Ladies' Detective Agency 01 - The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (14 page)

She pushed
The Snakes of Southern Africa
back onto the shelf and rushed out into
the square. There were more people about now, as many people did their shopping
in the latter part of the afternoon, to escape the heat. She looked about her.
There were some teenagers a little way away, but they were boys. No, there was
a girl. But was it Nandira? No. She looked in the other direction. There was a
man parking his bicycle under a tree and she noticed that the bicycle had a car
aerial on it. Why?

She set off in the direction of the President Hotel.
Perhaps the girls had merely gone back to the car to rejoin the mother, in
which case, everything would be all right. But when she got to the car park,
she saw the blue car going out at the other end, with just the mother in it. So
the girls were still around, somewhere in the square.

Mma Ramotswe went
back to the steps of the President Hotel and looked out over the square. She
moved her gaze systematically—as Clovis Andersen
recommended—looking at each group of people, scrutinising each knot of
shoppers outside each shop window. There was no sign of the girls. She noticed
the woman with the rack of blouses. She had a packet of some sort in her hand
and was extracting what looked like a Mopani worm from within it.

“Mopani worms?” asked Mma Ramotswe.

The woman turned
round and looked at her.

“Yes.” She offered the bag to Mma
Ramotswe, who helped herself to one of the dried tree worms and popped it into
her mouth. It was a delicacy she simply could not resist.

“You
must see everything that goes on, Mma,” she said, as she swallowed the
worm. “Standing here like this.”

The woman laughed.
“I see everybody. Everybody.”

“Did you see two girls
come out of the Book Centre?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “One Indian girl
and one African girl. The Indian one about so high?”

The trader
picked out another worm from her bag and popped it into her mouth.

“I saw them,” she said. “They went over to the cinema.
Then they went off somewhere else. I didn’t notice where they were
going.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “You should be a
detective,” she said.

“Like you,” said the woman
simply.

This surprised Mma Ramotswe. She was quite well-known, but she
had not necessarily expected a street trader to know who she was. She reached
into her handbag and extracted a ten-pula note, which she pressed into the
woman’s hand.

“Thank you,” she said.
“That’s a fee from me. And I hope you will be able to help me again
some time.”

The woman seemed delighted.

“I can tell
you everything,” she said. “I am the eyes of this place. This
morning, for example, do you want to know who was talking to whom just over
there? Do you know? You’d be surprised if I told you.”

“Some other time,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I’ll be in
touch.”

There was no point in trying to find where Nandira had
got to now, but there was every point in following up the information that she
already had. So Mma Ramotswe went to the cinema and enquired as to the time of
that evening’s performance, which is what she concluded the two girls had
been doing. Then she returned to the little white van and drove home, to
prepare herself for an early supper and an outing to the cinema. She had seen
the name of the film; it was not something that she wanted to sit through, but
it had been at least a year since she had been to the cinema and she found that
she was looking forward to the prospect.

Mr Patel telephoned before she
left.

“My daughter has said that she is going out to see a friend
about some homework,” he said peevishly. “She is lying to me
again.”

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I’m
afraid that she is. But I know where she’s going and I shall be there,
don’t you worry.”

“She is going to see this
Jack?” shouted Mr Patel. “She is meeting this boy?”

“Probably,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But there is no point in
your upsetting yourself. I will give you a report tomorrow.”

“Early-early, please,” said Mr Patel. “I am always up at
six, sharp-sharp.”

THERE WERE very few
people in the cinema when Mma Ramotswe arrived. She chose a seat in the
penultimate row, at the back. This gave her a good view of the door through
which anybody entering the auditorium would have to pass, and even if Nandira
and Jack came in after the lights had gone down, it would still be possible for
Mma Ramotswe to pick them out.

Mma Ramotswe recognised several of the
customers. Her butcher arrived shortly after she did, and he and his wife gave
her a friendly wave. Then there was one of the teachers from the school and the
woman who ran the aerobics class at the President Hotel. Finally there was the
Catholic bishop, who arrived by himself and ate popcorn loudly in the front
row.

Nandira arrived five minutes before the first part of the
programme was about to start. She was by herself, and she stood for a moment in
the door, looking around her. Mma Ramotswe felt her eyes rest on her, and she
looked down quickly, as if inspecting the floor for something. After a moment
or two she looked up again, and saw that the girl was still looking at her. Mma
Ramotswe looked down at the floor again, and saw a discarded ticket, which she
reached down to pick up.

Nandira walked purposefully across the
auditorium to Mma Ramotswe’s row and sat down in the seat next to
her.

“Evening, Mma,” she said politely. “Is this seat
taken?”

Mma Ramotswe looked up, as if surprised.

“There is nobody there,” she said. “It is quite
free.”

Nandira sat down.

“I am looking forward to
this film,” she said pleasantly. “I have wanted to see it for a
long time.”

“Good,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It is
nice to see a film that you’ve always wanted to see.”

There
was a silence. The girl was looking at her, and Mma Ramotswe felt quite
uncomfortable. What would Clovis Andersen have done in such circumstances? She
was sure that he said something about this sort of thing, but she could not
quite remember what it was. This was where the subject crowded you, rather than
the other way round.

“I saw you this afternoon,” said
Nandira. “I saw you at Maru-a-Pula.”

“Ah, yes,”
said Mma Ramotswe. “I was waiting for somebody.”

“Then I saw you in the Book Centre,” Nandira continued.
“You were looking at a book.”

“That’s
right,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I was thinking of buying a
book.”

“Then you asked Mma Bapitse about me,” Nandira
said quietly. “She’s that trader. She told me that you were asking
about me.”

Mma Ramotswe made a mental note to be careful of Mma
Bapitse in the future.

“So, why are you following me?”
asked Nandira, turning in her seat to stare at Mma Ramotswe.

Mma
Ramotswe thought quickly. There was no point in denying it, and she may as well
try to make the most of a difficult situation. So she told Nandira about her
father’s anxieties and how he had approached her.

“He wants
to find out whether you’re seeing boys,” she said.
“He’s worried about it.”

Nandira looked pleased.

“Well, if he’s worried, he’s only got himself to blame if
I keep going out with boys.”

“And are you?” asked Mma
Ramotswe. “Are you going out with lots of boys?”

Nandira
hesitated. Then, quietly: “No. Not really.”

“But what
about this Jack?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “Who’s he?”

For a moment it seemed as if Nandira was not going to reply. Here was
another adult trying to pry into her private life, and yet there was something
about Mma Ramotswe that she trusted. Perhaps she could be useful; perhaps
…

“Jack doesn’t exist,” she said quietly.
“I made him up.”

“Why?”

Nandira
shrugged. “I want them—my family—to think I’ve got a
boyfriend,” she said. “I want them to think there’s somebody
I chose, not somebody they thought right for me.” She paused. “Do
you understand that?”

Mma Ramotswe thought for a moment. She felt
sorry for this poor, overprotected girl, and imagined just how in such
circumstances one might want to pretend to have a boyfriend.

“Yes,” she said, laying a hand on Nandira’s arm. “I
understand.”

Nandira fidgeted with her watchstrap.

“Are you going to tell him?” she asked.

“Well, do
I have much choice?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “I can hardly say that
I’ve seen you with a boy called Jack when he doesn’t really
exist.”

Nandira sighed. “Well, I suppose I’ve asked
for it. It’s been a silly game.” She paused. “But once he
realises that there’s nothing in it, do you think that he might let me
have a bit more freedom? Do you think that he might let me live my life for a
little without having to tell him how I spend every single minute?”

“I could try to persuade him,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I
don’t know whether he’ll listen to me. But I could try.”

“Please do,” said Nandira. “Please try.”

They watched the film together, and both enjoyed it. Then Mma Ramotswe
drove Nandira back in her tiny white van, in a companionable silence, and
dropped her at the gate in the high white wall. The girl stood and watched as
the van drove off, and then she turned and pressed the bell.

“Patel place here. What do you want?”

“Freedom,” she muttered under her breath, and then, more
loudly: “It’s me, Papa. I’m home now.”

MMA RAMOTSWE telephoned Mr Patel early the next
morning, as she had promised to do. She explained to him that it would be
better for her to speak to him at home, rather than to explain matters over the
telephone.

“You’ve got bad news for me,” he said,
his voice rising. “You are going to be telling me something bad-bad. Oh
my God! What is it?”

Mma Ramotswe reassured him that the news was
not bad, but she still found him looking anxious when she was shown into his
study half an hour later.

“I am very worried,” he said.
“You will not understand a father’s worries. It is different for a
mother. A father feels a special sort of worry.”

Mma Ramotswe
smiled reassuringly.

“The news is good,” she said.
“There is no boyfriend.”

“And what about this
note?” he said. “What about this Jack person? Is that all
imagination?”

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe simply.
“Yes, it is.”

Mr Patel looked puzzled. He lifted his
walking stick and tapped his artificial leg several times. Then he opened his
mouth to speak, but said nothing.

“You see,” said Mma
Ramotswe, “Nandira has been inventing a social life for herself. She made
up a boyfriend for herself just to bring a bit of … of freedom into her
life. The best thing you can do is just to ignore it. Give her a bit more time
to lead her own life. Don’t keep asking her to account for her time.
There’s no boyfriend and there may not even be one for some
time.”

Mr Patel put his walking stick down on the floor. Then he
closed his eyes and appeared deep in thought.

“Why should I do
this?” he said after a while. “Why should I give in to these modern
ideas?”

Mma Ramotswe was ready with her answer. “Because if
you don’t, then the imaginary boyfriend may turn into a real one.
That’s why.”

Mma Ramotswe watched him as he wrestled with
her advice. Then, without warning he stood up, tottered for a while before he
got his balance, and then turned to face her.

“You are a very
clever woman,” he said. “And I’m going to take your advice. I
will leave her to get on with her life, and then I am sure that in two or three
years she will agree with us and allow me to arra … to help her to find
a suitable man to marry.”

“That could easily happen,”
said Mma Ramotswe, breathing a sigh of relief.

“Yes,” said
Mr Patel warmly. “And I shall have you to thank for it all!”

MMA RAMOTSWE often thought about Nandira when
she drove past the Patel compound, with its high white wall. She expected to
see her from time to time, now that she knew what she looked like, but she
never did, at least not until a year later, when, while taking her Saturday
morning coffee on the verandah of the President Hotel, she felt somebody tap
her shoulder. She turned round in her seat, and there was Nandira, with a young
man. The young man was about eighteen, she thought, and he had a pleasant, open
expression.

“Mma Ramotswe,” said Nandira in a friendly
way. “I thought it was you.”

Mma Ramotswe shook
Nandira’s hand. The young man smiled at her.

“This is my
friend,” said Nandira. “I don’t think you’ve met
him.”

The young man stepped forward and held out his hand.

“Jack,” he said.

CHAPTER TEN

MMA RAMOTSWE THINKS
ABOUT
THE LAND WHILE DRIVING HER TINY
WHITE VAN TO FRANCISTOWN

M
MA RAMOTSWE drove her tiny white van before dawn along the sleeping
roads of Gaborone, past the Kalahari Breweries, past the Dry Lands Research
Station, and out onto the road that led north. A man leaped out from bushes at
the side of the road and tried to flag her down; but she was unwilling to stop
in the dark, for you never knew who might be wanting a lift at such an hour. He
disappeared into the shadows again, and in her mirror she saw him deflate with
disappointment. Then, just past the Mochudi turnoff, the sun came up, rising
over the wide plains that stretched away towards the course of the Limpopo.
Suddenly it was there, smiling on Africa, a slither of golden red ball, inching
up, floating effortlessly free of the horizon to dispel the last wisps of
morning mist.