Alexander McCall Smith - Tea Time for the Traditionally Built (No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency)

Alexander McCall Smith

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

The tenth book in the N1 Ladies Detective agency series

2009

Mma Ramotswes ever-ready tiny white van has recently developed a rather disturbing noise. Of course, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoniher estimable husband and one of Botswanas most talented mechanicsis the man to turn to for help. But Precious suspects he might simply condemn the van and replace it with something more modern. And as usual, her suspicions are well-founded: without telling her, he sells the van and saddles his wife with a new, characterless vehiclea situation that must be remedied. And so she sets out to find the van, unaware, for the moment, that it has already been stolen from the man who bought it, making recovery a more complicated process than she had expected.

In the meantime, all is not going smoothly for Mma Makutsi in her engagement to Mr Phuti Radiphuti (to make matters worse, Violet Sephotho, who could not have gotten more than fifty percent on her typing final at the Botswana Secretarial School, is involved). And finally, the proprietor of a local football team has enlisted the N1 Ladies Detective Agency to help explain its dreadful losing streak: surely someone must be fixing the games, it cant just be a case of unskilled players.

And as we know, there are few mysteries that cant be solved and fewer problems that cant be fixed when Precious Ramotswe puts her mind to it.

Mr Molofololo

T raditionally built people may not look as if they are great walkers, but there was a time when Precious Ramotswe walked four miles a day. As a girl in Mochudi, all those years ago, a pupil at the school that looked down over the sprawling village below, she went to her lessons every morning on foot, joining the trickle of children that made its way up the hill, the girls in blue tunics, the boys in khaki shirts and shorts, like little soldiers. The journey from the house where she lived with her father and the older cousin who looked after her took all of an hour, except, of course, when she was lucky and managed to ride on the mule-drawn water cart that occasionally passed that way. The driver of this cart, with whom her father had worked in the gold mines as a young man, knew who she was and always slowed down to allow her to clamber up on the drivers seat beside him.

Other children would watch enviously, and try to wave down the water cart. I cannot carry all Botswana, said the driver. If I gave all you children a ride on my cart, then my poor mules would die. Their hearts would burst. I cannot allow that.

But you have Precious up there! called out the boys. Why is she so special?

The driver looked at Precious and winked. Tell them why you are special, Precious. Explain it to them.

The young Mma Ramotswe, barely eight, was overwhelmed by embarrassment.

But I am not special. I am just a girl.

You are the daughter of Obed Ramotswe, said the driver. He is a great man. That is why you are riding up here.

He was right, of courseat least in what he said about Obed Ramotswe, who was, by any standards, a fine man. At that age, Precious had only a faint inkling of what her father stood for; later on, as a young woman, she would come to understand what it was to be the daughter of Obed Ramotswe. But in those days, on the way to school, whether riding in state on the water cart or walking along the side of that dusty road with her friends, she had school to think about, with its lessons on so many subjectsthe history of Botswana, from the beginning, when it was known as Khamas country, across the plains of which great lions walked, to the emergence of the new Botswana, then still a chrysalis in a dangerous world; writing lessons, with the letters of the alphabet being described in white chalk on an ancient blackboard, all whirls and loops; arithmetic, with its puzzling multiplication tables that needed to be learned by heartwhen there was so much else that the heart had to learn.

The water cart, of course, did not pass very often, and so on most days there was a long trudge to school and a long walk back. Some children had an even greater journey; in one class there was a boy who walked seven miles there and seven miles back, even in the hottest of months, when the sun came down upon Botswana like a pounding fist, when the cattle huddled together under the umbrella shade of the acacia trees, not daring to wander off in search of what scraps of grass remained. This boy thought nothing of his daily journey; this is what you did if you wanted to go to school to learn the things that your parents had never had the chance to learn. And you did not complain, even if during the rainy season you might narrowly escape being struck by lightning or being washed away by the torrents that rose in the previously dry watercourses. You did not complain in that Botswana.

Now, of course, it was different, and it was the contemplation of these differences that made Mma Ramotswe think about walking again.

We are becoming lazy, Mma Ramotswe, said Mma Makutsi one afternoon, as they sipped their afternoon cup of redbush tea in the offices of the N1 Ladies Detective Agency. Have you noticed? We are becoming lazy.

Mma Ramotswe frowned. There were times when Mma Makutsi made statements that suffered from that classic flaw of all generalisationsthey were just too general. This observation, it seemed to her, could be such a remark.

Do you mean that you and I are becoming lazy? she asked her assistant. If you do, then I do not think thats right, Mma Makutsi. Take this morning, for instance. We finished that report on security at the loan office. And we wrote a lot of letters. Six, seven, I think. That is not being lazy.

Mma Makutsi raised a hand in protest. No, Mma, I did not mean that. I did not mean to say that you and I are becoming lazy. Or not specially lazy. I am talking about everybody.

Mma Ramotswe raised an eyebrow. The whole of Botswana?

Mma Makutsi nodded. Yes, the whole country. And its not just Botswana, Mma. We are no worse than anybody else. In fact, I am sure that there are many much lazier countries elsewhere. What I really meant was that people in general are becoming lazy.

Mma Ramotswe, who had been prepared to defend Botswana against Mma Makutsis accusations, relaxed. If the remark was about people in general, and not just about the residents of Gaborone, then Mma Makutsis theory could at least be heard out. Why do you say that people are becoming lazy, Mma? she asked.

Mma Makutsi glanced through the half-open door that led from the agency into the garage. On the other side of the workshop, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was showing his two apprentices an engine part. You see those two boys out there? she said. Charlie and

Fanwell, supplied Mma Ramotswe. We must start using his name. It is not kind to be forgetting it all the time.

Yes, Charlie andFanwell, said Mma Makutsi. It is a stupid name, though, dont you think, Mma? Why would anybody be called Fanwell?

Mma Ramotswe could not let this pass. Mma Makutsi was too hard on the two apprentices, particularly on the older one, Charlie. Words had passed between them more than once, including on the occasion when Charlie had called Mma Makutsi a warthog and made disparaging references to her large glasses. It had been quite wrong of him, and Mma Ramotswe had made that plain, but she had also acknowledged that he had been provoked. They are young men, she had said to Mma Makutsi. That is what young men are like, Mma. Their heads are full of loud music and thoughts of girls. Imagine walking around with all that nonsense in your head.