Александр Макколл Смит - The Handsome Man's De Luxe Café

Mma Ramotswe explained why Charlie had to go. ‘I don’t think that Mr J. L. B. Matekoni was looking for an excuse,’ she said. ‘The garage has not been making much money recently and there hasn’t been enough work. I think that this really is the case.’

Mma Potokwani shook her head sadly. ‘We had to do the same thing last year,’ she said. ‘We had one too many men working on the farm. We couldn’t sell enough produce to justify his salary. I was very unhappy about it, but we had no choice, I’m afraid.’

‘Charlie took it very badly,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘He burst into tears and then…’

‘Yes, Mma?’

‘Then he said something about dying.’

Mma Potokwani sat back in her chair. ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘They do that.’

‘Who does it?’

‘Teenagers. They often say things like that.’

‘It made me very anxious,’ said Mma Ramotswe.

‘But they rarely do anything about it,’ went on Mma Potokwani.

‘Charlie isn’t really a teenager,’ pointed out Mma Ramotswe.

‘Not technically, Mma, but men can be teenagers until well into their twenties. I have read all about that.’ She paused. ‘And seen it, too.’

‘Well, he is very sad,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘So sad that I want to do something for him.’

Mma Potokwani now reached forward to cut the cake that her secretary had placed on a large plate on her desk. She cut two slices – a large one for herself, and a slightly larger piece for Mma Ramotswe.

‘You do not have to give me the biggest piece,’ said Mma Ramotswe.

‘But I do,’ said Mma Potokwani. ‘I have to give a good-sized piece of cake to a woman who is my guest. That is the rule.’

Mma Ramotswe toyed with the cake on her plate. Mma Potokwani noticed this and it told her that Mma Ramotswe was really troubled. ‘I’m going to give him a job,’ she blurted out.

Mma Potokwani’s eyes opened wide with surprise. ‘Charlie? Employ Charlie?’

Mma Ramotswe nodded. ‘There will always be some small piece of work to do in the agency.’

Mma Potokwani was incredulous. ‘For clients? But what will they think when they see you’ve put a young man like that on to their case?’

Mma Ramotswe shrugged. ‘He will be in the background.’

Mma Potokwani answered her own question. ‘I can tell you what they’ll think, Mma. They’ll say to themselves: we could get somebody like him just by going into some bar and picking the first young man we see. That’s what they’ll say, Mma Ramotswe. And then your business will become a joke.’

‘But —’

Mma Potokwani ignored her friend’s attempt to defend herself. ‘I think you’re making a big mistake, Mma. Your own business barely makes any profit – you’ve told me that yourself. What if it has another mouth to feed? You’ll go bankrupt, Mma. You and Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, and then where will you be?’

Mma Ramotswe said nothing for a few moments, and Mma Potokwani might well have concluded that her point had been taken to heart. But then she came up with her plan. ‘I know that we have very little money in my business account,’ she said. She paused. Somewhere outside, a go-away bird uttered its plaintive cry. ‘But you are forgetting, Mma, that I have many cattle.’

It was now Mma Potokwani’s turn to lapse into silence. This was dangerous territory; in Botswana, cattle mattered above all things: one did not talk lightly about disposing of a herd one had inherited, and even if Mma Ramotswe had sold a number of cows in order to set up her business, those that had been sold had soon been replaced by calves. Now, with good management and prudence, her herd was considerably larger than it had been. That did not mean, though, that cattle should be sold for so risky a venture as employing Charlie; nobody would see the merits in that.

Mma Ramotswe decided to anticipate Mma Potokwani’s objections. She knew these would come – and would be forcibly expressed unless she dealt with them in advance. ‘I know you disapprove,’ she said. ‘And I understand why.’

Mma Potokwani struggled with conflicting views. Mma Ramotswe was her friend and could not be allowed to do anything unwise without at least being warned in advance. On the other hand, her cattle were her affair and if she chose to use them to help somebody – even Charlie – then she should be allowed to do that. She closed her eyes. ‘They are your cattle, Mma. They are not mine. So you should do what you think is the right thing.’

Mma Ramotswe was staring at her friend. ‘I wondered…’ she began.

‘Yes, Mma?’

‘I wondered whether you might like to buy some of my cattle,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘Maybe five.’

The offer was met with a frown. ‘Me, Mma?’

‘You have some cattle, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Mma Potokwani hesitantly. ‘I do not have many. But there are some that my brother gave me.’

‘You could expand your herd,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘But only temporarily.’

‘Temporarily? I don’t think I understand, Mma.’

She explained her plan. ‘I would sell you these cows, and then, later on, I would buy them back. Two of them will have had calves by then. You keep the calves and I pay you back the money you paid for the cows in the first place.’

Mma Potokwani looked puzzled. ‘But why, Mma? This sounds like… almost like a loan.’

‘You could call it that.’

Mma Potokwani pressed for an explanation.

‘There isn’t enough money in the business to pay Charlie,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘And I think we have to do something for him.’ She paused. ‘Of course, you may not have the money to do this…’

She knew that this was unlikely. Mma Potokwani may not have been wealthy, but Mma Ramotswe knew that in the background there was a rural store of which she owned a half share, inherited from her mother. Those stores were profitable.

‘I do have a little spare cash,’ said Mma Potokwani. ‘And the way you put it, I can’t really lose, can I?’

‘I do not think so, Mma.’

‘But I will not take both calves,’ went on Mma Potokwani. ‘That would not be the right thing to do. You are my friend, Mma Ramotswe.’

‘And you are mine, Mma.’

‘Yes, and that is the reason why I cannot take both calves. I shall take one to pay for the grazing. You will get the other one back, with all the others – after you have paid me back the money, of course.’

‘Of course. You will get the money. And if I do not have it, then you keep the cattle.’

They shook hands on the arrangement and Mma Ramotswe prepared herself to leave.

‘You know, Mma,’ said Mma Potokwani as they walked back to the tiny white van. ‘There are two ways of looking at our problems in this life. One is with our head…’ And here she tapped her forehead. ‘And the other is with our heart.’ Her hand went to her bosom.

‘I know that,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘And I know that I am making this decision with my heart. I know it is the wrong thing to do.’

‘No,’ said Mma Potokwani. ‘It is never the wrong thing to do. Never.’ She reached out and stopped her friend. ‘You know something, Mma Ramotswe? Every decision I’ve made in this job – every single one – has been made with the heart rather than with the head.’

Mma Ramotswe smiled, and touched the matron’s hand gently. ‘I think I knew that, Mma,’ she said.

She went round to Charlie’s house that evening. The young man lived with an uncle and the uncle’s girlfriend in a two-room house in Naledi, the shabbiest part of town. The local council had done its best to provide basic services for the people of this straggling suburb: there was some lighting on the streets and stand pipes had been set up to give everyone water, but some of the houses were barely better than shanties, with tin roofs patched up here and there with tarpaulin or bits of salvaged timber. The uncle’s house was one of the better ones, being constructed of unpainted breeze blocks, but it was a world away from Mma Ramotswe’s home on Zebra Drive, and even further away from the spanking new establishment built by Mma Makutsi and Phuti Radiphuti.