The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon (19 page)

She went outside. The tiny white van had been washed by the downpour, and now stood sparkling and resplendent, as if some passing evangelist had chosen to baptise it, had sought to make it without sin. She smiled at the unexpected thought. It was the sort of thing that Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, with his tendency to speak of cars in human terms, might appreciate. He had once said cars had souls; well, perhaps he was right. Perhaps everything had a soul of sorts, which is what some people still believed – that the world all about us was endowed with life and with the very same spirit we saw within ourselves. It was only now, she thought, when we were finishing with the earth, using it up, that we were beginning to understand how right they were. Even Botswana, with all its air and its grasslands and its thorn trees and its brown-red earth, did not go on for ever.

They were big thoughts, and she knew that people had to think them. But for the moment, there was a more immediate task – the one of looking at Rra Edgar’s will. It might not tell her much that she did not already know from Mma Sheba’s account of the document, but Mma Makutsi was right in suggesting that she should look at it. Bless you, Mma Makutsi, she said to herself as she started the van and began to drive away. Bless you, and your shoes, and your baby, Itumelang Clovis Radiphuti, and that good husband of yours, and your ninety-seven per cent…

The woman who greeted her at the registry office was business-like.

‘That name, Mma,’ she said. ‘Molapo. That is a common name. There are many people who die and are called that.’

Mma Ramotswe frowned. ‘But do they all make wills?’ she asked.

The official hesitated. ‘There are many people who do not make wills. They are very foolish people, Mma.’

Mma Ramotswe was aware of the fact that the woman was staring at her in a way that was almost accusatory. She had no will herself; nor did Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. Most people, she thought, had no will. But did it really matter? Everything she had, such as it was, would go to Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, and everything he had would go to her – or so she assumed. And then she thought of the children. Motholeli and Puso were not related to her – as foster children they presumably had no legal claim, and yet surely they had every other sort of claim. Of course they did.

‘I shall make a will,’ she muttered.

The woman behind the desk looked pleased. ‘That is a very good idea, Mma.’ And then added hurriedly, ‘Not that I am hoping that you will become late for a long time yet. But it is a very good idea and we always recommend it.’

Mma Ramotswe’s positive attitude to wills seemed to clear the obstructions that she felt officials could naturally, almost instinctively, place before those who wanted help or information.

‘Of course there are not many people called Molapo who become late and have wills,’ the woman said. ‘I shall be able to find it very quickly if you give me the year when this late person became late.’

‘He has been late for less than a year,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘And, as I said, he is called Molapo. Edgar Molapo, although he might have had another Setswana first name – I do not know, Mma.’

The official thought this would not be a problem. ‘And you are sure that the late Rra Molapo made a will?’

‘I am sure of that, Mma. There is a lawyer, Mma Sheba, who has consulted me about some problem in the estate. She is handling all this.’

Mma Ramotswe might easily have missed the official’s reaction to this had she not been looking directly at her when she spoke. As it was, she saw the tensing of muscles around the jaw and lips; sudden and transient, but enough to tell her that this woman did not like Mma Sheba.

‘You must know her, Mma,’ said Mma Ramotswe, keeping her voice even but watching closely.

The signs of animosity were still there, but the other woman was more guarded now, and that, thought Mma Ramotswe, may be because she thinks that I am an ally of Mma Sheba and she must be careful.

‘Yes, I know her, Mma.’ She rose from her chair. ‘I shall get you that will now.’

It did not take long for her to return with the document, bound with other documents into a large blue-backed binder. The front page of the deed had been stamped by the Master’s office, and a series of dates and figures had been added to it in blue ink.

‘You may have a copy,’ said the official. ‘Or you can read it here, Mma – also for a fee.’

Mma Ramotswe decided to read it where she stood, on the public side of a large government desk. It was not a long document – two and a half pages, most of which was in formal legal prose and of no interest to her. There was the instruction that the farm should go to Liso – described as ‘my nephew, the son of my late brother’ – and there was a generous financial legacy to ‘my dear sister, who has been a support for me over the years’. But then, at the end of the document, was a clause she had not expected. The residue of the estate was to go to ‘my good friend, Mma Sheba Kutso’.

Mma Ramotswe read this provision carefully, and then read it again. She looked at the official behind the desk, who was now watching her. ‘What does “residue” mean in these documents?’ she asked.

The official seemed pleased to be consulted. ‘It means what is left over,’ she said.

Mma Ramotswe pondered this. ‘And if, let’s say, somebody who is left something in a legacy becomes late before the person who makes the will —’

‘The testator,’ interjected the official. ‘We call the person who makes the will the
testator
.’

‘Yes, so let me get this right, Mma: if the person who has been left something in a will dies before the testator dies, then what happens to that thing?’

The other woman shrugged. ‘It goes into the residue of the estate,’ she said.

‘I see,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘And the person who gets the residue in the will – that person gets the thing that couldn’t go to the other person mentioned in the will because that other person —’

‘Is late,’ the official supplied. ‘Yes. That is right, Mma. It is quite simple, you see. If you know what you are talking about, that is.’ She paused, reaching for the folder of documents. ‘Have you found out what you wanted to find out?’

‘Maybe,’ said Mma Ramotswe.

S
he could not contain herself. Now that her vague suspicions about Mma Sheba had turned into actual knowledge – the proven fact that the lawyer stood to benefit from the Molapo estate – everything was changed. She wanted – she
needed
– to talk to somebody about this and, as she drove back to the office, she realised that the only person with whom she could discuss the afternoon’s discovery, the only person who would truly understand the implications, was Mma Makutsi. She could talk to Mr J. L. B. Matekoni about it, of course, and he would listen courteously, as he always did; but for all his attentiveness, Mr J. L. B. Matekoni looked at situations as a man, and men, for all their merits, thought about things differently from the way women thought about them. And without wishing to belittle men whatsoever, Mma Ramotswe felt that on balance, just on balance, women often saw things that men might miss. So a man, considering this matter, might say, ‘That Mma Sheba is simply accepting a gift from an old friend’; while a woman was far more likely to say, ‘Well, well, she may be a lawyer but she’s clearly used her female wiles to get that poor late man to leave her this so-called residue’. And what a residue it was: not merely a few scraps of otherwise unwanted property, bits and pieces left over when relatives had taken their pickings – as the term
residue
might imply – but the most valuable asset that Rra Edgar had possessed: his farm.

Halfway back to the office, while driving through a pool of storm water that had suddenly appeared at the edge of the road, she decided that she would not go back to the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency after all and would go instead to the Radiphuti house. Mma Makutsi would be bound to be in and would surely welcome a visit. She had confessed to Mma Ramotswe that staying at home with nobody to talk to could be tedious, and so the chance to discuss the Molapo case would be a welcome break. There was no doubt that motherhood was a great privilege, Mma Makutsi had said, but it could bring loneliness too.

Mma Ramotswe turned the van on to the track that led from the Radiphuti gate to the house some six hundred yards into the plot. Had she given the matter more thought, the possibility might have occurred to her that this track, recently created from the virgin bush and not properly flattened by grader and steamroller, might not be in a good condition to receive the heavy rain that had fallen a few hours ago. As it was, with her mind full of residues and legacies and the questions to which such matters gave rise, she did not think about mud at all until she had already encountered it and she felt the tiny white van sinking beneath her. For a few moments she allowed the wheels to turn as they sought purchase in the glutinous mass, but then she removed her foot from the accelerator lest the van should dig itself further in, perhaps even disappear altogether as vans were said to do in quicksand. There was no point in racing the engine of a mud-engulfed vehicle; she would have to be pulled out by a stronger, four-wheel-drive vehicle – Mr J. L. B. Matekoni’s rescue truck, for example, or a friendly tractor.

She prepared to step out of the van. This was not the simple operation it normally was; as a traditionally built woman, Mma Ramotswe was accustomed to occasional issues of manoeuvrability in awkward spaces, but what greeted her now was something more daunting than that. What had been a track was now a river, a spreading delta indeed, of shimmering mud, stretching almost as far as the house itself. Here and there, tufts of grass and small shrubs made for tiny islands, but for the rest there was only a red-brown sea. She looked up at the sky. The Israelites had received help in crossing the Red Sea, she recalled, when an unseen hand had parted the waves; no such help would be forthcoming here.

She sighed again and removed her shoes. Then, holding one shoe in each hand as a tightrope walker might use weights to balance himself, she stepped into the mud.

From the veranda Mma Makutsi waved and shouted. Mma Ramotswe tried to make out what she was saying but could not hear her very well. So, taking a deep breath, she made her viscous way along the mud-locked path and into the yard. Her traditional build did not help, and she felt herself sinking deeper with every step. The mud was between her toes, and that was a strange sensation but not unpleasant.

Mma Makutsi came out to meet her. ‘Mma, I was worried,’ she said. ‘I was going to phone Phuti to come and rescue you.’

‘That would not have been necessary,’ said Mma Ramotswe, surveying her mud-covered feet and ankles. ‘There is nothing wrong with a little mud. Some people say it is very good for the skin, Mma.’

Mma Makutsi looked with concern at her employer’s feet. ‘It is good for the face,’ she said. ‘I have not heard it is good for the feet.’ She frowned. ‘But there are different views, Mma. There are always different views on these things.’

She invited Mma Ramotswe to sit on the parapet of the veranda while she went to collect a basin for her to wash her feet. When she returned, she was carrying a small towel, a bar of soap and a plastic basin filled with warm water.

‘Let me wash them, Mma,’ she said. ‘You sit there, I’ll wash your feet for you.’

Mma Ramotswe felt the warm embrace of the water and the slippery caress of the soap. The intimacy of the situation impressed itself upon her; that an old friend – and that was how she looked at Mma Makutsi – should do this for you was strangely moving.
Washing the feet of another
, she thought. She tried to remember whether any other friend had done this for her. She thought not; and she had not done it for another. People were used to doing these things for children – washing them, changing them, tending to their physicals needs – but one so easily forgot what it was to do this for another adult, or to have it done for you.

Over a cup of tea, Mma Ramotswe told Mma Makutsi what she had learned from the will. Mma Makutsi listened gravely, interrupting her guest only to fetch the baby, who had awoken from a sleep. The rest of the story was heard with Itumelang Clovis Radiphuti clasped to his mother’s breast. Mma Ramotswe looked at the little head – so perfect, so untroubled by the world, so tiny. It was for this, exactly this, that people sought advantage over others, denied themselves, risked everything, and would, if pressed, even give their lives.

The baby finished his feed. ‘So,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘You know what I think, Mma?’

Mma Ramotswe said that she would very much like to find out. ‘I have some ideas, Mma, but if you tell me yours, I shall have some more, I think.’

Mma Makutsi smiled. ‘It is as if we were in the office,’ she said.

Mma Ramotswe tried not to look sad. ‘Yes.’

‘The lawyer is using you,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘She does not want to find out the truth about that young man on the farm.’

‘That is what I thought,’ said Mma Ramotswe.

‘She is determined that he will not inherit the farm.’

Mma Ramotswe nodded. ‘I think you are right.’

Mma Makutsi was silent for a few moments. ‘The aunt knows about her brother’s affair with the lawyer and does not approve.’

Mma Ramotswe was surprised that Mma Makutsi had drawn the same conclusion as she had. ‘I thought exactly that, Mma,’ she said. ‘There is no evidence that they were having an affair, but I thought that.’

‘It is the only thing one can think,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘People don’t leave legacies to their lawyers unless they are very friendly, Mma. I think we can assume that they were lovers.’

‘And so?’

Mma Makutsi gently brushed away a fly that had settled on her baby’s brow. ‘The original Liso, the real Liso, can’t be traced, for whatever reason. Or she did not bother to trace him. So she has substituted her own son. Every mother would like her son to inherit a farm. That hardly needs any discussion.’

‘No.’

Mma Makutsi looked at Mma Ramotswe. ‘We need to confirm that the boy who claims to be Liso is, in fact, the aunt’s son. How should we do that, Mma?’

Mma Ramotswe noticed the use of the word
we
. Mma Makutsi was back. ‘We go and see her, I suppose. We confront her with the truth and see how she reacts. People reveal themselves, Mma.’

‘They do, Mma Ramotswe. You have always said that, and I have always thought you were right. You are right most of the time.’

‘Thank you, Mma Makutsi – that is very kind of you. But sometimes I am wrong.’

‘This is not one of those times, Mma. This is a very simple case, and you have solved it without any difficulty. This is what Mr Andersen would call an
open-and-shut case
, I believe.’

Mma Ramotswe now spoke hesitantly. ‘When shall we go, Mma?’

Mma Makutsi seemed to take some time to prepare her answer. ‘I have reached a decision,’ she said eventually. ‘I am coming back to work tomorrow morning.’

‘Oh, Mma —’

Mma Makutsi raised a hand. ‘No, Mma. It is the right decision. Perhaps I can bring Itumelang in for the first few days. We shall stay just a few hours for the first little while, and then we can work out a regime. I have my young woman here who is helping with the cooking and with the baby. She used to work for Phuti’s parents before they became late. She looked after Phuti when he was a boy, you know.’

Mma Ramotswe could not stop herself imagining Phuti as a boy: she saw an ungainly little boy with spindly legs and a perplexed expression on his face. Beside him there appeared another child, a little girl with ribbons tied into her hair and childish, round glasses. It was the young Mma Makutsi. So that was what she looked like.

‘I am sure that woman is very good, Mma,’ said Mma Ramotswe. She wanted to rise from her chair and embrace her assistant. She wanted to say to her: We are back again in the team that has always worked so well. She wanted to say to her: You were only away for a very short time, Mma, but I’ve missed you so much; I’ve missed your odd remarks; I’ve missed your talking shoes; I’ve missed your going on and on about the Botswana Secretarial College; I’ve missed everything, Mma, everything. But she did not – she simply said what she said and smiled. For once again she sensed that our heart is not always able to say what it wants to say and frequently has to content itself with less.

The extraction of the tiny white van, now spattered brown with mud, was arranged by Mma Makutsi, who telephoned one of Phuti’s men. He came round with a four-wheel-drive truck that pulled the van out of the mud with ease while the two women shouted encouragement from the veranda. After that, Mma Ramotswe decided not to go back to the office. She had left the
Back Sometime
notice on the door – the notice that she displayed when there was a chance that she might return that day but when there was also a chance that she would decide to do something impulsive. That often turned out to be a drive out to Mochudi, for no reason other than a desire to get back to the village where she had been brought up and which was, in a sense, her real home.

But it was not the prospect of a drive to Mochudi that made her choose not to go back to the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency that afternoon; rather, it was a sense of excitement and anticipation, a feeling bordering on joy, about Mma Makutsi’s return to work. Admittedly there was an aspect of this return that gave cause for concern – the bringing of Itumelang Clovis Radiphuti into the office might prove to be awkward – but any difficulties would no doubt be sorted out. People took babies everywhere, and babies seemed to be happy enough with such arrangements. And Mma Makutsi, surely, would be reasonably flexible if the baby proved to be too much of a distraction in the office. The important thing was that she would be around for at least a couple of hours each day, and that would make all the difference.

Mma Ramotswe wondered where Itumelang would be put. Mma Makutsi had mentioned a portable crib that could be brought in and set up near her desk. It was a good spot, as the light from the window was blocked by Mma Makutsi’s own desk and so the baby would not get too hot. Of course, one of the drawers in the filing cabinet could be cleared out and he could be placed there on folded blankets… It would be entirely appropriate if such a devotee of filing as Mma Makutsi were to place her baby there, under
BABIES
perhaps, or some other suitable category. She smiled. It was an absurd thought, but one never knew with Mma Makutsi, and stranger things had happened.

Determined not to return to the office, she was briefly tempted to drive over to see Mma Potokwani. She had not seen the matron for some time, and it would be pleasant to spend half an hour or so with her over a cup of tea and a slice of fruitcake. But then she remembered that she had to call in at the bank to deposit a cheque. She was not far from the Riverwalk now, where there was a branch of the bank, and she could go there before heading home and indulging in the luxury of a rest. The children would not be home until shortly after four and the house would be quiet. There were three or four magazines that had been passed on to her by her friend Mma Moffat, and she could page through these while lying on her bed, until sleep caught up with her and the magazines fell from her hand. It was exactly the sort of afternoon to which she liked to treat herself, and this was a perfect day for it. After her rest she could spend some time working in the garden now that the ground had been refreshed by the rain and was soft and receptive.

She parked the tiny white van at Riverwalk. A shopping cart had been left in a parking place, where an unwary driver might easily reverse into it. She started to wheel this cart out of harm’s way, but what she saw lying on the bottom of the cart made her stop: there were several leaflets, the usual bright detritus – money-off coupons, a loud listing of cut-price tinned foods – and, strangely, what looked like a homemade notice with
Be Warned!
printed across the top in large letters.

Her curiosity was aroused. It is not easy to ignore a notice headed:
Be Warned!
Be warned about what? There were so many dangers in the world and always plenty of people warning you about them. It was difficult, she felt, to do anything without being warned by somebody about the dangers of whatever it was that you were about to do. Even walking was risky, especially while wearing the sort of high-heel shoes favoured by Mma Makutsi. It would be easy to find that a heel had become trapped – in a grid, for example, or a hole in the ground – and then you might be felled as surely as if somebody had come and chopped you down. And breathing had its dangers too: she remembered all those years ago in Mochudi being told by one of her classmates that she had almost lost a brother when he had breathed in a number of flying ants that had blocked his air passages. An unlikely story, perhaps, but one that lingered in the back of the mind.