Alexander Smith - The Full Cupboard of Life

“Mma Ramotswe?”

She gave a start, looking about her. It was Mma Potokwane’s voice, but where was she?

“Here!” came the voice. “Under this tree! Here I am, Mma Ramotswe.”

The matron of the orphan farm was in the shade of a large mango tree, merging with the shadows. Mma Ramotswe had looked right past her, but now Mma Potokwane stepped out from under the drooping branches of the tree.

“I have been watching a special mango,” she said. “It is almost ready and I have told the children that they are not to pick it. I am keeping it for my husband, who likes to eat a good mango.” She dusted her hands on her skirts as she walked towards Mma Ramotswe. “Would you like to see this mango, Mma Ramotswe?” she asked. “It is very fine. Very yellow now.”

“You are very kind, Mma,” called out Mma Ramotswe. “I will come and see it some other time, I think. Right now there is something urgent to talk to you about. Something very urgent.”

Mma Potokwane joined her friend outside the office, and Mma Ramotswe quickly explained that she needed her to come to the garage, “to help with Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.” Mma Potokwane listened gravely and nodded her agreement. They could go straight away, she said. No, she would not need to fetch anything from her office. “All I need is my voice,” she said, pointing to her chest. “And it is all there. Ready to be used.”

They travelled back to the garage in the tiny white van, now heavily laden and riding low on its shock absorbers. Mma Ramotswe drove more quickly than she normally did, sounding the horn impatiently at indolent donkeys and children on wobbling cycles. There was only one hold-up-a small herd of rickety cattle, badly looked after by all appearances, which blocked the road until Mma Potokwane opened her window and shouted at them in a stentorian voice. The cattle looked surprised, and indignant, but they moved, and the tiny white van continued its journey.

They drew up at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors a few minutes after the arrival of Molefi. A large red truck was parked outside the garage, blocking the entrance, and on this was written FIRST CLASS MOTORS in ostentatious lettering. Mma Potokwane, to whom the situation had been explained by Mma Ramotswe on the way back, saw this and snorted.

“Big letters,” she murmured. “Big nothing.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. She was sure that the summoning of Mma Potokwane was the right thing to do and this remark made her even more certain. Now, as they negotiated their way round the aggressively parked truck and she saw Molefi standing in front of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, who was looking down at the ground as his visitor remonstrated with him, she realised that they had not arrived a minute too early.

Mma Potokwane bustled forward. “So,” she said. “Who do we find here in Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s garage? Molefi? It’s you, isn’t it? You’ve come to discuss some difficult mechanical problem with Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, have you? Come for his advice?”

Molefi looked round and glowered. “I am here on business, Mma. It’s business between me and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.” His tone was rude and he compounded the offence by turning his back on Mma Potokwane and facing Mr J.L.B. Matekoni again. Mma Potokwane glanced at Mma Ramotswe, who shook her head in disapproval of Molefi’s rudeness.

“Excuse me, Rra,” said Mma Potokwane, stepping forward. “I think that perhaps you might have forgotten who I am, but I certainly know exactly who you are.”

Molefi turned around in irritation. “Listen, Mma…”

“No, you listen to me, Rra,” Mma Potokwane said, her voice rising sharply. “I know you, Herbert Molefi. I know your mother. She is my friend. And I have often felt sorry for her, with a son like you.”

Molefi opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came.

“Oh yes,” went on Mma Potokwane, shaking a finger at him. “You were a bad little boy, and now you are a bad man. You are just a bully, that’s what you are. And I have heard this thing about the butcher’s car. Oh, yes, I have heard it. And I wonder whether your mother knows it, or your uncles? Do they know it?”

Molefi’s collapse was sudden and complete. Mma Ramotswe watched the effect of these words and saw the burly figure shrink visibly in the face of Mma Potokwane’s tongue-lashing.

“No? They have not heard about it?” she pressed on. “Well, I think I might just let them know. And you, you, Herbert Molefi, who thinks that he can go round bullying people like Mr J.L.B. Matekoni here, had better think again. Your mother can still tell you a thing or two, can’t she? And your uncles. They will not be pleased and they might just give their cattle to somebody else when they die, might they not? I think so, Rra. I think so.”

“Now, Mma,” said Molefi. “I am just talking to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, that is all I am doing.”

“Pah!” retorted Mma Potokwane. “Don’t you try to tell me your lies. You just shut that useless mouth of yours for a little while and let Mr J.L.B. Matekoni tell you what to do about that poor man you’ve cheated. And I’ll just stand here and listen, just in case. Then we’ll think about whether your people out at Tlokweng need to be told about this.”

Molefi was silent, and he remained silent while Mr J.L.B. Matekoni quietly and reasonably told him that he would have to make a refund to the butcher and that he should be careful in the future, as other garages in the town would be watching what he did. “You let us all down, you see,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “If one mechanic cheats, then all mechanics are blamed. That is what happens, and that is why you should change your ways.”

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe, making her first contribution. “You just be careful in future, or Mma Potokwane will hear of it. Do you understand?”

Molefi nodded silently.

“Has a goat eaten your tongue?” asked Mma Ramotswe.

“No,” said Molefi quietly. “I understand what you have said, Mma.”

“Good,” said Mma Potokwane. “Now the best thing you can do is to move that truck of yours and get back to your garage. I think that you will have an envelope in your office. That will do for the letter you are going to write to that man in Lobatse.” She paused before adding, “And send me a copy, if you don’t mind.”

There was not much more to be said after that. Molefi reversed his truck and drove angrily away. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni thanked Mma Potokwane, rather sheepishly, thought Mma Ramotswe, and the two women went into the office of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, where Mma Makutsi had boiled the kettle for tea. Mma Makutsi had listened to the encounter from the doorway. She was somewhat in awe of Mma Potokwane, but now she asked her a question.

“Is his mother that fierce?”

“I have no idea,” said Mma Potokwane. “I’ve only seen his mother; I’ve never met her, and I took a bit of a risk with that. But usually bullies have severe mothers and bad fathers, and they are usually frightened of them. That is why they are bullies, I think. There is something wrong at home. I have found that with children in general and this applies to men as well. I think that I shall have to write about that if I ever write a book about how to run an orphan farm.”

“You must write that book, Mma,” urged Mma Ramotswe. “I would read it, even if I was not planning to run an orphan farm.”

“Thank you,” said Mma Potokwane. “Maybe I shall do that one day. But at the moment I am so busy looking after all those orphans and making tea and baking fruit cake and all those things. There seems very little time for writing books.”

“That is a pity,” said Mma Makutsi. It had just occurred to her that she might write a book herself, if Mma Potokwane, of all people, was considering doing so. The Principles of Typing , perhaps, although that was not perhaps the most exciting title one might imagine. How to Get Ninety-Seven Per Cent . Now that was much, much better, and would be bought by all those people, those many, many people who would love to get ninety-seven per cent in whatever it was that they were doing and who knew that perhaps they never would. At least they could hope, which was an important thing. We must be able to hope. We simply must.