mute, as if to convey:
“I’m sorry, Mma,” Mma Makutsi suddenly burst out. “I had to stand there making tea while that woman gave you that terrible, terrible advice. And I couldn’t say anything because I always feel too small to say anything when she’s around. She makes me feel as if I’m still six years old.”
Mma Ramotswe looked at her assistant with concern. “She is just trying to help. She’s bossy, of course, but that is because she is a matron. Every matron is bossy; if they weren’t then nothing would get done. Mma Potokwane’s job is to be bossy. But she is just trying to help.”
“But it won’t help,” wailed Mma Makutsi. “It won’t help at all. You can’t force Mr J.L.B. Matekoni to get married.”
“Nobody’s forcing him,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He asked me to marry him. I said yes. He has never once, not once, said that he does not want to get married. Have you ever heard him say that? No, well there you are.”
“But he will agree to a wedding one day,” said Mma Makutsi. “You can wait.”
“Can I, Mma?” said Mma Ramotswe quickly. “Can I wait forever? And why should I wait all this time and put up with all this uncertainty? My life is going past. Tick, tick. Like a clock that is running too fast. And all the time I remain an engaged lady. People are talking, believe me. They say: there’s that lady who’s engaged forever to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. That’s what they are saying.”
Mma Makutsi was silent, and Mma Ramotswe continued, “I don’t want to force Mr J.L.B. Matekoni to do anything he doesn’t want to do. But in this case I think that there is some sort of block-there is some sort of reason why he cannot make up his mind. I think it is in his nature. Dr Moffat said that when people had that illness-that depression thing-then they might not be able to make decisions. Even when they seem quite well. Maybe there is a little corner of that in Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. So all we are trying to do is help him.”
Mma Makutsi shook her head. “I don’t know, Mma. You may be right, but I am very worried. I do not think that you should let Mma Potokwane stick her nose into this business.”
“I understand what you are saying to me,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But I have reached the end of waiting. I have waited, waited, waited. No date has been mentioned. Nothing has been said. No cattle have been bought for the feast. No chairs have been fixed up. No aunties have been written to. Nothing has been done. Nothing. No lady can accept that, Mma.”
Mma Makutsi again looked down at her shoes. This time the shoes were vocal:
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
IF MMA Ramotswe was still on the shelf, then the following day she was on the wall. She was sitting on the wall in question, the waist-high wall that surrounded the car park of Radio Gabs, enjoying the effervescent company of two seventeen-year-old girls. They were attractive girls, dressed in jeans and bright- coloured blouses that must have cost them a great deal, thought Mma Ramotswe; too much, in fact, because the most expensive parts of their outfit, the labels, were prominently displayed. Mma Ramotswe had never been able to understand why people wanted to have their labels on the outside. In her day, labels had been tucked in, which is where they belonged in her view. One did not walk around the town with one’s birth certificate stuck on one’s back; why then should clothes have their labels on the outside? It was a very vulgar display, she felt, but it did not really matter with these nice girls, who were talking so quickly and in such an amusing way about all the things which interested them, which was not very much, at the end of the day; in fact which was only one subject when one came to think of it, or two, possibly, if one included fashion.
“Some people say that there are no good-looking men in Gaborone,” said Constance, the girl sitting to Mma Ramotswe’s right. “But I think that is nonsense. There are many good-looking men in Gaborone. I have seen hundreds, just in one day. Hundreds.”
Her friend, Kokotso, looked dubious. “Oh?” she said. “Where can I go to see all these good- looking men? Is there a club for good-looking men maybe? Can I go and stand outside the door and watch?”
“There is no such club,” laughed Constance. “And if there were, then the men would not be able to get near it, for all the girls standing at the door. It would not work.”
Mma Ramotswe decided to join in. It was many years since she had participated in such a conversation, and she was beginning to enjoy it. “It all depends on what you mean by good-looking,” she said. “Some men are good-looking in one department and not so good-looking in another. Some men have nice wide shoulders, but very thin legs. Very thin legs are not so good. I know one girl who left a good boyfriend because his legs were too thin.”
“Ow!” exclaimed Kokotso. “That girl made a very bad move. If he was a good boyfriend in other ways, then why leave him because of his thin legs?”
“Perhaps she felt that she wanted to laugh whenever she saw his legs,” suggested Constance. “That would not have made him happy. Men do not like to be laughed at. Men do not think they are funny.”
This made Mma Ramotswe smile. “That is very amusing! Men do not think they are funny! That is very true, Mma. Very true. You must not laugh at a man, or he will go and hide away like a village dog.”
“But there is a serious point,” said Kokotso. “Can you call a man good-looking if he has a handsome face but very short legs? I have known men like that. They are good-looking when they are sitting down, but when they stand up and you see how short their legs are you think Oh my God, these are short, short legs!”
“And sometimes, have you noticed,” Constance interjected, “have you noticed how men’s legs go out at the knees and make a circle? Have you seen that? That is very funny. I always want to laugh when I see men like that.”
Kokotso now lowered herself off the wall and began to walk in a circle, her arms hanging loose, her chin stuck out. “This is how men walk,” she said. “Have you seen it? They walk like this, almost like monkeys.”
It was difficult not to laugh, and if she had thought that these girls seriously entertained this low opinion of men she would have frowned instead, but she knew that these were girls who liked men, a great deal, and so joined Constance in shrieking with laughter at Kokotso’s imitation of… of the apprentices! How accurate she was, and she did not even know them. To imitate one young man of that sort, then, was to imitate them all.
Kokotso resumed her seat on the wall and for a moment there was silence. Mma Ramotswe was rather surprised at herself, sitting there on a wall with two young women less than half her age, talking about good-looking men. She had seen them when she had driven past the Radio Gabs station at lunch-time, not intending to call in until later that afternoon, but realising that this was exactly the opportunity she was looking for. So she had parked the tiny white van round the corner and had walked back, casually, as one who was spending the lunch hour in a quiet ramble. She had stopped at the entrance to the car park and had gone up to the girls to ask them if they knew the correct time. From there it had been easy. The question about the time had been followed by a remark on how tiring it was to have to walk all the way into town and would they mind if she sat on the wall with them for a few minutes while she summoned up her energy?
Of course she had suspected that these girls were not sitting on the wall just because it was any wall. This was the Radio Gabs wall, and these young ladies were watching the entrance to the radio station.
