The Good Husband of Zebra Drive Read Free

disclosure; Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked at the ceiling when something needed to be said. She said nothing, waiting for him to speak.
    â€œThere’s something I meant to mention to you,” he said casually. “I forgot to tell you about it yesterday. You were in Molepolole, you see.”
    She nodded. “Yes, I went to Molepolole.”
    His eyes were still fixed on the ceiling. “And Molepolole? How was Molepolole?”
    She smiled. “You know what Molepolole is like. It gets a bit bigger, but not much else has changed. Not really.”
    â€œI’m not sure that I would want Molepolole to change too much,” he said.
    She waited for him to continue. Something important was definitely about to emerge, but with Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni these things could take time.
    â€œSomebody came to see you at the office yesterday,” he said. “When Mma Makutsi was out.”
    This surprised Mma Ramotswe and, in spite of her equable temperament, irritated her. Mma Makutsi had been meant to be in the office throughout the previous day, in case a client should call. Where had she been?
    â€œSo Mma Makutsi was out?” she said. “Did she say where?” It was possible that some urgent matter of business had arisen and this had required Mma Makutsi’s presence elsewhere, but she doubted that. A more likely explanation, thought Mma Ramotswe, was urgent shopping, probably for shoes.
    Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni lowered his gaze from the ceiling and fixed it on Mma Ramotswe. He knew that his wife was a generous employer, but he did not want to get Mma Makutsi into trouble if she had deliberately disobeyed instructions. And she had been shopping; when she had returned, just before five in the afternoon—a strictly token return, he thought at the time—she had been laden with parcels and had unpacked one of these to show him the shoes it contained. They were very fashionable shoes, she had assured him, but in Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s view they had been barely recognisable as footwear, so slender and insubstantial had seemed the criss-crossings of red leather which made up the upper part of the shoes.
    â€œSo she went shopping,” said Mma Ramotswe, tight-lipped.
    â€œPerhaps,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. He tended to be defensive about Mma Makutsi, whom he admired greatly. He knew what it was like to come from nowhere, with nothing, or next to nothing, and make a success of one’s life. She had done that with her ninety-seven per cent and her part-time typing school, and now, of course, with her well-heeled fiancé. He would defend her. “But there was nothing going on. I’m sure she had done all her work.”
    â€œBut something did turn up,” pointed out Mma Ramotswe. “A client came to see me. You’ve just said that.”
    Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni fiddled with a button on the front of his shirt. He was clearly embarrassed about something. “Well, I suppose so. But I was there to deal with things. I spoke to this person.”
    â€œAnd?” asked Mma Ramotswe.
    Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni hesitated. “I was able to deal with the situation,” he said. “And I have written it all down to show you.” He reached into a pocket and took out a folded sheet of paper, which he handed to Mma Ramotswe.
    She unfolded the paper and read the pencil-written note. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s handwriting was angular, and careful—the script of one who had been taught penmanship, as he had been, at school all those years ago, a skill he had never forgotten. Mma Ramotswe’s own handwriting was less legible and was becoming worse. It was something to do with her wrists, she thought, which had become chubbier over the years and which affected the angle of the hand on the paper. Mma Makutsi had suggested that her employer’s handwriting was becoming increasingly like shorthand and that it might eventually become indistinguishable from the system of pencilled