Alexander Smith - Tea Time for the Traditionally Built People

“I'm very sorry,” said Fanwell suddenly.

Mma Ramotswe looked up in surprise. “What have you done?”

“No, I've done nothing, Mma. I'm very sorry about your late van.”

Mma Ramotswe sighed. “You're very kind, Fanwell. You're kind to say that.” Charlie, she had noticed, had said nothing about the end of her tiny white van, had even smiled over it, she recalled. But she was not vindictive, and there was no point in going into any of that.

“When we towed it away, I felt very sad,” Fanwell went on. “To think of all the times that van had carried you home and then back to the office. It must have been very sad for you, Mma.”

“It was,” said Mma Ramotswe. She had not seen the van being towed away, but it was no longer parked next to the garage, and she assumed that the deed had been done. She hardly dared ask about the physical fate of the van, but now she decided that perhaps she should. She had counselled Mma Makutsi that it was best to talk; well, perhaps it was best for her to talk too, in her case about the van's fate.

She asked Fanwell what had happened, and he explained. “We did it this morning,” he said. “While you were away somewhere in your new van. The boss drove the truck and I steered your van. We took it to that man who finds spare parts from scrapped cars. Harry Moloso. He has that place in the industrial site, over that side. I sometimes go and get spares there. He is a fat man who drinks a lot of beer and has a stomach that goes out like this. That is where we took it.”

Mma Ramotswe listened to this with a growing feeling of emptiness. It was not a dignified end for her tiny white van-to be handed over ignominiously to Harry Moloso with his beer belly and his oxyacetylene torch waiting in the background, every bit the cruel instrument of torture. She shuddered.

Fanwell whistled. “It's a pity about your van, Mma,” he said. “Maybe it could have been fixed after all. If one could find the parts. A big job, though.”

Mma Ramotswe was silent, and Fanwell looked at her, smiling. “Very big job. But there must be some of them somewhere. If you looked hard enough.”

Mma Ramotswe took a pencil in her hand and played with it gently between her thumb and forefinger. “Parts?”

“Yes,” said Fanwell. “You'd need to get… Oh, it's a long list, Mma. Not worth doing, which is what the boss said when we opened it up. He's right, I think.”

It was the smallest of straws, but a straw nonetheless. “But it could be done? You could find the parts somewhere, do you think?”

Fanwell nodded. “You'd start at Harry Moloso's. He must have had vans like that going through. He must have some of the parts. And Harry Moloso knows everybody in the parts business, Mma. He can phone Johannesburg if necessary and speak to somebody there. Or Francistown, Mafikeng -anywhere. He has the contacts.” He smiled. “Me-I have no contacts. None.”

Mma Ramotswe looked down at her desk. Was it worth it? She loved that van, and although the new van was very comfortable and efficient, were comfort and efficiency the only things in this life? She thought they were not. If they were, then would she and Mma Makutsi be doing what they were now doing, working for very little money in a funny little office next to a garage? She could get a far more comfortable job, she thought, and Mma Makutsi had Phuti to look after her-if she still had him, that is- and she would soon have no need to work. No, comfort was not the only thing. They worked in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency because they wanted to help people with the problems in their lives. And they sat in these old chairs because they had always sat in them and they felt loyal to the things that had served them well. The tiny white van had served her well, and it had been towed off to Harry Moloso's scrapyard; that had been its reward.

She looked up at Fanwell, who was watching her, a smile playing at the edges of his mouth. She took a deep breath. “Do you think…” she began.

The apprentice had anticipated her question. “Yes,” he said. “I could try.”

She let out her breath. “Can we go round there some time? Not today, but some time soon?”

Fanwell made a gesture that implied that whatever Mma Ramotswe wanted to do would be convenient to him. “I can't guarantee anything, Mma Ramotswe,” he said.

“Who can guarantee anything?” asked Mma Ramotswe in reply.

Fanwell laughed. “Your sign out there says satisfaction guaranteed, doesn't it? The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency-Under Personal Supervision-Satisfaction Guaranteed.”

“I suppose, that is, we'd like to guarantee,” said Mma Ramotswe. She felt that she wanted to get up and hug this young man, but she could never do that. She imagined for a moment hugging him and then Mma Makutsi coming back into the office and misinterpreting what she saw. She would have to say, But I was just hugging him for sheer joy, Mma, and Mma Makutsi would tactfully say, Of course, Mma, of course.

AT THE TIME that Fanwell and Mma Ramotswe were having their conversation about the tiny white van, Mma Makutsi was at the River Walk shops, walking through the concourse that led to the supermarket. The shops on either side of her were all tempting in their various ways-except for the outdoor clothing shop, for which she had no time at all. She had no interest in bush clothing-all those ridiculous jackets with too many pockets and slouch hats and so on. She did not like the bush very much; she was prepared to accept that there were some who did, but Mma Makutsi was one for urban comforts. There were things in the bush that could bite one-and did, if they had the chance. And of course if one ventured into the real bush, the remote tracts of land that stretched out to the northern reaches of the country, the great plains and the mopani forests, there were creatures that could make a person feel very uncomfortable indeed. Mma Makutsi knew about this because one of her forebears, her grandfather on her mother's side, had been attacked by a lion outside Maun. He was a driver for a company that carted provisions from Francistown to the Delta, and he had stopped en route in a small village where he had a cousin. As he prepared to leave before dawn, he had been set upon by a large lioness that had mauled him badly, before the villagers, hearing his screams, had come out brandishing sticks. Mma Makutsi had been deeply affected by this story when she was a small girl, and had been nervous of the bush since then.

Of course there was no danger of lions in Gaborone, in the River Walk shopping centre, but who knew what lurked just beyond the edge of the town? The dam was not far away, after all, and beyond the dam there was a stretch of country where great antelopes might be seen-kudu and eland-and if they were there, then why should there not be the creatures that preyed on them-lions and leopards? And were there not crocodiles in the dam, no matter what people said about there being none? Crocodiles… She stopped. The supermarket was just round the corner but here, at her right hand, was the window of a shoe shop, and there, on a small display stand, was a pair of what looked like crocodile-leather shoes.

Mma Makutsi stopped to peer through the window. It was difficult to tell with leather-the shoes at the front of the display were definitely ostrich skin, one could see that from the tiny bumps-but those on the stand had a very different texture. Could they be hippo skin? Surely not. She had never heard of hippo hide being used to make shoes, and she doubted whether it would appeal very much. She could not imagine herself saying, These are my new hippo-hide shoes; that conveyed entirely the wrong impression. Perhaps Mma Ramotswe could wear hippo-hide shoes; perhaps it was just the right leather for the shoes of traditionally built people.