The Full Cupboard of Life

“Now, Mma,” said Molefi. “I am just talking to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, that is all I am doing.”

“Pah!” retorted Mma Potokwane. “Don’t you try to tell me your lies. You just shut that useless mouth of yours for a little while and let Mr J.L.B. Matekoni tell you what to do about that poor man you’ve cheated. And I’ll just stand here and listen, just in case. Then we’ll think about whether your people out at Tlokweng need to be told about this.”

Molefi was silent, and he remained silent while Mr J.L.B. Matekoni quietly and reasonably told him that he would have to make a refund to the butcher and that he should be careful in the future, as other garages in the town would be watching what he did. “You let us all down, you see,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “If one mechanic cheats, then all mechanics are blamed. That is what happens, and that is why you should change your ways.”

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe, making her first contribution. “You just be careful in future, or Mma Potokwane will hear of it. Do you understand?”

Molefi nodded silently.

“Has a goat eaten your tongue?” asked Mma Ramotswe.

“No,” said Molefi quietly. “I understand what you have said, Mma.”

“Good,” said Mma Potokwane. “Now the best thing you can do is to move that truck of yours and get back to your garage. I think that you will have an envelope in your office. That will do for the letter you are going to write to that man in Lobatse.” She paused before adding, “And send me a copy, if you don’t mind.”

There was not much more to be said after that. Molefi reversed his truck and drove angrily away. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni thanked Mma Potokwane, rather sheepishly, thought Mma Ramotswe, and the two women went into the office of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, where Mma Makutsi had boiled the kettle for tea. Mma Makutsi had listened to the encounter from the doorway. She was somewhat in awe of Mma Potokwane, but now she asked her a question.

“Is his mother that fierce?”

“I have no idea,” said Mma Potokwane. “I’ve only seen his mother; I’ve never met her, and I took a bit of a risk with that. But usually bullies have severe mothers and bad fathers, and they are usually frightened of them. That is why they are bullies, I think. There is something wrong at home. I have found that with children in general and this applies to men as well. I think that I shall have to write about that if I ever write a book about how to run an orphan farm.”

“You must write that book, Mma,” urged Mma Ramotswe. “I would read it, even if I was not planning to run an orphan farm.”

“Thank you,” said Mma Potokwane. “Maybe I shall do that one day. But at the moment I am so busy looking after all those orphans and making tea and baking fruit cake and all those things. There seems very little time for writing books.”

“That is a pity,” said Mma Makutsi. It had just occurred to her that she might write a book herself, if Mma Potokwane, of all people, was considering doing so.The Principles of Typing, perhaps, although that was not perhaps the most exciting title one might imagine.How to Get Ninety-Seven Per Cent. Now that was much, much better, and would be bought by all those people, those many, many people who would love to get ninety-seven per cent in whatever it was that they were doing and who knew that perhaps they never would. At least they could hope, which was an important thing. We must be able to hope. We simply must.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

MMA POTOKWANE AND MMA RAMOTSWE DISCUSS MARRIAGE

THESE MATTERS were distractions, of course, but at least the matter of the butcher’s car was now sorted out and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, only so recently worried on two fronts-the parachute jump and First Class Motors-could now look forward to the immediate future with greater equanimity. Mma Potokwane had been magnificent, as she always was, and had dispatched the bullying Herbert Molefi with the same ease as she dealt with ten-year-old bullies. She had been happy to do this, as she owed Mr J.L.B. Matekoni a great deal, with his constant and unquestioning availability to fix bits and pieces of machinery on the orphan farm. And Mma Potokwane, like everybody else who came into contact with him, recognised in Mr J.L.B. Matekoni those qualities which endeared him to so many and which meant that most people would do anything for him: his courtesy, his reliability, his sheer decency. If only all men, or even more men, were like that, thought Mma Potokwane, indeed thought all the women of Botswana. If only you could trust men in the same way in which you could trust a close woman friend; instead of which, men tended to let women down, not always deliberately, but just because they were selfish or they became bored, or their heads were turned in some way. It was very easy to turn a man’s head; a glamorous woman could do it just by looking at a man and lowering her eyelids once or twice. That could make an apparently steadfast man quite unpredictable, particularly if that man were of an age where he was starting to feel unsure of himself as a man.

Mma Ramotswe was lucky to be engaged to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, thought Mma Potokwane. He was exactly the right choice for her, as she was a fine woman and she deserved a good man like Mr J.L.B. Matekoni with whom to share her life. It was hard being a woman by oneself, particularly when one was in a job such as Mma Ramotswe’s, and it was important to have a man on whom one could call for assistance and support. So Mma Ramotswe had made a wise choice, even if all those years ago she had shown a distinct lack of judgment in marrying Note Mokoti, the trumpet player. Mokoti, Matekoni: similar names, reflected Mma Potokwane, but how different the men who bore the names.

Of course there was the question of the length of the engagement and the slowness with which preparations were being made for the wedding, indeed if any preparations were being made at all. This was a puzzle to Mma Potokwane, and while Mma Makutsi made tea that day, after the disposal of Herbert Molefi, Mma Potokwane decided to raise the matter with Mma Ramotswe. She was direct rather than allusive; rather too direct, thought Mma Makutsi, who listened but did not say anything. She tended to feel inhibited in the presence of Mma Potokwane, largely because she felt the other woman was so much more confident and experienced than she was. There was also an element of disapproval in Mma Makutsi’s attitude-not that she would ever have expressed it. She thought that Mma Potokwane was too ready to take advantage of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s good nature. The kindness of men like that could be exploited by forceful women, and there was no doubt but that Mma Potokwane was in the vanguard of the forceful women of Botswana, their very standard bearer, their champion.

So Mma Makutsi said nothing, but listened very carefully as Mma Potokwane raised the subject of marriage and weddings, virtually under the nose of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, who had resumed work on a car next door. And what if he had walked in the door and heard her speaking in these terms; what then? Mma Makutsi was astonished at the matron’s tactlessness.

“Such a very good man,” came the opening gambit. “He has been very helpful to us at the orphan farm. All the children love him and call him their special uncle. So there he is an uncle, but not yet a husband!”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “Yes, he is a fine man. And he will make a good husband one day. That is why I agreed to his proposal.”

Mma Potokwane looked at her fingernails, as if absorbed by some cuticular matter. “One day?” she said. “Which day? When is this day you are talking about? Next week, do you think? Or next year?”

“Not next week,” said Mma Ramotswe evenly. “Maybe next year. Who knows?”

Mma Potokwane was quick to press home on this question. “But does he know? That’s the important thing. Does Mr J.L.B. Matekoni know?”

Mma Ramotswe made a gesture which indicated that she did not know the answer and that