In the Company of Cheerful Ladies (18 page)

The door was opened by a woman somewhere in her mid-forties, who was wearing a colourful red blouse and a full length green skirt. She looked them up and down, and then gestured for them to come in.

“There aren’t many people here,” she said before they had the chance to utter a greeting. “But I’ll get you something if you go and sit in the back. I’ve got some rum, or you can just have a beer. What will it be?”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni half-turned to Mma Makutsi in surprise. He had not expected such a businesslike welcome, and it was rather strange, was it not, to offer somebody a drink like that before anything else had been said? How did this woman, whoever

she was, know who he was? Perhaps she was the tenant’s wife: he had dealt only with the tenant himself and had not seen anybody else.

If Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was at a loss to speak, then the same was not true of Mma Makutsi. She smiled at the woman and immediately accepted the offer of a beer for Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. She would have something soft, she said—as long as it was cold. The woman nodded and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Mr

J.L.B. Matekoni and Mma Makutsi to make their way into theroom which used to be Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s dining room.

It had been his favourite room when he had lived in the house, as it had a good view of the back yard with its pawpaw trees, and beyond that of a small hill in the distance. Now, as they entered, there was no view, as curtains had been drawn across the window and the only light was provided by two red-shaded lamps that had been placed on a low table in front of the curtains. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked about him in astonishment. He knew

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that people had different tastes, but it seemed extraordinary that somebody would wish to plunge a room into darkness—and waste electricity—when there was perfectly good natural light available outside for nothing.

He turned to Mma Makutsi. Perhaps she had seen this sort of thing before and would be unsurprised. He looked at her for an explanation, but she was just smiling at him in a curious way.

“What have they done to my dining room?” he whispered. “This is very strange.”

Mma Makutsi continued to smile. “It is very interesting,” she said, her voice lowered. “Of course you know that …”

She did not finish what she was saying; the woman in the red blouse had returned with a tray bearing a beer and a glass of cola. She placed the tray on the table and pointed to a large leather-covered sofa at one side of the room.

“You can sit down,” she said. “I will put on some music if you would like that.”

Mma Makutsi picked up her glass of cola. “You join us, Mma. It has been a hot day and I think that you might like a beer. You can charge it to us. We will buy you a beer.”

The woman accepted readily. “That is kind of you, Mma. I will fetch it and come back.”

Once she had left the room, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni turned to Mma Makutsi. “Is this …” he began.

“Yes,” Mma Makutsi interrupted. “This is a shebeen. Your house, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, has been turned into an illegal bar!”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni sat down heavily on the sofa. “This is very bad,” he said. “Everybody will think that I am involved in it. They will say that man is running a shebeen while he pretends to be a respectable person. And what will Mma Ramotswe think?”

“She’ll understand that it has nothing to do with you,” said Mma Makutsi. “And I’m sure that other people will think the same.”

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“I do not like such places,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, shaking his head. “They let people run up big bills and spend all their money on drink.”

Mma Makutsi agreed. She was amused by the discovery, which she had not expected to make, but she knew that there was nothing very funny about shebeens. Although people could easily go to legitimate bars, there were those who needed to drink on credit, and shebeens exploited such people. They encouraged people to spend too much and then, every month, they would end up taking a larger and larger portion of the drinker’s salary. And there were other things too: shebeens were associated with gambling

and again in this respect they preyed on human weakness.

The woman returned, an opened bottle of beer in her hand. She raised the bottle in a toast, and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni halfheartedly

reciprocated, although Mma Makutsi’s response was more convincing.

“So, Mma,” said Mma Makutsi brightly, “this is a nice place you have. Very nice!”

The woman laughed. “No, Mma. It is not my place. I am just somebody who works here. There is another woman who runs this place.”

Mma Makutsi thought for a moment. Of course: a woman like that, a woman who drove a large Mercedes-Benz, would not go to a shebeen as a mere customer—she was the shebeen queen herself.

“Oh yes,” Mma Makutsi said. “I know that woman. She is the one who drives that big Mercedes-Benz and has that young boyfriend, the new one. I think he’s called Charlie.”

“That is her,” said the woman. “Charlie is her boyfriend. He comes here with her sometimes. But there’s a husband too. He is in Johannesburg. He’s a big man there. He has some bars, I think.”

“Yes,” said Mma Makutsi. “I know him well.” She paused. “Do you think that he knows about Charlie?”

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The woman took a swig from her bottle of beer and then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Hah! I think that he will not know about Charlie. And if I were Charlie I’d be very careful. That man comes back to Botswana to see her every few months and then Charlie had better be away for the weekend! Hah! If I were Charlie I’d go right up to Francistown or Maun when that happens. The further away the better.”

Mma Makutsi glanced at Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, who was following

the conversation closely. Then she looked back at the woman and asked her question. “Does that man, the husband, help to run this place? Does he come here ever?”

“Sometimes,” said the woman. “He phones us sometimes to leave messages for her.”

Mma Makutsi took a deep breath. Mma Ramotswe had told her that when one asked the important question—the question upon which an entire investigation might turn—one should be careful to sound calm, as if the answer to the question really did not matter all that much. This was the moment for such a question,

but Mma Makutsi found that her heart was beating loud within her and she was sure that this woman would hear it.

“So he phones? Well, you wouldn’t have his telephone number

over there, would you? I’d like to speak to him about a friend we have in Johannesburg who wants to see him about something. I had his number, but …”

“It is here,” said the woman. “It is through in the kitchen on a piece of paper. I can fetch it for you.”

“You are very kind,” said Mma Makutsi. “And when you go through to the kitchen, you can get yourself another beer, Mma. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni will pay.”

REMEMBER ME?

MMA RAMOTSWE had tried very hard to contain the feeling

of dread which stalked her now, like a dark shadow. She had tried to put Note Mokoti out of her mind; she had told herself that just because Mma Potokwane had seen him this did not mean that she would do so. But none of this had worked, and she found herself unable to take her mind off her first husband and the meeting that she knew he would seek with her.

Her immediate inclination had been to tell Mr J.L.B. Matekoni what Mma Potokwane had said, but then she found that she simply could not do this. Note Mokoti belonged to her past—to a painful part of that past—and she had never brought herself to speak to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni about this. She had told him, of course, that she had been married before, and that her husband had been a cruel man. But that was all that she had said, and he had sensed that this was something that she did not wish to discuss, and he had respected that. Nor had she discussed it to any great extent with Mma Makutsi, although they had touched upon it once or twice when the subject of men, or husbands in particular, had come up.

But no matter how firmly she had relegated Note to this wished-for oblivion, in real life he was a flesh and blood man who

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was now back in Gaborone and who would cross her path sooner or later. It happened in the mid-morning, just two days after her meeting with Mma Potokwane, when Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi were working in the office of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was off fetching spare parts from the motor trades distributor with whom he dealt, and Mr Polopetsi was helping the younger apprentice to fix the suspension on a hearse. It was a very ordinary morning.

Mr Polopetsi made the announcement. Knocking on the door that led from the garage into the agency office, he looked cautiously

in and said that there was somebody to see Mma Ramotswe.

“Who is it?” asked Mma Makutsi. They were busy and did not want to be disturbed, but one always had to be ready to receive a client.

“It is a man,” said Mr Polopetsi, and with this answer Mma Ramotswe knew that it was Note.

“Who is this man?” asked Mma Makutsi. “Has he given his name?”

Mr Polopetsi shook his head. “He would not give me his name,” he said. “He is a man wearing dark glasses, and a brown leather jacket. I did not like him.”

Mma Ramotswe rose to her feet. “I will come and see him,” she said quietly. “I think I know who this is.”

Mma Makutsi looked at her employer quizzically. “Could you not get him to come in here?”

“I will see him outside,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I think that he has private business with me.”

She made her way out of the office, avoiding Mma Makutsi’s gaze. It was bright outside—a day on which the sun cast hard, short shadows; a day on which there was no shelter from the growing heat; a day on which the air seemed heavy and sluggish. As she went out through the wide door of the garage, leaving Mr Polopetsi to return to his labour, she saw the petrol pumps and

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the acacias and a car driving down the Tlokweng Road, and then, just to the left of the garage, standing under the shade of an acacia

tree, looking in her direction, Note Mokoti, thumbs tucked into his belt, standing in that pose that she remembered so well.

She took the few steps that would bring her up to him. She raised her eyes and saw that his face was fleshier, but still cruel, and bore a small scar to the side of his chin. She saw that he had developed a slight paunch, but that this was almost hidden by the leather jacket which he wore in spite of the heat. And she thought, suddenly, how strange it was that one would notice these things when one was frightened of another; that the prisoner facing execution

might notice, in those last terrible moments, that the man who was about to take his life had a barber’s rash round his throat or that he had hair on the back of his hands.

“Note,” she said. “It is you.”

The muscles around the mouth slackened, and he smiled. She saw the teeth, so important, he had always said, for a trumpeter,

good teeth. And then she heard the voice.

“It is me, yes. Yes, you are right there, Precious. It is me after all these years.”

She looked into the lenses of the dark glasses, but could see only the tiny reflection of the acacia tree and the sky.

“Are you well, Note? Have you travelled from Johannesburg?”

“Joeies,” he said, laughing as he spoke. “Egoli. Joburg. The place of many names.”

She waited for him to say something more. For a few moments there was nothing, then he spoke.

“I’ve heard all about you,” he said. “I’ve heard that you are the big detective around these parts.” He laughed again, as if the suggestion

that this should be so was ridiculous. Of course he had thought that about all women: that no woman, in his view, could do a job as well as a man. How many woman trumpeters do you

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see? he had asked her all those years ago, mockingly. She had been too young then to stand up to him, and now, when she could do so, when she had the facts of her success with which to confront

him, she felt only the same ancient fear, the fear which had made women through the ages cower before such men.

“I have a good business,” she said.

He looked over her shoulder into the garage and then he glanced up at their business sign, the sign which she had proudly displayed over her first office under Kgale Hill and which they had brought with them when they made the move.

“And your father?” he said casually, looking at her now. “How is the old man? Still going on about cattle?”

She felt her heart lurch, and then a rush of emotion that seemed to stifle the very breath within her.

“Well?” he said. “What about him?”

She steadied herself. “My father is late,” she said. “It is many years ago now. He is late.”

Note shrugged. “There are many people who are dying. You may have noticed.”

For a moment Mma Ramotswe could think of nothing, but then she thought of her father, the late Daddy, Obed Ramotswe, who had never said anything unkind or dismissive to this man, although he had known full well what sort of person he was; of Obed Ramotswe who represented all that was fine in Botswana and in the world, whom she still loved, and who was as fresh in her memory as if he had been alive only yesterday.

She turned away and took a few faltering steps back towards the garage.

“Where are you going?” called Note, his voice harsh. “Where are you going, fat lady?”

She paused, still looking away from him. She heard him come towards her, and now he was standing directly behind her, his acrid body odour in her nostrils.

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He leaned forward so that his mouth was close to her ear. “Listen,” he said. “You have married that man, haven’t you? But what about me? Am I not still your husband?”

She looked down at the ground, and at her toes sticking out of the sandals she was wearing.

“Now,” said Note. “Now you listen to me. I haven’t come back for you—don’t worry about that. I never really liked you, you know? I wanted a woman who could have a child, a strong child. You know that? Not a child who wasn’t going to last very long. So I haven’t come back for you. So you just listen to me. I’m planning