Alexander Mccall Smith - Ladies' Detective Agency 05 (24 page)

By the time they drew up at the
orphan farm, the trees outside the office already had cars under them, and they
were obliged to leave the tiny white van out on the road. People had obviously
already begun to arrive, and some of the children were on duty at the gate,
standing smartly and greeting the guests, telling them where they should go for
tea and cake before the jump took place. Some of the younger children were
wearing cardboard aeroplane badges which they had cut out and coloured
themselves, and some of these were on sale for two pula at a small table under
a tree.

Mma Potokwane saw them from her office, and she rushed out to
meet them just as Mr J.L.B. Matekoni and the younger apprentice arrived in the
truck. Then Dr Moffat arrived, with his wife, in his pick-up truck, and Mma
Potokwane immediately seized him and led him off to look at one of the children
who had developed a high fever and was being watched over by her housemother.
Mrs Moffat stayed with Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi and together they made
their way to the spot under a wide jacaranda tree where two of the housemothers
were dispensing heavily-sugared tea from a very large brown tea-pot. There was
cake too, but it was not free. Mma Ramotswe bought a slice for all of them and
they sat down on stools and drank the tea and ate the cake while further
spectators arrived. Then, after half an hour or so, they heard the distant
drone of an aircraft engine and the children began to squeal with excitement,
pointing at the sky to the west. Mma Ramotswe looked up, straining her eyes;
the sound was clear enough now, and yes, there it was, a small plane, white
against the great empty sky, much higher than she had imagined it would be. How
small we must all look from up there, she thought; and poor Charlie, for all
his faults, now just a tiny dot in the sky, a tiny dot that would come tumbling
down to the hard earth below.

“I shouldn’t have asked him
to do this,” she said to Mma Makutsi. “What if he’s
killed?”

Mma Makutsi put a reassuring hand on Mma
Ramotswe’s forearm. “He won’t be,” she said.
“These things are very safe these days. They check everything two or
three times.”

“But it still might not open. And what if he
freezes with shock and doesn’t pull the cord? What then?”

“His instructor will be jumping with him,” soothed Mma Makutsi.
“He would dive down and pull the cord for him. I saw a picture in the
National Geographic
of that being done. It is very easy for these
people.”

They became silent as the plane passed overhead. Now
they could see the markings underneath the wings and the undercarriage, and
then the opening door and a figure and a blur of shapes. Suddenly there were
two little packages, but packages with arms and legs flailing about in the
rushing wind, and some of the children shrieked and pointed upwards. Mr J.L.B.
Matekoni looked up too, and gulped, imagining that it could have been him up
there, and remembering that disturbing dream. Mma Ramotswe closed her eyes, and
then opened them again, and still the figures were falling against the empty
sky, and she thought: his parachute is not going to open, and she clutched at
Mma Makutsi who had muttered something under her breath, a prayer perhaps.

But the parachutes did open, and Mma Ramotswe let out her breath and felt
weak at the knees. Mrs Moffat smiled at her and said, “I was worried
then. It seemed such a time,” and Mma Ramotswe was too overcome to say
anything in response, but vowed to herself that she would make it up to this
boy in the future; she would be kind to him and not be so impatient at the
irritating things he said and did.

As they drifted down, floating
beneath the great white canopies, the two figures separated. One of them waved
to the other, and seemed to be gesturing, but the other did nothing and
continued to float away. The gesturing one was now getting fairly close to the
ground, and within seconds he had landed in the field, scarcely a few hundred
yards from the spectators. There was a cheer, and the children ran forward, in
spite of the calls from the housemothers to stay where they were until the
second parachutist had landed safely.

They need not have worried. The
other parachutist, now revealed to be Charlie, had so drifted off course that
he did not land in the field at all, but disappeared behind the tree tops of
the scrub bush on the other side. The spectators watched silently as this
happened, and then people turned to one another in uncertainty.

“He will be dead,” cried out one of the smaller children.
“We must fetch a box.”

IT WAS Mr J.L.B.
Matekoni, Mma Potokwane’s husband, and the instructor (not freed of his
equipment) who discovered Charlie. He was hanging a few feet above the ground,
his parachute covering the upper branches of a large acacia tree, snagged and
snared by the thorny limbs of the tree. He shouted out to them as they
approached, and the instructor soon had him out of the harness and down on the
ground.

“That was a soft landing,” said the instructor.
“Well done. You were just a bit off target, that’s all. I think you
were pulling on the wrong side of the canopy. That’s why you sailed off
here.”

The apprentice nodded. He had a curious expression on his
face, half way between sheer relief and pain.

“I think that I am
injured,” he said.

“You can’t be,” said the
instructor, dusting down the green parachute suit. “The tree completely
broke your fall.”

The apprentice shook his head. “There is
something hurting me. It is very sore. It is there. Please see what it
is.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked at the seat of Charlie’s
trousers. There was a large rip in the fabric and a very nasty-looking acacia
thorn, several inches long, embedded in the flesh. Deftly he took this between
his fingers and extracted it with one swift movement. The apprentice gave a
yelp.

“That was all,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “A big
thorn …”

“Please do not tell them,” said the
apprentice. “Please do not tell them where it was.”

“Of course I will not,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “You are
a brave, brave young man.”

The apprentice smiled. He was
recovering from his shock now. “Are the newspaper people there?” he
asked. “Did they come?”

“They are there,” said
Mma Potokwane’s husband. “And many girls too.”

Back
under the trees he received a hero’s welcome. The children ran round him,
tugging at his sleeves, the housemothers fussed over him with mugs of tea and
large slices of cake, and the girls looked on admiringly. Charlie basked in the
glory of it all, smiling at the photographers when they approached with their
cameras, and patting children on the head, just as an experienced hero might
do. Mma Ramotswe watched with amusement, and considerable relief, and then went
off to talk to Mma Holonga, whom she had spotted arriving rather late, when the
jump had already taken place. She took her client a mug of tea and led her to a
private place under a tree, where they could both sit in privacy and talk.

“I have started making enquiries for you,” she began. “I
have spoken to two of the men on your list and I can give you a report on what
I have found out so far.”

Mma Holonga nodded. “Well, yes. I
must say that there have been developments since I saw you. But tell me anyway.
Then I shall tell you what I have decided to do.”

Mma Ramotswe
could not conceal her surprise. What was the point of consulting her if Mma
Holonga was going to make a decision before receiving even a preliminary
report?

“You’ve decided something?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Mma Holonga, in a matter-of-fact voice. “But
you go ahead and tell me what you found out. I’m very
interested.”

Mma Ramotswe began her account. “A few days
ago I met your Mr Spokesi,” she said. “I had a conversation with
him and in the course of this conversation I realised that he was not being
honest with you. He is a man who likes younger ladies and I do not think that
he is serious about marrying you. I think that he would like to have a good
time using your money, and then he would go back to the other ladies. I’m
sorry about that, Mma, but there it is.”

“Of course,”
said Mma Holonga, tossing back her head. “That man is very vain and is
interested only in himself. I think I knew that all along. You have confirmed
my views, Mma.”

Mma Ramotswe was slightly taken aback by this.
She had expected a measure of disappointment on Mma Holonga’s part, an
expression of regret, instead of which Mr Spokes Spokesi, who must have been a
lively suitor, was being consigned to oblivion quite insouciantly.

“Then there is the teacher,” Mma Ramotswe went on. “Mr
Bobologo. He is a much more serious man than that Spokesi person. He is a
clever man, I think; very well-read.”

Mma Holonga smiled.
“Yes,” she said. “He is a good man.”

“But
a very dull one too,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And he is interested only
in getting hold of your money to use for his House of Hope. That is all that
interests him. I think that …”

Mma Ramotswe tailed off.
Her words were having a strange effect on Mma Holonga, she thought. Her client
was now sitting bolt upright, her lips pursed in disapproval of what Mma
Ramotswe was telling her.

“That is not true!” Mma Holonga
expostulated. “He would never do a thing like that.”

Mma
Ramotswe sighed. “I am sorry, Mma. In my job I often have to tell people
things that they do not want to hear. I think that you might not want to hear
what I have to say, but I must say it nonetheless. That is my duty. That man is
after your money.”

Mma Holonga stared at Mma Ramotswe. She rose
to her feet, dusting at her skirts as she did so. “You have been very
good, Mma,” she said coldly. “I am very grateful to you for finding
out about Spokesi. Oh yes, you have done well there. But when it comes to my
fiancé, Mr Bobologo, you must stop talking about him in this way. I have
decided to marry him, and that is it.”

Mma Ramotswe did not know
what to say and for a few moments she struggled with herself. Clovis Andersen,
as far as she could remember, had never written about what to do in this
precise situation and she was thrown back on first principles. There was her
duty to her client, which was to carry out the enquiries which she had been
asked to conduct. But then there was her duty to warn—a simple human duty
which involved warning somebody of danger which they were courting. That duty
existed, of course, but at the same time one should not be paternalistic and
interfere in matters in which another person wished to choose for themselves.
It was not for Mma Ramotswe to make Mma Holonga’s decisions for her.

She decided to be cautious. “Are you sure about this, Mma?” she
asked. “I hope that you do not think I am being rude in asking, but are
you sure that you wish to marry this man? It is a very major
decision.”

Mma Holonga seemed to be pacified by Mma
Ramotswe’s tone, and she smiled as she replied. “Well, Mma, you are
right about its being a very major decision. I am well aware of that. But I
have decided that my destiny lies with that man.”

“And you
know all about his … his interests?”

“You mean his
good works? His work for others?”

“The House of Hope. The
bar girls …”

Mma Holonga looked out over the orphan farm
field, as if searching for bar girls. “I know all about that. In fact, I
am very much involved in that good work. Since I came to see you, he has shown
me the House of Hope and I have been doing work there. I have started
hair-braiding classes for those bad girls and then they can come and work in my
salons.”

“That is a very good idea,” said Mma
Ramotswe. “And then there is the possible extension …”

“That too,” interrupted Mma Holonga. “I shall be paying
for that. I have already talked to a builder I know. Then, after that is done,
I am going to build a House of Hope out at Molepolole, for bad girls from that
region. That was all my idea, not Bobologo’s.”

Mma Ramotswe
listened to all this and realised that she was in the presence of a woman who
had found her vocation. So there was nothing more for her to say, other than to
congratulate her on her forthcoming marriage and to reflect on the truth that
when people ask for advice they very rarely want your advice and will go ahead
and do what they want to do anyway, no matter what you say. That applied in
every sort of case; it was a human truth of universal application, but one
which most people knew little or nothing about.

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

A VERY RICH CAKE IS SERVED

A
FTER SHE had finished her surprising discussion with Mma
Holonga, Mma Ramotswe moved over to join Mr J.L.B. Matekoni and Mma Makutsi,
who were sitting at a table under a tree near the children’s dining room.
More tea had been produced and was being served by the housemothers, and Mma
Ramotswe noticed that there were many people in the crowd whom she knew.
Indeed, some of them were relatives of hers; her cousin and husband, for
example, and some of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s people. Mma Potokwane had
obviously been very active in gathering people for the parachute drop.