Alexander Smith - The Full Cupboard of Life

“That is a good number to choose from,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Not too large a list of men, but not too small.”

Mma Holonga seemed pleased by this. She looked at Mma Ramotswe uncertainly. “You do not think it strange to have a list, Mma? Some of my friends…”

Mma Ramotswe raised a hand to interrupt her. Many of her clients referred to advice from friends, and in her experience this advice was often wrong. Friends tried to be helpful, but tended to misadvise, largely because they had unrealistic ideas of what the friend whom they were advising was really like. Mma Ramotswe believed that it was usually better to seek the advice of a stranger-not just any stranger, of course, as one could hardly go out onto the street and confide in the first person one encountered, but a stranger whom you knew to be wise. We do not talk about wise men or wise ladies any more, she reflected; their place had been taken, it seemed, by all sorts of shallow people-actors and the like-who were only too ready to pronounce on all sorts of subjects. It was worse, she thought, in other countries, but it was beginning to happen in Botswana and she did not like it. She, for one, would never pay any attention to the views of such people; she would far rather listen to a person who had done something real in life; these people knew what they were talking about.

“I’m not sure if you should worry too much about what your friends think, Mma,” she said. “I think that it is a good idea to have a list. What is the difference between a list of things to buy at a shop, or a list of things to do, and a list of men? I do not see the difference.”

“I am glad that you think that,” said Mma Holonga. “In fact, I have been glad to hear everything that you have said.”

Mma Ramotswe was always embarrassed by compliments, and rapidly went on.

“You must tell me about this list,” she said. “And you must tell me about what you want me to do.”

“I want you to find out about these men,” said Mma Holonga. “I want you to see which men are interested in my money and which are interested in me.”

Mma Ramotswe clapped her hands in delight. “Oh, this is the sort of work I like,” she said. “Judging men! Men are always looking at women and judging them. Now we have the chance to do some judging back. Oh, this is a very good case to take on.”

“I can pay you very well,” said Mma Holonga, reaching for the large black handbag she had placed by the side of her chair. “If you tell me how much it will cost, I shall pay it.”

“I shall send you a bill,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That is what we do. Then you can pay me for my time.” She paused. “But first, you must tell me about these men, Mma. I shall need some information on them. Then I shall set to work.”

Mma Holonga sat back in her seat. “I am happy to talk about men, Mma. And now I shall begin with the first of these men.”

Mma Ramotswe looked into her tea cup. It was still half-full of bush tea. That would be enough to see her through one man, perhaps, but not four. So she reached forward, picked up the tea-pot, and offered to fill Mma Holonga’s cup before attending to her own. That was the old Botswana way of doing things, and that is how Mma Ramotswe behaved. Modern people could say what they liked, but nobody had ever come up with a better way of doing things and in Mma Ramotswe’s view nobody ever would.

IT WAS some time before it dawned on Mr J.L.B. Matekoni that Mma Potokwane may have thought that he was agreeing to her proposition. His own recollection of what had happened was very clear. He had said, “I shall think about it, Mma,” which is very different-as anybody could see-from saying that one would definitely do something. It might have been better had he refused her there and then, but Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was a kind man and like all kind men he did not enjoy saying no. There were many who had no such compunction, of course; they would refuse things outright, even if it meant hurting another’s feelings.

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni thought very carefully. After the initial bombshell, when Mma Potokwane had revealed what she had in mind, he had remained silent for a moment. At first, he thought that he had misheard her, and that she had said that she wanted him to fix a parachute, just as she was always asking him to fix some piece of equipment. But of course she had not asked him that, as there would have been plenty of people around the orphan farm who would be much better placed to fix a parachute than he. Fixing a parachute was a sewing job, he assumed, and most of the housemothers were adept at that; they were always sewing the orphans’ clothes, repairing rents in the seats of boys’ trousers or undoing the hems of skirts that were now a little bit too short. These ladies could easily have stitched up a torn parachute, even if the parachute would end up with a patch made out of a boy’s trousers. No, that was not what Mma Potokwane could have had in mind.

Her next remark made this clear. “It’s a very good way of raising money,” she had said. “The hardship project did it last year. That man from the radio-the well-known one with the funny voice-he agreed to jump. And then that girl who almost became Miss Botswana said she would jump too. They raised a lot of money. A lot.”

“But I cannot jump,” Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had protested. “I have never even been in an aeroplane. I would not like to jump from one.”

It was as if Mma Potokwane had not heard him. “It is a very easy thing to do. I have spoken to somebody in the Flying Club and they say that they can teach you how to do it. They have a book, too, which shows you how to put your feet when you land. It is very simple. Even I could do it.”

“Then why don’t you?” he had said, but not loudly enough to be heard, for Mma Potokwane had continued as if he had not spoken.

“There is no reason to be afraid,” she said. “I think that it will be very comfortable riding down in the air like that. They might drop you over one of our fields and I will get one of the housemothers to have a cake ready for you when you land. And we have a stretcher too. We can have that close by, just in case.”

“I do not want to do it,” Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had intended to say, but for some reason the words came out as, “I’ll think about it.”

And that, he realised, was where he had made his mistake. Of course it would be easy enough to undo. All that he would have to do would be to telephone Mma Potokwane and tell her, as unambiguously and as finally as he could, that he had now thought about it and he had decided that he would not do it. He would be happy to give some money to whomsoever she managed to persuade to do it for her, but that person, he was sorry to say, would not be him. This was the only way with Mma Potokwane. One had to be firm with her, just as he had been firm with her on the issue of the pump. One had to stand up to a woman like that.

The difficulty, of course, with standing up to women was that it appeared to make little difference. At the end of the day, a man was no match for a woman, especially if that woman was somebody like Mma Potokwane. The only thing to do was to try to avoid situations where women might corner you. And that was difficult, because women had a way of ensuring that you were neatly boxed in, which was exactly what had happened to him. He should have been more careful. He should have been on his guard when she offered him cake. That was her technique, he now understood; just as Eve had used an apple to trap Adam, so Mma Potokwane used fruit cake. Fruit cake, apples; it made no difference really. Oh foolish, weak men!

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked at his watch. It was nine o’clock in the morning, and he should have been at the garage by eight, at the latest. The apprentices had plenty to do-simple servicing tasks that morning-and he could probably leave them to get on with it, but he did not like to leave the business in their hands for too long. He looked out of the window. It was a comfortable sort of day, not too hot for the time of year, and it would be good to drive out into the lands somewhere and just walk along a path. But he could not do that, as he had his clients to think of. The best thing to do was to stop thinking about it, and to get on with the ordinary business of the day. There were exhaust pipes to be looked at, tyres to be changed, brake linings to be renewed; these were the things that really mattered, not some ridiculous parachute drop which Mma Potokwane had dreamed up and which he was not proposing to do anyway. That could be disposed of-with a little resolve. All he had to do was to lift up the telephone and say no to Mma Potokwane. He imagined the conversation.