The Double Comfort Safari Club (4 page)
Read The Double Comfort Safari Club Online
Authors: Alexander Mccall Smith
Mma Makutsi, in her misery, looked down at her shoes, as she often did at such moments. She was wearing her everyday footwear—a pair of brown shoes with rather frayed edges, shoes that had the look of experience. They looked back at her with that slight air of superiority that her shoes tended to effect.
Don’t look at us, Boss
, the shoes said.
It was your big idea, not ours. We don’t go around trying to change things, do we? We do not
.
AS IT HAPPENED
, there were few takers for tea that morning, as the mechanics were busier than usual and unable to take the time off. An hour or so later, though, Charlie came in to report that he was going out to fetch a spare part for Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, and would be happy to see if there was any mail in the mailbox near the Riverside filling station. His offer was accepted, and he returned twenty minutes later with a bundle of letters, which he placed on Mma Ramotswe’s desk.
“There is only one interesting letter there,” he said. “It is from a place in the United States. I can tell from the stamp. Wow! One, two, three!”
Mma Makutsi looked at him with irritation. “It is none of your business,” she said. “Our letters are none of your business, Charlie. You are just a mechanic—not a detective.” Her irritation suddenly changed to pleasure as she contemplated her next observation. “Actually, you are just an apprentice, not a proper mechanic yet.”
It was a telling blow. Charlie and Fanwell had not made great progress with their apprenticeships, largely because of their failure to apply themselves to the regular examinations that the Apprenticeship Board required. Fanwell, at least, had an excuse for this, as he was chronically dyslexic and, although intelligent, had difficulty understanding examination questions. Charlie, who was both intelligent and a quick reader, could claim only fecklessness as an excuse, if it were an excuse, which of course it was not.
“It is addressed to Mma Ramotswe,” he snapped. “Not to you.”
Mma Ramotswe made a calming gesture; she did not like the arguments that seemed to flare up between these two, nor any arguments, for that matter. “I do not mind,” she muttered as she extracted the white airmail letter from the pile of manila envelopes.
Charlie threw a triumphant glance towards Mma Makutsi. “You must be very proud, Mma,” he said. “You must be proud that there are people there who know about you and are writing to you. Nobody in America knows about her over there. She is an unknown lady, Mma; you are very well known.”
“Ssh, Charlie,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I am sure that there are many people there who know about Mma Makutsi. Or they will in future, I am certain of it.”
She slit open the letter and began to read it. They watched her, and at the end she said, “Oh dear, I am very sorry. This is very sad, but also it is very good news for one man.”
S
O, MMA RAMOTSWE
,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “So you received a big letter today.”
They were sitting on the veranda at Zebra Drive at that companionable hour when the late afternoon shades almost imperceptibly into early evening. The sky was not yet dark, but had become paler, and pinker, too, in the west. Dusk was not far off, but had not yet made its softening mark; yet the birds knew, and were flying from tree to tree restlessly, finding just the right place to spend the impending night. A pair of Cape turtle doves, as married as the couple sitting on the veranda, edged closer to one another on the bough of the acacia tree that sheltered part of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s vegetable garden. Their anxious cooing could be heard alongside the sound of a car making its way home to a neighbouring house, the half-hearted barking of a neighbour’s dog, the sound of a radio somewhere indeterminate.
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, unusually for him, was drinking a beer. He drank very little, and Mma Ramotswe hardly at all, but on the occasional evening he would unwind with a glass of Lion lager, savouring the feel of the damp, cold glass against his hand almost
as much as the freshening sharpness of the beer. Mma Ramotswe would sometimes accompany him, as she did now, taking a teaspoon of beer—a single teaspoon—and putting it into a glass of water with a slice of lemon. The resulting concoction she would sip at, convinced that even this quite homeopathic dilution would go to her head if consumed too quickly.
They had raised their glasses to one another in salute, and then he had asked his question about the letter. Charlie had mentioned it that morning as they were attending to a recalcitrant gearbox, but he had not known what the letter contained. “Big news, I think, Boss,” he had said. “A letter from America means a big case.”
And now Mma Ramotswe said, “Yes, I had a letter.”
He waited for her to reveal more. He would not pry; they might share the same roof, and the same bed, but they both understood the idea of professional confidence, at least in relation to the real secrets that were bared to Mma Ramotswe in the course of her work—the admissions and accusations of adultery, the doubts about others, the frank tragedies of betrayal. But this letter, it transpired, contained nothing like that.
“It was from a man in America,” Mma Ramotswe said, lifting her glass to sip at her drink.
“Oh yes?”
“Yes. From a lawyer, Rra.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni frowned. Letters from lawyers were not always welcomed, especially when received by mechanics. It was very strange, he thought: a lawyer’s letter was capable of striking fear into the strongest of hearts, yet who worried about a letter from a mechanic … They should, of course: mechanics’ letters could be devastating—
I have examined your car, and I regret to inform you that …
Mechanics could be the conveyors of the most serious news, but they normally chose to give such news face-to-face.
And on such occasions a suitably grave expression was required; one should not give bad mechanical news lightly, as Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had felt obliged to warn his apprentices. He had overheard Charlie telling a woman that her car was
finished
, and on another occasion the young man had told a client that his brakes were the worst brakes in Botswana, adding,
And I’ve seen some pretty bad brakes in my time!
No, that was not the professional way, not that those young men understood what professionalism was all about.
Mma Ramotswe expanded on the contents of the letter. “This lawyer, this man in a place called St. Paul—that is a good name, isn’t it, Rra? St. Paul must be a good place to live—this man said that he is writing on behalf of a lady who is now late. He said that she was his client and his good friend, and that now that she is late, he is looking after her affairs.”
“Her executor,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.
“Yes, her executor. And it is because he is her executor that he has to find a certain person in Botswana.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked down into his beer. “Because that person owes money?” he asked. It would be a typical case, he thought; although the Government of Botswana very rarely borrowed money, the same could not be said of the people themselves, especially at the end of the month, just before pay day, when everyone’s pockets would be empty. It was very common then for people to seek a loan from some sympathetic friend or neighbour, or, if their luck was in, from a stranger whom they might never see again. It was not a grave failing—there were many worse—but it was a failing nonetheless. So somebody had borrowed money from an American visitor, and then the visitor had gone home and died and his executor had to look for the debtor to get the loan repaid. That was obviously what had happened here, and now Mma Ramotswe had to find this person and
reclaim the money. Some chance of that, thought Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni …
Mma Ramotswe laughed. “No. I can tell what you’re thinking, but no. This is the other way round. The lawyer wants to
give
this person some money.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s expression showed his surprise. “You mean that the American person borrowed money from this Motswana? And now the lawyer wants to repay the debt?”
“I do not mean that,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I am talking about a legacy, Rra. That is nothing to do with borrowing, that is to do with gifts. This late person in America wants to make a gift to a person in Botswana. It is a legacy.”
“Ah.” Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni understood perfectly. Mma Ramotswe had received a legacy of cattle on the death of her father, and he had once been left a bequest of five hundred pula from a grateful client who had declared that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was the only person who understood his car. Any news of a legacy was welcome news indeed.
She told him about the letter, hearing in her mind once more the precise phrases in the beautifully typed letter (Mma Makutsi might take note of the spacing; but that was another matter, and would not be mentioned now).
Dear Mrs. Ramotswe,
You will forgive, I hope, this approach without an introduction: your name has been given to me by the American Embassy in Gaborone with the assurance that you are the most appropriate person for me to consult on this unusual matter.
The late Mrs. Estelle Grant died about six months ago. I was her lawyer for many years, and, I might add, her friend. She was a fine woman, who was much appreciated in this
city and beyond. It is not surprising that her will contained a number of charitable bequests, as she was an ardent supporter of many causes in this country and abroad.
Under the terms of the will I have been appointed her executor. As you will no doubt know, it is the job of an executor to implement the wishes of the testator, the person whose will it is. Sometimes this is difficult, as the instructions left may be obscure or difficult to apply. In my long experience as a lawyer, I have seen quite a number of bequests fail because it has been impossible to work out what the testator meant.
But even if there is ambiguity or obscurity, an executor must do his best to bring about the result that the deceased wanted. This is a sacred trust, in a sense: we must do our best to honour the last wishes of those who have left us—provided, of course, that such last wishes are consonant with good morals and standards of decency.
Mrs. Grant’s will has proved relatively easy to put into effect. But although I have been able to identify and pay most of the beneficiaries of her bequests, I have been left with one that I feel is going to be more difficult. That is the one that I am writing to you about, with a view to engaging your services to help me identify the person who is entitled to the bequest in question. That person, I believe, lives in your country.
Please allow me to explain. Mrs. Grant was not a great traveller. I was aware of the fact that she visited Jamaica ten years ago, and had made two or three trips to Europe over the years. One special trip she did make, though, was to Botswana, which she visited exactly four years ago, in the month of June or possibly July. Some time around then. I knew about this trip because she spoke to me about it. She
also showed me the pictures she had taken, and I must say that I was most impressed with the beauty of your country.
It was more than simple natural beauty that impressed Mrs. Grant. In addition to that, she was very taken with the kindness of the people whom she encountered. She talked to me about this on more than one occasion, saying that she had never before come across such warmth and courtesy being shown to strangers. I believe that this affected her very deeply.
I am sorry to say that about nine months ago Mrs. Grant fell ill. The diagnosis was not a good one, and although she remained lucid and composed, I think that her end was not an altogether easy one. I visited her regularly, and we talked about many things. It is strange how the imminence of death can either focus the conversation between two people, or can render them curiously mute. In our case, many things were said that had remained unsaid during the course of our friendship. In particular, we reflected on the fact that although we had both lost our spouses some years earlier, it had not occurred to us to change our friendship into marriage. And now it was too late, as it often is. (Please forgive me for recounting these somewhat personal matters—I do so, I think, because the person at the Embassy who recommended you said to me that you were a sympathetic and understanding woman.)
It was on one of my visits to Mrs. Grant in the hospital that she said to me that there was an extra provision that she wanted me to draft for her will. I did this there and then, using nurses as witnesses, as it is my firm belief that one should never lose time in putting into writing a client’s verbal instructions relating to a will. I was right, as it happened: Mrs. Grant died two days later.
That day in the hospital, Mrs. Grant told me a story. She said that when she had gone to Botswana she had visited, as many do, the Okavango Delta. She had gone, again as so many others do, to a safari camp on the edge of the river and had stayed there for four days. I knew all about this, of course, as she had already told me of that visit. What I did not know, though, was that there was a guide there who had been particularly kind to her. He had taken her on a bush walk and had gone to great trouble to locate a lioness that they had been able to observe from a safe distance. She said that this guide had gone out of his way to make her visit a memorable one.
In his eyes
, she said,
I was probably a passerby from a remote place, but that made no difference. He treated me as if I were a member of his family, an aunt perhaps. There is an expression, “the kindness of strangers”: well, I encountered it very vividly during those days
.
Mrs. Grant told me that it was her wish to send a gift to this man. She had meant to write and thank him, but had put it off and put it off, as we often do with such good intentions. Now, in the face of death, she wanted to tie up loose ends, and this was one such. She wanted to thank this man and send him a gift of money. This, she instructed me, was to be the sum of three thousand dollars.
Naturally, I asked for details, so that I could put them into the provision I was drawing up for the will. Unfortunately she could not remember the guide’s name nor, I very much regret to say, the exact name of the camp. All that she was able to say to me was that the camp bore the name of a bird or an animal. And so I had to draft a provision that left the money “to the guide who took such care of me in Botswana,” and to leave the rest for further investigation. That investigation is what I would like you to undertake on
my behalf: please locate the camp and find out the name of the man who looked after her. I should not imagine that this will be too difficult. The estate will, of course, meet all expenses and pay such fees as you may reasonably charge. Please confirm that you can undertake this work, and send me a note of your fee rate.
Finally, may I say, Mrs. Ramotswe, that although this seems like a strange request, it is by no means a light or whimsical one. Mrs. Grant was a woman who believed that goodness in this life should not go unrewarded; she was also a fine judge of men. If she said that this guide who looked after her was a good man, then you may rest assured that he was. I am sure, if and when we find him, we shall discover that he deserves this recognition of what he did.
I have enclosed with this letter a copy of Mrs. Grant’s obituary from the local paper. It has a nice photograph of her and it tells you about her life, which was a good one, as you will see.
I remain, yours truly,
Oliver J. Maxwell