashing teeth, while all the time one’s own face sagged with age and one’s teeth seemed to get a little less white.

  Over the next half hour, they danced in almost complete silence. Mma Makutsi had to acknowledge that Phuti Radiphuti was making an effort and seemed to be improving slightly. He trod on her toes less frequently now, and he seemed to be making some progress with keeping in time. She complimented him on this, and he smiled appreciatively.

  “I think I’m getting better,” he stuttered.

  “We must take a break,” said Mma Makutsi. “I’m very thirsty after all this dancing.”

  They left the dance room and made their way down the corridor and onto the hotel verandah. A waiter appeared and took their orders: a cold beer for Phuti Radiphuti and a large glass of orange juice for Mma Makutsi.

  The conversation was slow to begin with, but Mma Makutsi noticed that as he began to relax in her company, Phuti Radiphuti’s speech became more confident and clearer. She was now able to understand most of what he had to say, although every now and then he seemed to stumble over a word, and when this happened it could be some time before something intelligible emerged.

  There seemed to be a lot to talk about. He explained where he was from (the South) and what he was doing in Gaborone (he had a job in a furniture store in Broadhurst, where he sold chairs and tables). He asked about her; about the school she had gone to in Bobonong, about the Botswana Secretarial College, and about her job at the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. He confessed that he had no idea of what a private detective agency would do and he was interested to find out.

  “It’s very straightforward,” said Mma Makutsi. “Most people think that it is very exciting. But it isn’t, it really isn’t.”

  “There are very few exciting jobs,” observed Phuti Radiphuti. “Most of us have very dull work to do. I just sell tables and chairs. There is nothing exciting in that.”

  “But it is important work,” Mma Makutsi countered. “Where would we be if we had no chairs and tables?”

  “We would be on the floor,” said Phuti Radiphuti solemnly.

  They thought about this for a moment, and then Mma Makutsi laughed. He had answered her with such gravity, as if the question had been an important one, rather than a mere reflection. She looked at him, and saw him smile in response. Yes, he understood that what he had said was funny. That was important in itself. It was good to be able to share such things with somebody else; the little jokes of life, the little absurdities.

  They sat together for a few more minutes, finishing their drinks. Then Mma Makutsi rose to her feet and announced that she was going to the ladies’ room and would meet him back in the dance hall for the rest of the class.

  She found a door labelled Powder Room which bore an outline picture of a woman in a long, flowing skirt. She went in, and immediately regretted it.

  “So! There you are, Grace Makutsi!” said the woman standing at the basin.

  Mma Makutsi stopped, but the door had closed behind her, and she could hardly pretend that she had come into the wrong room.

  She looked at the woman at the basin, and the name came back to her. This was the woman she had seen in the dance class, and her name was Violet Sephotho. She was one of the worst of the glamorous, empty-headed set at the Botswana Secretarial College, and here she was applying powder to her face in the aptly named Powder Room of the President Hotel.

  “Violet,” said Mma Makutsi. “It is good to see you again.”

  Violet smiled, closed her powder compact, and leant back against the edge of the basin. She had the air of one who was settling in for a long chat.

  “Yes, sure,” she said. “I haven’t seen you for ages. Ages. Not since we finished the course.” She paused, looking Mma Makutsi up and down, as if appraising her dress. “You did well, didn’t you? At that college, I mean.”

  The thrust of the comment was unambiguous. One might do well at college, but this was very different from the real world. And then there was the disdainful reference to that college, as if there were better secretarial colleges to be attended.

  Mma Makutsi ignored the barb. “And you, Violet? What have you been doing? Did you manage to find a job?”

  The implication in this remark was that those who got barely fifty per cent in the final examinations might be expected to experience some difficulty in finding a job. This was not lost on Violet, whose eyes narrowed.

  “Find a job?” she retorted. “Mma, I had them lining up to give me a job! I had so many offers that I could think of no way of choosing between them. So you know what I did? You want to know?”

  Mma Makutsi nodded. She wanted to be out of this room, and away from this person, but she realised that she had to remain. She would have to stand up for herself if she were not to feel completely belittled by the encounter.

  “I looked at the men who were offering the jobs and I chose the best-looking one,” she announced. “I knew that that was how they would choose their secretary, so I applied the same rule to them! Hah!”

  Mma Makutsi said nothing. She could comment on the stupidity of this, but then that would enable Violet to say something like, “Well that may be stupid in your eyes, but look at the jobs I got.” So she said nothing, and held the other woman’s challenging glance.

  Violet lowered her eyes and inspected her brightly polished nails. “Nice shoes,” she said. “Those green shoes of yours. I’ve never seen anybody wear green shoes before. It’s brave of you. I would be frightened that people would laugh at me if I wore shoes like that.”

  Mma Makutsi bit her lip. What was wrong with green shoes? And how dare this woman, this empty-headed woman, pass comment on her taste in shoes? She looked at Violet’s shoes, sleek black shoes with pointed toes and quite unsuitable for dancing. They looked expensive—much more expensive than these shoes which Mma Makutsi had treated herself to and of which she felt so proud.

  “But let’s not talk about funny shoes,” Violet went on breezily. “Let’s talk about men. Don’t you love talking about men? That man through there. Is that your uncle or something?”

  Mma Makutsi closed her eyes and imagined for a moment that Mma Ramotswe was by her side. What would Mma Ramotswe advise in such circumstances? Could Mma Ramotswe provide the words to deal with this woman, or would she say, “No, do not allow yourself to be belittled by her. Do not stoop to her level. You are worth more than that silly girl.” And Mma Makutsi saw Mma Ramotswe in her mind’s eye, and heard her too, and that is exactly what she said.

  “The man you are dancing with is very handsome,” said Mma Makutsi. “You are lucky to have such a handsome man to dance with. But then you are a very pretty lady, Mma, and you deserve these handsome men. It is quite right that way.”

  Violet stared at her for a moment, and then looked away. Nothing more was said, and Mma Makutsi went about her business.

  “Well done, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe’s voice. “You did just the right thing there. Just the right thing!”

  “It was very hard,” replied Mma Makutsi.

  “It often is,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MMA RAMOTSWE REVEALS A PROBLEM WITHOUT A SOLUTION

  M MA POTOKWANE had mentioned it so casually, as if it had been no more than a piece of unimportant gossip. But the news that Note Mokoti had been seen in Gaborone was much more than that, at least to Mma Ramotswe. She had put Note out of her mind and very rarely thought of him, although there were times when he came to her in dreams, taunting her, threatening her, and she would wake up in fright and
have to remind herself that he was no longer there. He had gone to South Africa, she understood, and had pursued his musical career in Johannesburg, apparently with some success, as she had seen the occasional magazine photograph featuring him.

  I’m a forgiving lady, Mma Ramotswe told herself. I see no point in keeping old arguments alive when it is so simple to lay them to rest. She had made a deliberate attempt to forgive Note, and she thought that it had worked. She remembered the day on which she had done this, when she had gone for a walk in the bush and had looked up at the sky and emptied her heart of its hatred. She had forgiven him on that day: she had forgiven him the physical cruelty, the beatings which she had endured when he had taken drink; she had forgiven him the mental torment which he had inflicted on her when he had promised her something or other and had immediately torn up the promise. And when it came to the money which he had taken from her, she forgave him that too, saying to herself that she did not want it back.

  When Mma Potokwane had made her disclosure about having seen Note Mokoti, Mma Ramotswe had not shown much of a reaction. Indeed, Mma Potokwane felt the news was of little importance to her friend, so uninterested did she appear, and so she said nothing more about it. They continued their conversation about Charlie and his worrying behaviour; Mma Potokwane had a great deal to say about this, and made some valuable suggestions, but later, when Mma Ramotswe tried to remember what she had said, she could recall very little. Her mind had been almost completely occupied by the sheer awfulness of the news that had been broken to her so casually. Note was back.

  As she drove back from Tlokweng that day, Charlie was far from her mind. If Note Mokoti had been seen in Gaborone, then this could mean that he had returned to live there—and that raised certain very obvious difficulties—or it could mean no more than that he had come back for a visit. If he was on a visit, then he might already have gone back to Johannesburg, and she need worry no more. If, however, he had moved back to Gaborone, then it would be inevitable that she herself would see him sooner or later. The town was bigger these days, and it was possible that two people might live in it without ever seeing one another, but there was a very good chance that their paths would cross. After all, there were not all that many supermarkets and she was always bumping into people at such places. And then there was the mall, the centre of the town, where everybody went sooner or later; what if she were to be walking down the mall and she saw Note walking towards her? Would she turn round and walk in the opposite direction, or would she just walk past him as if he were any other stranger?

  She thought about this, as she drove the tiny white van back along the Tlokweng Road. Presumably there were many who felt that they had to avoid somebody or other. People were always having arguments with one another, feuds about land and cattle, family scraps over inheritance—which were rich sources of dispute wherever one went in this world. Some of these people made it up with one another and talked again; others never did this, and kept their anger and resentment alive. Then there were people who split up from a lover or a spouse. If you left your wife for another woman, and your wife failed to see this as a good thing, then what if you were walking down the road with your new woman, holding hands, as those who are newly in love might do, and you saw your old wife coming towards you? This must happen a great deal, thought Mma Ramotswe, and presumably people faced it and coped, as they usually end up doing. People got by in life in spite of all these social pitfalls.

  She tried to imagine what she might say to Note if she were to find herself with no alternative but to talk to him. Perhaps it would be best to speak in a very ordinary way and ask him how he was and how life had been treating him. Then she could say something about how she hoped that his music was going well and how she imagined what an exciting life he was leading in Johannesburg. Yes, that would be all. With that she would have shown that she wished him no evil, and even Note, even that unkind man who had treated her so badly, might leave her alone after that.

  She turned the tiny white van into Odi Drive to cut through the Village. As she did so, she saw Mrs Moffat walking back along the side of the road, a heavy bag of shopping in her hand. It was not far to the Moffat house, and it would not have taken Mrs Moffat long to walk, but nobody drove past a friend in Botswana, and she drew up alongside and reached over to open the passenger door.

  “Your bag looks very heavy,” she said. “I will take you back.”

  Mrs Moffat smiled. “You are very kind, Mma Ramotswe,” she said. “And sometimes I feel very lazy. I’m feeling very lazy now.”

  She climbed into the van and they resumed the short journey back up the road to the Moffat house. Samuel, who worked in the Moffat garden once a week, was standing near the gate, and he opened it for the tiny white van to sweep through.

  “Thank you,” said Mrs Moffat, turning to her friend. “This bag was getting rather heavy, I’m …” She did not finish her sentence, for she had seen the expression on Mma Ramotswe’s face.

  “Is something wrong, Mma Ramotswe?”

  Mma Ramotswe looked away before she gave her reply. “Yes. There is something wrong. I did not want you to know, but there is something wrong.”

  Mrs Moffat’s first thought was of the obvious. Mma Ramo-tswe and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had recently married. Their wedding, which she and the doctor had attended, had been a surprise to everybody as they had all decided that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, fine man though he was, would never make up his mind to get to the altar. Perhaps he had not been ready after all; perhaps the seemingly interminable engagement had been his way of saying that his heart was not really in marriage, and perhaps she was now discovering this. The thought of this appalled her. She knew that Mma Ramotswe had been married before, a long time ago; she had heard a little about this marriage—that it had been one of those awful violent marriages which so many women had to put up with—and it seemed so unfair that things should be going wrong again, if that is what was happening. It would be impossible, though, that they would be going wrong in the same way: Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was incapable of being violent—at least that was certain.

  Mrs Moffat reached across and touched Mma Ramotswe lightly on the forearm. “Come,” she said. “You can talk to me. We can sit in the garden, or on the verandah if you prefer.”

  Mma Ramotswe nodded, and turned off the engine. “I do not want to burden you,” she said. “It is not a big thing.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Mrs Moffat. “Sometimes it’s good just to talk.”

  They decided to sit on the verandah, where it was cool, and where they could look out over the garden that Mrs Moffat had spent so much time in creating. There was a towering jacaranda tree directly adjacent, and its great canopy of leaves gave shade to the house. It was a good place to sit and reflect.

  Mma Ramotswe came straight to the point and told Mrs Moffat about the news which Mma Potokwane had given her. As she spoke, she saw her friend’s expression change from one of concern to one of what appeared to be relief.

  “So that’s all,” said Mrs Moffat. “That’s all it is.”

  Mma Ramotswe managed a smile. “I said it was not a big thing.”

  Mrs Moffat laughed. “It certainly isn’t a big thing,” she said. “I imagined that there was something wrong with your marriage. I was busy thinking that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had run away, or something like that. I was wondering what I would be able to say.”

  “Mr J.L.B. Matekoni would never run away,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He is enjoying all the good food that I am putting on the table for him. He would never run away.”

  “That is a good way to keep a man,” said Mrs Moffat. “But, going back to this other man, to Note Mokoti, so what if he’s back? You needn’t worry about that. Just be polite to him if you see him. You don’t have to engage further than that. Tell him you’re married …”

  Mma Ramotswe had been looking at Mrs Moffat as she spoke, but when her friend said Tell him you’re married, she looked away sharply and Mrs Moffat hesitated. Her words
appeared to have upset Mma Ramotswe for some reason and she wondered what it was. Could it be that Mma Ramotswe did not want Note to know this, that for some reason she retained feeling for this man and that she would not want him to know about her marriage to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni?

  “You will tell him,” she said, “if he shows up, that is. You will tell him that you’re married?”

  Mma Ramotswe was holding the hem of her dress between her fingers, worrying at it. She looked up and met Mrs Moffat’s gaze.

  “I am still married to him,” she said quietly, her voice barely above a whisper. “I am still married to that man. We did not get a divorce.”

  In the ensuing moments of silence, a grey African dove moved delicately along a branch of the jacaranda tree, looking down, with quick movements, at the two women below. On a rock just outside the penumbra of shade cast by the tree, a small lizard, tinted blue along its flanks, lifted its head towards the late afternoon sun.

  Mrs Moffat said nothing. She was not waiting for Mma Ramotswe to continue; it was just that she had nothing to say.

  “So you see, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I am very unhappy. Very unhappy.”

  Mrs Moffat nodded. “But why did you not get a divorce? He left you, didn’t he? You could have got a divorce.”

  “I was very young,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That man frightened me. When he left I just put him out of my mind and tried to forget that we were ever married. I made myself not think about it.”

  “But surely you remembered later?”

  “No,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I should have done something about it, but I could not bring myself to face it. I just couldn’t. I’m sorry, Mma …”

  “You don’t have to apologise to me!” exclaimed Mrs Moffat. “It’s just that this is a bit complicated, isn’t it? You’re not meant to get married again until you’re divorced.”