The Full Cupboard of Life

treasures on the shelves-the commemorative plate of Sir Seretse Khama and the Queen Elizabeth II tea cup, with the Queen smiling out in such a reassuring way; and the framed picture of Nelson Mandela with the late King Moshoeshoe II of Lesotho; and the illuminated motto which called for peace and understanding in the house. She had stood there and realised that there had been little beauty in her life; that she had never had a room which in any way expressed her striving for something better, but that perhaps one day she would. And now it was happening.

Mma Ramotswe had been generous. When she first heard of the move, she had taken Mma Makutsi to the house on Zebra Drive and she had gone through the whole place, room by room, identifying household effects which she could pass on to her assistant. There was a chair which nobody used any more, but which had a bright red seat. She could have that. And then there were the yellow curtains, which had been replaced by a new set; Mma Makutsi had scarcely dared to ask for those, but they had been offered, and she had accepted with alacrity.

Now, sitting at her desk in the morning, it seemed to her that her life could hardly get any better. There was her new home to look forward to, furnished in part with Mma Ramotswe’s generous gifts; there was the prospect of having a little spare money in her pocket, rather than having to count every thebe;and there was the knowledge that she had a good job, with good people, and that her work made things better, at least for some. Since she had started at the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, she had managed to help quite a number of clients. They had gone away feeling the better for what she had done for them, and that, more than any fee, made her work worthwhile. So those glamorous girls who had gone to work in those companies with new offices; those girls who had never achieved much more than fifty per cent in the examinations at the Botswana Secretarial College; those girls may have highly paid jobs,but did they enjoy their work? Mma Makutsi was sure that they did not. They sat at their desks, pretending to type, watching the hands of the clock approach five. And then, exactly on the hour, they disappeared, eager to get as far away as possible from their offices. Well, it was not like that for Mma Makutsi. Sometimes she would be there in the office well after six, or even seven. Occasionally she found that she was so absorbed in what she was doing that she would not even notice that it had become dark, and when she walked home it would be through the night, with all its sounds and the smells of wood-smoke from cooking fires, and with the sky up above like a great black blanket.

Mma Makutsi rose from her chair and went to look out of the window. Charlie, the older apprentice, was getting out of a minibus which had drawn off the main road. He waved to somebody who remained inside, and then began to walk towards the garage, his hands stuck in his pockets, his lips moving as he whistled one of those irritating tunes which he picked up. Just as he reached the garage, he began a few steps of a dance, and Mma Makutsi grimaced. He was thinking of girls, of course, as he always did. That explained the dance.

She drew back from the window, shaking her head. She knew that the apprentices were popular with girls, but she could not imagine what anybody saw in them. It was not that they had much to talk about-cars and girls seemed to be their only interest-and yet there were plenty of girls who were prepared to giggle and flirt with them. Perhaps those girls were in their own way as bad as the apprentices themselves, being interested only in boys and make-up. There were plenty of girls like that, Mma Makutsi thought, and maybe they would make very good wives for these apprentices when they were ready to marry.

The door, which was ajar, was now opened and the apprentice stuck his head round.

“Dumela, Mma,” he said. “You have slept well?”

“Dumela, Rra,” Mma Makutsi replied. “Yes, I have. Thank you. I was here very early and I have been thinking.”

The apprentice smiled. “You must not think too much, Mma,” he said. “It is not good for women to think too much.”

Mma Makutsi decided to ignore this remark, but after a moment she had to reply. She could not let this sort of thing go unanswered; he would never have said something like that if Mma Ramotswe had been present, and if he thought that he could get away with it then she would have to disabuse him of that idea.

“It is not good for men if women think too much,” she retorted. “Oh yes, you are right there. If women start thinking about how useless some men are, then it is bad for men in general. Oh yes, that is true.”

“That is not what I meant,” said the apprentice.

“Hah!” said Mma Makutsi. “So now you are changing your mind. You did not know what you were saying because your tongue is out of control. It is always walking away on its own and leaving your head behind. Perhaps there is some medicine for that. Maybe there is an operation that can fix it for you!”

The apprentice looked cross. He knew that there was no point in trying to better Mma Makutsi in an argument, but anyway he had not come into the office to argue; he had come in to impart some very important news.

“I have read something in the paper,” he said. “I have read something very interesting.”

Mma Makutsi glanced at the paper which he had extracted from his pocket. Already it had been smudged with greasy fingerprints, and she wrinkled her nose in distaste.

“There is something about Mr J.L.B. Matekoni in here,” said the apprentice. “It is on the front page.”

Mma Makutsi drew in her breath. Had something happened to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni? Newspapers were full of bad news about people, and she wondered whether something unpleasant had happened to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. Or perhaps Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had been arrested for something or other; no, that was impossible. Nobody would ever arrest Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. He was the last person who would ever do anything that would send him to jail. They would have to arrest the whole population of Botswana before they got to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.

The apprentice, relishing the interest which his comment had aroused, unfolded the newspaper and handed it to Mma Makutsi. “There,” he said. “The Boss is going to do something really brave. Ow! I’m glad that it’s him and not me!”

Mma Makutsi took the newspaper and began to read. “Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, proprietor of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, and a well-known figure in the Gaborone motor trade,” began the report, “has agreed to perform a parachute jump to raise money for the Tlokweng orphan farm. Mma Silvia Potokwane, the matron of the orphan farm, said that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni made the surprise offer only a few days ago. She expects him to be able to raise at least five thousand pula in sponsorship. Sponsorship forms have already been distributed and many sponsors are coming forward.”

She read the report aloud, the apprentice standing before her and smiling.

“You see,” said the apprentice. “None of us would have imagined that the Boss would be so brave, and there he is planning to jump out of an aeroplane. And all to help the orphan farm! Isn’t that good of him?”

“Yes,” said Mma Makutsi. It was very kind, but she had immediately wondered what Mma Ramotswe would think of her fiance making a parachute jump. If she had a fiance herself, then she was not sure whether she would approve of that; indeed the more she thought about it the more she realised that she would not approve. Parachute jumps went wrong; everybody knew that.

“They go wrong, these parachute jumps,” said the apprentice, as if he had picked up the direction of her thoughts. “There was a man in the Botswana Defence Force whose parachute didn’t open. That man is late now.”

“That is very sad,” said Mma Makutsi. “I am sorry for that man.”

“The other men were watching from the ground,” the apprentice continued. “They looked up and shouted to him to open his emergency parachute-they always carry two, you see-but he did not hear them.”

Mma Makutsi looked at the apprentice. What did he mean:he didn’t hear them? Of course he wouldn’t hear them. This was typical of the curious, ill-informed way in which the apprentices, and so many young men like them, viewed the world. It was astonishing to think that they had been to school, and yet there they were, with a good Cambridge Certificate. As Mma Ramotswe pointed out, it must be very difficult being the Minister of Education and having to deal with raw material like this.