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

As she left, Lakshmi came up to her and took her hand. ‘Thank you, Mma,’ she said.

Mma Ramotswe returned the pressure on her hand. ‘I hope all goes well for you, my sister,’ she whispered.

She meant it. Sometimes such words are uttered as a matter of course; we wish people well when we have not really reflected on it and may even be indifferent to what happens. But she meant this – with all her heart she meant it. And even now she was thinking of what else she could possibly do to help, having declined to give her assistance in one respect. She wondered whether she would come up with something. Sometimes ideas came at totally unexpected times – when you were walking in your garden looking at Mr J. L. B. Matekoni’s beans, or when you were sitting on your veranda watching the sun sink over the tops of the acacia trees, or when you were simply looking up at the sky, so high, so pale, so empty. Ideas could come to you completely unbidden; suddenly they were there, ready to be invoked, ready to solve a problem that you thought was quite intractable. So it might be that an idea could come to resolve this rather sad situation; an idea that might seem improbable but might just work – such as getting in touch with Billy Pilane over in Johannesburg and saying to him: ‘Billy, would you be able to get somebody off the wanted list if you knew the true story and you knew that she did not deserve to be there…?’

Chapter Sixteen

You Don’t Want Handsome Men

When Mma Ramotswe arrived at the office the following morning, Charlie was already there, sitting on the empty oil drum at the side of the building, his eyes closed, sunning himself, humming a tune that she had often heard him hum before – an annoying little tune that had wormed its way into her mind too and would not be shooed away.

He opened his eyes when he heard her open the door of the tiny white van. ‘You see, Mma,’ he called out, ‘I am first here. I am Mr Keen, first class, one hundred per cent dedicated.’

She laughed. ‘I am glad that you are enjoying being…’ She was about to say ‘a secretary’, but she stopped herself. And anyway he said it.

‘I like being a secretary, Mma. It is a very cool thing to be.’

‘Oh, yes? Cool?’

Charlie lowered himself from his drum, dusted off his trouser legs, and joined her at the office door. ‘I have discovered that girls like men who are secretaries,’ he said. ‘I was speaking to one last night at a dance and when I told her that I was a secretary, she said, “Ow, you must be one of these new men.” So I said I was, and she said, “New men are very sexy – everybody knows that.” And so I said, “Yes, that is true. Everybody knows that.”’

Mma Ramotswe rolled her eyes. ‘I see. So you’re pleased.’

‘Very pleased.’

They entered the office together.

‘I have something to discuss with you, Charlie,’ said Mma Ramotswe.

‘Any time, Mma. A filing problem? Let me sort it out. A letter to dictate? I can write quite quickly even if I can’t do those stupid signs with a pencil that Mma Makutsi goes on about.’

‘Shorthand.’

‘Yes, shorthand. I do not need that rubbish. I can write quickly.’

Mma Ramotswe sat down at her desk and reached for a pencil. It was easier to talk about difficult things, she found, if she had a pencil in her hands. The pencil could be twirled between fingers and, if necessary, tapped on the desktop. She cleared her throat, gesturing for him to sit in the client’s chair in front of her desk.

‘Charlie, I wanted to talk about that accident the other day.’

Charlie’s eyes narrowed. ‘What accident?’

‘You know what I’m talking about. The dent my van received. That one.’

‘Ah,’ said Charlie. ‘That accident.’ He paused, concern passing over his face. ‘Has the van not been repaired properly? Do you want me to take it back?’

‘It’s fine,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘You can’t tell that it has been damaged.’

‘Good,’ said Charlie, and then added quickly, ‘So, no problem then.’

He was about to get up, but she signalled for him to remain seated. ‘You never really told me exactly what happened.’

Charlie shrugged. ‘There’s not much to say, Mma. The other driver didn’t stop at a stop sign.’

‘Yes, but it would be interesting to hear your report on it. Why don’t you tell me what happened? In your own words, of course.’

He clasped his hands together. She could see him squirm.

‘My words, Mma?’

Mma Ramotswe looked into his eyes. He looked away, his gaze falling to the floor.

‘Yes, Charlie?’

He drew in his breath. ‘I was driving along…’

‘Yes?’

‘I was driving along, you see…’

‘By yourself?’

He hesitated. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Maybe not. No, maybe I wasn’t by myself.’

‘Ah.’

‘I think I was with a friend. Yes, I remember now: I was with a friend. I was giving him a lift somewhere.’

‘Him?’

Charlie’s hands tightened their grip on each other. ‘Maybe it wasn’t a him. Maybe it was a lady. Yes, I think it might have been a lady.’

‘Or even a girl?’

He frowned. ‘Ladies, girls – all the same, Mma. One word covers both.’

‘So you had a girl in the cab.’

‘I was trying to help her, Mma. She had a long way to walk.’

Mma Ramotswe conceded the point. ‘That was kind of you, Charlie. And then what happened.’

He stared up at the ceiling, as if trying to dredge information from the furthest recesses of his memory. ‘It was a long time ago,’ he said.

‘Five days?’

‘That’s a long time when so much is happening, Mma. Five days is almost a whole week.’

She tapped the pencil on the desk. ‘Try to remember. I know it was a long time ago.’

He turned his gaze to meet hers. ‘I came to an intersection,’ he said flatly. ‘Then Mr Sengupta didn’t stop, and he hit me. So…’ He hesitated. ‘So, I lost sight of where the other car went. I didn’t really see the exact house.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I had picked up that girl, you see, Mma, and I was showing off to her.’

They looked at one another in silence. She noticed that his lower lip was quivering, and she made up her mind.

‘Then that’s all right, Charlie. You’ve told me the truth, and now we can forget about it.’

He had not expected this. When he spoke, his voice faltered. ‘You’re not angry, Mma?’

She shook her head. What was the point of anger? There were occasions when Mma Ramotswe, like all of us, could feel angry, but they were few – and they never lasted long. Anger, Obed Ramotswe had explained to her once, is no more than a salt that we rub into our wounds. She had never forgotten that – along with the things he said about cattle, and Botswana, and the behaviour of the rains. ‘I was, Charlie,’ she said quietly, ‘but not for long. I wanted to give you the chance to tell me yourself that you weren’t on your own, and now you have done that.’ She paused, allowing herself the faintest of smiles. ‘And as for accidents – there are so many things in Botswana that are in the wrong place. So we can’t help being involved in accidents, can we? And we can’t help being nice to young women, can we?’

The young man was almost too astonished to speak. But he just managed, ‘Yes, Mma, that is true.’

‘And now you can take a letter, Charlie. I shall dictate and you can write it down – then you can type it up.’

Charlie rapidly busied himself with his preparations. ‘Fire away, Mma,’ he said. ‘I am ready.’

And he thought: I would do anything for this woman – anything.

If the day started well for Charlie, it did not for Mma Makutsi. She was late arriving at work; Mma Ramotswe had dictated her letter and Charlie, inordinately proud of his handiwork, had typed it, handed it over for signing, and addressed the envelope by the time she came into the office.