Alexander Mccall Smith - Ladies' Detective Agency 05 Read Free Page B

now insisted on being
replaced, and the minivan in which the orphans were driven into town. This was
an old vehicle, exhausted by years of bumping along on the dusty road to the
orphanage, and had it not been for Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s expert hand, it
would have long since come to the end of its life. But it was a van which he
understood, and it was blessed with a Bedford engine that had been built to
last and last, like a strong old mule that pulls a cart. The orphan farm could
probably afford a new van, but Mma Potokwane saw no reason to spend money on
something new when you had something old which was still working.
    That
Saturday morning, as they sorted out the carpet pieces for the sale, Mma
Potokwane suddenly looked at her watch and saw that it was almost time for Mr
J.L.B. Matekoni to arrive. She had asked him whether he could come out to look
at a ladder which was broken and needed welding. A new ladder would not have
cost a great deal, and would probably have been safer, but why buy a new
ladder, Mma Potokwane had asked herself. A new ladder might be shiny, but would
hardly have the strength of their old metal ladder, which had belonged to the
railways and had been given to them almost ten years ago.
    She left the
housemothers discussing a round piece of green carpet and returned to her
office. She had baked a cake for Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, as she usually did, but
this time she had taken particular care to make it sweet and rich. She knew
that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni liked fruit cake, and particularly liked raisins, and
she had thrown several extra handfuls of these into the mixture, just for him.
The broken ladder might have been the ostensible reason for his invitation, but
she had other business in mind and there was nothing better than a cake to
facilitate agreement.
    When Mr J.L.B. Matekoni eventually did arrive,
she was ready for him, sitting directly in front of the fan in her office,
feeling the benefit of the blast of air from the revolving blades, looking out
of the window at the lushness of the trees outside. Although Botswana was a dry
country, at the end of the rainy season it was always green, and there were
pockets of shade at every turn. It was only at the beginning of the summer,
before the rains arrived, that everything was desiccated and brown. That was
when the cattle became thin, sometimes painfully so, and it broke the heart of
a cattle-owning people to see the herds nibbling at the few dry shreds of grass
that remained, their heads lowered in lassitude and in weakness. And it would
be like that until the purple clouds stacked up to the east and the wind
brought the smell of rain—rain which would fall in silver sheets over the
land.
    That, of course, was if the rain came. Sometimes there were
droughts, and a whole season would go by with very little rainfall, and the
dryness would become an ache, always there, like dust in the throat. Botswana
was lucky of course; she could import grain, but there were countries which
could not, for they had no money, and in those places there was nothing to
stand between the people and starvation. That was Africa’s burden, and by
and large it was borne with dignity; but it still caused pain to Mma Potokwane
to know that her fellow Africans faced such suffering.
    Now, though,
the trees were covered with green leaves, and it was easy for Mr J.L.B.
Matekoni to find a shady place for his car outside the orphan farm offices. As
he emerged from the car, a small boy came up to him and took his hand. The
child looked up at him with grave eyes, and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni smiled down on
him. Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew a handful of wrapped peppermints,
and slipped these into the palm of the child’s hand.
    “I saw
you there, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni,” said Mma Potokwane, as her visitor
entered her room. “I saw you give sweets to that child. That child is
cunning. He knows you are a kind man.”
    “I am not a kind
man,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “I am an