CHAPTER FIVE

MORE CONVERSATIONS WITH SHOES

THIS IS A VERY BUSY DAY,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, wiping his hands on a small piece of lint. “There are so many things that I have to do and which I will not have the time to do. It is very hard.” He raised his eyes up to the sky, but not before casting a glance in the direction of Mma Ramotswe.

She knew that this was a request. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was not one to ask for a favour directly. He was always willing to help other people, as Mma Potokwane, matron of the orphan farm, knew full well, but his diffidence usually prevented him from asking others to do things for him. There was sometimes a call for help, however, disguised as a comment about the pressures which were always threatening to overcome any owner of a garage; and this was one, to which Mma Ramotswe of course would respond.

She looked at her desk, which was largely clear of papers. There was a bill, still in its envelope but unmistakably a bill, and a half-drafted letter to a client. Both of these were things that she would happily avoid attending to, and so she smiled encouragingly at Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.

“If there is anything I can do?” she asked. “I can’t fix cars for you, but maybe there’s something else?”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni tossed the greasy scrap of lint into the waste-paper basket. “Well, there is something, Mma,” he said, “now that you ask. And although it has something to do with cars, it doesn’t involve actually fixing anything. I know you are a detective, Mma Ramotswe, and not a mechanic.”

“I would like to be able to fix cars,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Maybe some day I will learn. There are many ladies now who can fix cars. There are many girls who are doing a mechanic’s apprenticeship.”

“I have seen them,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “I wonder if they are very different from …” He did not finish the sentence, but tossed his head in the direction of the workshop behind him, where the two apprentices, Charlie and the younger one—whose name nobody ever used—were changing the oil in a truck.

“They are very different,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Those boys spend all their time thinking about girls. You know what they’re like.”

“And girls don’t spend any time thinking about boys?” asked Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.

Mma Ramotswe considered this for a few moments. She was not quite sure what the answer was. When she was a girl she had thought about boys from time to time, but only to reflect on how fortunate she was to be a girl rather than a boy. And when she became a bit older, and was susceptible to male charm, although she occasionally imagined what it would be like to spend time in the company of a particular boy, boys as a breed did not occupy her thoughts. Nor did she talk about boys in the way in which the apprentices talked about girls, although it was possible that modern girls were different. She had overheard some teenagers—girls of about seventeen—talking among themselves one day when she was looking for a book in Mr Kerrison’s new book shop, and she had been shocked by what she had heard. Her shock had registered in her expression, and in the dropping of her jaw, and the girls had noticed this. “What’s the trouble, Mma?” said one of the girls. “Don’t you know about boys?” And she had struggled for words, searching for a reply which would tell these shameless girls that she knew all about boys—and had known about them for many years—while at the same time letting them know that she disapproved. But no words had come, and the girls had gone away giggling.