She soon found out what Phuti liked to eat, and she made sure that she always cooked these dishes for him. He liked meat, of course, and T-bone steaks in particular, which he would pick up and gnaw at with gusto. He liked marrow and broad green beans doused in melted butter, and he liked chopped-up biltong soaked in gravy and then served over mashed potato. All of these dishes she did for him, and each time he complimented her enthusiastically on her cooking as if it were the first time that he had said anything about it. She loved these compliments, and the nice things he said about her appearance. In her mind she had been no more than a woman with large glasses and a difficult skin; now she found herself described as one of the prettiest women in Botswana, with a nose that reminded him of … and here he mumbled and she did not catch what it was that her nose reminded him of, but it was surely a positive association and so she did not mind not knowing what it was.
That evening, after the drama with the snake, Mma Makutsi regaled Phuti with a full account of what had turned into a memorable day. She told him of the apprentices’ ridiculous account of their role in the removal of the snake, and he laughed at that. Then she told him about Poppy’s visit and her curious tale of the theft of the food and the threat of dismissal.
After Mma Makutsi had finished, Phuti sat in silence for a few minutes. “So?” he said at last. “So what can you do to help this woman? I don’t see how you’re going to save her job for her. What can you do?”
“We could make sure that the chef—that other woman—is the one to lose her job,” said Mma Makutsi. “She’s the one who should be fired.”
Phuti looked doubtful. “Maybe. But I don’t see how you could make that happen. Anyway, where would you start with a case like this? What can you do?”
Mma Makutsi helped him to another portion of mashed potato. “We could find out who is blackmailing Mma Tsau. Then we could tell Mma Tsau that it is not Poppy.”
Phuti thought that this was a perfectly sound suggestion, but then a better idea occurred, and he outlined this to Mma Makutsi as he began to eat his mashed potato. “Of course it would be easier, wouldn’t it, to tell Mma Tsau that if she fires Poppy, thenwe shall tell the college that she has been stealing. Surely that would be simpler.”
Mma Makutsi stared at him. “But that in itself is blackmail,” she pointed out. “You can’t go round threatening people like that.”
“I don’t see what’s wrong with it,” said Phuti, wiping a small speck of mashed potato from his chin. “We’re not getting anything from her. It can’t be blackmail if you’re not getting anything yourself.”
Mma Makutsi pondered this. Perhaps Phuti had a point, and yet Mma Ramotswe had always stressed to her that the end did not justify the means, and that one should not commit a wrong to set right another. And yet, Mma Ramotswe herself had been known to tell the occasional lie while trying to get at the truth. She had obtained information from a government clerk by quoting a non-existent regulation; she had pretended to be somebody she was not when looking into a family dispute for a former minister; the list was really quite long when one came to think of it. In every case, she had done this in her attempts to help somebody who needed help, and it was also true that they were not large lies, but they were lies nonetheless, and so she wondered whether Mma Ramotswe was entirely consistent on this point. She would have to ask her about it, but for the moment it was perhaps better to move on to another topic. So she looked up from her plate and asked Phuti Radiphuti what had happened at the furniture store that day.
He was pleased to leave the philosophical complexities of blackmail, and launched with alacrity into an account of a difficulty they had encountered with the delivery of a table that had only three legs. The factory was adamant that it had left their premises with four, but his warehouse man was equally firm in his view that it had only three on arrival.
“Perhaps that is another one for Mma Ramotswe,” said Mma Makutsi. “She is very good at finding out things like that.”
Phuti smiled at the suggestion. “There are bigger things for Mma Ramotswe to do,” he said. “She has big crimes to solve.”
Mma Makutsi had heard of this popular misconception. It flattered her to think that the reputation of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency had been so inflated, but she could not allow Phuti, her own fiancé, to remain in ignorance about what they actually did.
“No,” she said. “Mma Ramotswe does not solve crimes. She deals with very small things.” To portray the smallness, Mma Makutsi put a thumb and forefinger within a whisker of one another. “But,” she went on, “these small things are important for people. Mma Ramotswe has often told me that our lives are made up of small things. And I think she is right.”
Phuti thought she was right too. He was slightly disappointed to be disabused of the notion that the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency dealt with major crimes. It had been pleasing enough for him to have a fiancée at all, let alone a fiancée who pursued so glamorous a profession, and he had boasted to friends that he was engaged to a well-known detective. And of course that was strictly speaking true—Mma Makutsi was indeed a detective, and it did not matter too much that she concerned herself with mundane matters. In fact, this was probably all for the good. The other sort of detective might be exposed to danger, and that was not what he had in mind for his wife-to-be. There was little danger in the furniture business, and there would always be a place for her there should she decide to abandon detection. He wondered whether he should mention this to her, but decided against it. He did not want her to think that marriage to him would involve her submitting to his plans; he had heard that women were reluctant to accept that sort of thing these days—and a good thing too, he thought. For far too long men had assumed that women would do their bidding, and if women were now questioning that, then he was quite happy to agree with them. Not that he was sympathetic to those people who called themselves feminists: he had heard one of those ladies on the radio and had been shocked by her aggressiveness towards the man who was interviewing her. This woman had more or less accused the reporter of arrogance when he had questioned her statement that men had, in general, fewer abilities than women. She had said that his time was “over” and that men like him would be swept aside by feminism. But if men were to be swept aside, wondered Phuti Radiphuti, then where would men be put? Would there be special homes for them, where they could be given small tasks to perform while women got on with the important business of running things? Would men be allowed out of these homes on selected outings (accompanied, of course)? For some days after he had listened to the interview, Phuti Radiphuti had worried about being swept aside, and had experienced a vivid and uncomfortable dream—a nightmare, really—in which he was indeed swept aside by a large feminist with a broom. It was an unpleasant experience, tumbling head over heels, covered with a cloud of dust, in the face of the frightening woman’s aggressive brush-strokes.
He looked at Mma Makutsi as she cut at a piece of meat on her plate. She wielded the knife expertly, pushing the cut meat onto her fork. Then the fork was before her mouth, which opened wide to receive the food before the teeth came together. She smiled at him and nodded to his plate, encouraging him to get on with his meal.
Phuti looked down at his plate. It had just occurred to him that Mma Makutsi might be a feminist. He did not know why he should think this. She had never threatened to sweep him away, but there was no doubt about who had been in charge when they had danced together at the Academy of Dance and Movement. Mr Fano Fanope had explained that it was always the men who led in ballroom dancing, but Phuti had found himself quite unable to lead and had willingly followed the firm promptings of Mma Makutsi’s hands planted on his shoulders and in the small of his back. Did this make her a feminist, or merely one who could tell when a man had no idea of how to take the lead in dancing? He raised his eyes from his plate and looked at Mma Makutsi. He saw his reflection in the lenses of her large round glasses, and he saw the smile about her lips. Perhaps it would be best to ask her, he thought.