The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party (6 page)

Mma Makutsi imagined Mma Ramotswe exploding. It would be like a large bottle of fizzy drink shaken up and then, as she put it so vividly, going pop! “One cannot go pop,” she had said. “It is not good for you.”

“No,” said Mma Ramotswe, “it is not. That is why it’s important to be able to talk to somebody.”

“Phuti is very careful about these things,” said Mma Makutsi. “If I tell him something, he never passes it on to anybody else. He sits there and listens, and then he comes up with some remark that is very helpful. He says, ‘What about this?’ or, ‘What about that?’ You know how men are, Mma. They often say ‘what about something or other.’ ”

Now, as she served the oxtail stew, she told Phuti about Mma Ramotswe’s meeting with Botsalo Moeti. He listened quietly, and was silent for a moment when she had finished.

“Envy,” he said.

She waited for him to explain further.

“Just envy,” he said. “That’s all.”

She had not thought of that. Mma Ramotswe had discussed the case with her on her return to the office, and they had both agreed that Mr. Moeti must have incurred the enmity of somebody who was cruel and spiteful enough to cut the tendons of his cattle; they had not thought of envy. But Mma Makutsi knew all about that; she had grown up in rural Botswana, and knew just how powerful envy could be in the country and in the villages. It was a familiar story.

“Somebody with fewer cattle,” she suggested.

Phuti nodded. “Or no cattle at all. Somebody who sees this Moeti doing well and growing fat. Somebody who thinks that it is not fair that he should have what he himself does not have. You know how it is, Grace.”

“I do. I have lived in the country. I remember a man having his grain store burned down because he had a much better crop than some other people.”

Phuti thought this a very apt example. “And who burned it
down? You don’t need to tell me: it was somebody who had a bad crop because they were too lazy to weed the ground or take away the stones. That is the sort of person who is envious.”

“So if Mma Ramotswe were to ask Mr. Moeti who is the laziest person in the district, then that will be the person she should look out for?”

Phuti smiled at the suggestion. “That’s one way, I suppose.”

Mma Makutsi warmed to the theme. “Sometimes the best answer to a difficult problem is the simplest one,” she said. “We had a case once when we had to find out who was stealing government food at a college. The answer was the husband of one of the cooks. And how did we find this out? We saw how fat he was getting.”

Phuti chuckled. “There you are. It seems that people give themselves away most of the time. They cannot hide things.”

“Not from the eyes of a detective,” said Mma Makutsi, with an air of satisfaction. “We are trained to spot things, you see.”

The conversation moved on to the wedding. A date had at last been set and preparations were being made. The bride price—a tricky issue—had finally been resolved, with a payment of twenty cattle being made by the Radiphuti family to the senior male member of the Makutsi family, Mma Makutsi’s father being long dead. The negotiations had been unusually prolonged, that same male person, an uncle with a curious broken nose, having initially made an outrageous demand for ninety-seven cattle, or the cash equivalent, on the grounds that the Radiphuti family was well off and Mma Makutsi had achieved the mark of ninety-seven per cent in the final examinations of the Botswana Secretarial College. This embarrassing demand had eventually been dropped, but only after Mma Makutsi had endured an emotionally draining meeting with her uncle, during which she accused him of threatening her future happiness.

“You cannot ask for that, Uncle,” she said.

“Why not? They are rich. Rich people have many cattle. Everybody knows that. And where do they get all that money? From other people—from ordinary people. So there is nothing wrong in getting some of it back.”

She had defended the Radiphuti family. “They are rich because they have worked hard. That store of theirs started very small—they have built it up through hard work.”

He appeared not to hear. “They can still give some of the money back.”

“It is their money, Uncle. They did not steal it. They earned it.”

“Rich people think that they can take all the money in the country and put it in their banks in Gaborone. I am just trying to fight back for ordinary people—that is all.”

It was no use arguing with him, so she simply issued a threat. “I am not going to stand by and be shamed by this sort of thing. If you are going to ask for that many cattle, then I am going to call this marriage off. I can easily find a poor man to marry.”

The prospect of losing the bride price altogether had alarmed him. “All right, I will only ask for twenty-five cattle.”

“Twenty.”

He had accepted this ungraciously, and the negotiations had resumed. Twenty cattle was still excessive, but it was a figure to which the Radiphuti family could agree.

That done, there was now no impediment to the marriage, and the preparations could begin in earnest. As was customary, there would be two celebrations: one in Gaborone at the home of the Radiphutis, and the other in Bobonong at the home of the Makutsi uncle with the broken nose. Phuti had tactfully offered to pay for both, and his offer had been rapidly accepted by the uncle. “It is right that they should pay for our party too,” he said. “With all that money they can easily afford it. I hope that they will
give us some new chairs too, for the guests to sit on. We only have four chairs, and there will be two hundred people there. Four chairs will not be enough.”

“You must not say anything to Phuti about this,” warned Mma Makutsi. “You cannot expect people to give you chairs. I will ask him, though, whether he can lend us some.”

“He has many chairs in that big store of his,” sniffed the uncle. “He should give us some.”

The guest list, as at all weddings, of whatever size, was also proving difficult. On the Radiphuti side there were three hundred and twenty relatives, and that excluded distant cousins who would certainly feel offended if not invited. If this class of distant relatives was included, then the number went up to five hundred and sixteen, with a few places being kept in reserve for relatives of whose existence the family was currently ignorant but who would step forward once the invitations had been issued. Fortunately the Makutsi side was much smaller, with eighty-three relatives appearing on the list agreed by Mma Makutsi and her uncle. To this grand total would have to be added friends and colleagues: Mma Ramotswe and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, of course, but also Mr. Polopetsi, who still worked in the garage occasionally, and, more controversially, Charlie and Fanwell. Fanwell’s grandmother had asked whether she could come, as it was a long time since she had been to a wedding and she had heard a great deal about Mma Makutsi from her grandson.

“All Botswana then!” Mma Makutsi had sighed. “The whole country. Maybe we should just put an advertisement in the
Botswana Daily News
and say that the whole country can come to the wedding and eat as much beef as it can manage. Maybe that is our patriotic duty now.”

“People are happy for you, Mma,” Mma Ramotswe had said soothingly. “That is why they wish to come to your wedding.”

“They like a large feast too,” said Mma Makutsi. “And free beer. That may be another reason why everybody wants to come.”

She and Phuti talked about the guest list that night after the oxtail stew had been finished and the plates cleared away. Then Phuti raised the issue of the wedding dress. “You can have whatever you like, Grace,” he said. “There is a woman at the store who knows somebody who makes very fine wedding dresses. You can choose whatever you like.”

Mma Makutsi looked down at the floor. She did not like to ask Phuti for money, and had been worried about the dress. “You will speak to this person?” she asked. “You will discuss the money?”

He had sensed her embarrassment and had reached over to take her hand. “Of course I will. I will tell her that I will pay the bill.”

“And shoes …”

“You will certainly need special shoes,” said Phuti.

“Mma Ramotswe has spoken about a pair she saw today. She said she thought they would be ideal—if they have them in my size.”

“Then you must buy them,” said Phuti. “Get them soon. Tomorrow, even. The wedding date is coming soon.”

She could not restrain herself, and leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. He seemed taken aback, and she heard him gasp. She pulled back, unsure of herself. She suddenly felt worried. Phuti had never been physically demonstrative with her. She had put this down to shyness on his part, something to do with his stutter, but now the thought crossed her mind: there were some men for whom the problem ran deeper. What if Phuti were to prove to be such a man?

There were no words in the vocabulary of polite Botswana to express such an intimate matter. Women spoke among themselves of such things, and perhaps men did too. But it was not a subject
that a couple like Mma Makutsi and Phuti Radiphuti could easily broach. Perhaps she could ask Mma Potokwane about it. It was too awkward a subject to raise with Mma Ramotswe, but Mma Potokwane was, after all, a qualified matron and had trained as a nurse—even if many years ago—at the Princess Marina Hospital. She would be able to speak to Phuti about such matters, perhaps, and make sure that everything was all right.

Yes, she would ask her.

 
CHAPTER FIVE
 
 YOU KNOW A GIRL CALLED PRUDENCE?

I
T WAS STRANGE,
thought Mma Ramotswe, that you could go to sleep thinking one thing, and awake the following morning thinking quite another. And so it was with the question of Charlie.

“I’ve changed my mind, Mma Makutsi,” she said in the office the following day. “We need to tackle Charlie. So let’s not put it off. You speak to him today.”

Mma Makutsi needed no encouragement. “I am ready, Mma,” she said. “I will speak to him, but it will not just be me speaking.”

Mma Ramotswe asked her what that meant. It would not just be her speaking, Mma Makutsi reiterated; it would be all the women of Botswana. “I shall be speaking on behalf of all the women of Botswana who have been let down by men,” she proclaimed. “On behalf of girls whose boyfriends have pretended that babies have nothing to do with them. On behalf of women whose men go off to bars all the time and leave them at home with the children. On behalf of women whose husbands see other women. On behalf of women whose husbands lie and steal their money and eat all the food and …”

As she recited this litany of wrongs, the lenses of Mma
Makutsi’s large glasses caught the light, sending flashes like warning semaphore messages across the room. Had a man been present, he would have cowered; as it was, there was only Mma Ramotswe to hear the charge, and she nodded her agreement, even if somewhat awed by her assistant’s fervour.

“
Don’t frighten him too much, Mma,” she said. “What you have said is true, but we must remember that Charlie is a young man still and young men—”

“Should not be having twins,” shouted Mma Makutsi.

Mma Ramotswe raised an eyebrow. “Yes, Mma, you are right. But he is not all bad. There is something in there that is good—we have all seen it. We need to remind him of his responsibilities. We need to encourage him to take them on his shoulders.” She watched her assistant as she spoke; she hoped that the decision to get Mma Makutsi to speak to Charlie was the right one. Her assistant was forceful and could be intimidating, but she was also closer to Charlie in age, and it was possible that he would be more prepared to listen to her than to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni or to herself.

“I will call him in now,” said Mma Makutsi.

Mma Ramotswe asked her whether she wanted her to stay in the room or to find some excuse to go out.

“You stay, Mma. Then you can speak too if he will not listen.”

Mma Makutsi rose from her desk, adjusted her skirt, and crossed the room to the door that linked the office with the premises of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors beyond.

“Charlie!” she called out. “You’re wanted in the office.”

Charlie came in a few minutes later, wiping his hands. “Better be quick,” he said jauntily. “I’m working on a big, big car out there. Major technical problem. Ow! It’s no use me trying to explain it to you ladies—you wouldn’t understand.”

Mma Makutsi glared at him. “Oh yes? So you think that we don’t understand mechanical things. Well, I can tell you, Charlie, there are other things that we
do
understand.”

Charlie let out a whistle. “Keep your hair on, Mma. Only a little joke.”

“Well this isn’t a joke, Charlie,” Mma Makutsi snapped back. “You know a girl called Prudence?”

Charlie stiffened. The piece of paper towel on which he was wiping the grease from his hands fluttered slowly to the floor.

Mma Makutsi’s voice rose. “Well?”

“Maybe,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at Mma Ramotswe. “So what?”

“Maybe?” mocked Mma Makutsi. “Maybe these days you don’t have to know people to have babies with them. Maybe you just have to
maybe
know them!”