But this was a time for making lists, not for dreaming, and she sat at her desk and wrote down on a piece of paper, in order of their priority, the various matters which concerned her. At the top of the list she simply wroteblackmail , and under that she left a blank space. This was where ideas might be noted, and a few words were immediately scribbled in:Who could know? Then below that there wasMr Polopetsi . Mr Polopetsi himself was not a problem, but Mma Ramotswe had been moved by his description of his wealthy uncle and his cutting out of his nephew. That was an injustice, in her view, and Mma Ramotswe found it hard to ignore injustice. Under Mr Polopetsi’s name she wrote:Mean uncle — speak to him?Then there wasMokolodi , under which was written: something very odd going on. And then, finally, almost as an afterthought, she wrote: Phuti Radiphuti: Could I say something to him about Mma Makutsi? Her pencil poised at the end of the last question, she then added:Mind own business?And finally, she wrote:Find new shoes . That was simple, or at least it sounded simple; in reality the question of shoes could be a complicated one. She had been meaning for some time to buy herself a pair of shoes to replace the ones which she always wore to the office and which were becoming a bit down-at-heel. Traditionally built people could be hard on shoes, and Mma Ramotswe sometimes found it difficult to get shoes which were sufficiently well constructed. She had never gone in for fashionable shoes—unlike Mma Makutsi, with her green shoes with the sky-blue linings—but she wondered now whether she should not follow her assistant’s lead and choose shoes which were perhaps just slightly more elegant. It was a difficult decision to make, and it would require some thought, but Mma Makutsi might help her, and this would at least take her mind off her problems with Phuti Radiphuti.
She looked at her list, sighed, and let the slip of paper fall from her hand. These were difficult issues, indeed, and not one of them, as far as she could see, involved a fee. The trickiest one was undoubtedly the blackmail problem, and now that she had established that Poppy was unlikely to lose her job—for which she could hardly charge very much, if anything—there was no financial reason to become further involved. There was a moral reason, of course, and that would inevitably prevail, but the setting of wrong to right often brought no financial reward. She had sighed, but it was not a sigh of desperation; she knew that there would be other cases, lucrative ones in which bills could be sent to firms that could well afford to pay. And had they not just posted a whole raft of such bills, each of which would bring in a comfortable cheque? And was there not an awful lot of banging and clattering going on in the garage next door, all of which meant money in the till and food on several tables? So she could afford to spend the time, if she wanted to, on these unremunerative matters, and she need not feel bad about it.
She picked up the list again and looked at it. Blackmail was too difficult. She would come back to it, she knew, but for now she felt like dealing with something which was more manageable. The wordMokolodi stood out on the page. She looked at her watch. It was three o’clock. She had nothing to do (ignoring, for the moment, everything else on the list), and it would be pleasant to drive down to Mokolodi and talk to her cousin perhaps and see whether she could find out what was happening down there. She could take Mma Makutsi with her for company; but no, that would not be much fun, with Mma Makutsi in her current mood. She could go by herself or, and here another possibility came to mind, she could take Mr Polopetsi. She was keen to train him to do the occasional piece of work for the agency, as well as the work that he did for the garage. He was always interesting company and would keep her entertained on the short drive south.
“I HAVE NEVER BEEN to this place,” said Mr Polopetsi. “I have heard of it, but I have never been here.”
They were no more than a few minutes away from the main gate of Mokolodi, with Mma Ramotswe at the wheel of the van and Mr Polopetsi in the passenger seat, his arm resting on the sill of the open window as he looked with interest at the passing landscape.
“I do not like wild animals very much,” he continued. “I am happy for them to be there, out in the bush, but I do not like them to be too close.”
Mma Ramotswe laughed. “Most people would agree with you,” she said. “There are some wild animals that I would prefer not to come across.”
“Lions,” said Mr Polopetsi. “I don’t like to think that there are things which would like to have me for breakfast.” He shuddered. “Lions. Of course, they would probably go for you first, Mma Ramotswe, rather than me.” He made the remark without thinking, almost as a joke, and then he realised that it was not in very good taste. He glanced quickly at Mma Ramotswe, wondering whether she had missed what he had said. She had not.
“Oh?” she said. “And why would a lion prefer to eat me rather than you, Rra? Why would that be?”
Mr Polopetsi looked up at the sky. “I’m sure that I’m wrong,” he said. “I thought that they might eat you first because …” He was about to say that it was because he would be able to run faster than Mma Ramotswe, but he realised that the reason that he would be able to run faster was because she was too large to run fast, and that she would think that he was commenting on her size, which was the real reason for his original remark. Of course any lion would prefer Mma Ramotswe, in the same way as any customer in a butcher’s shop would prefer a tasty rump steak to a scrap of lean meat. But he could not say that either, and so he was silent.
“Because I’m traditionally built?” prompted Mma Ramotswe.
Mr Polopetsi raised his hands in a defensive gesture. “I did not say that, Mma,” he protested. “I did not.”
Mma Ramotswe smiled at him reassuringly. “I know you didn’t, Rra,” she said. “Don’t worry. I don’t mind. I’ve been thinking, you know, and I’ve decided that I might go on a diet.”
They had now arrived at the Mokolodi gate, where stone-built rondavels guarded the entrance to the camp. This gave Mr Polopetsi the respite he needed: there need be no further talk of lions or diets now that they had people to talk to. But he would not put to the back of his mind the extraordinary news which Mma Ramotswe had so casually imparted to him and which he would breathlessly pass on to Mma Makutsi the moment he saw her. It was news of the very greatest import: if Mma Ramotswe, stern and articulate defender of the rights of the fuller-figured as she was, could contemplate going on a diet, then what would happen to the ranks of the traditionally built? They would be thinned, he decided.