She could do something more about decorating the room, she thought. But then if she was going to get married in January, when she would move to Phuti Radiphuti’s house, there seemed little point in doing much to her own place. The landlord would be pleased, no doubt, if she went to the hardware store and bought some paint for the walls, but again there seemed to be no point in doing that. Indeed, there seemed to be little point in doing anything.
No sooner had she reached that conclusion, than she realised how absurd it was. Of course there was a point in doing something. Mma Makutsi was not one to waste her time, and she now told herself that her resignation should be a challenge to her to work out a new routine of activity. Yes, she would take advantage of this and do something fresh, something exciting with her life. She would…She thought. There must be something. She could get a new job, perhaps. She had read about a new employment agency which had opened which would specialise, it had been announced, in the placing of high-class secretaries. “This agency is not for everyone,” the press announcement had read. “We are for the cream of the crop. We are for people who go the extra mile—every day.”
Mma Makutsi had seen the advertisement in the Botswana Daily News and had been struck by the wording. She liked the expression go the extra mile, which had the ring of a journey to it; and that, she thought, was what life really was—it was a journey. In her case, the journey had started in Bobonong, and had been by bus, all the way down to Gaborone. And then it had become a metaphorical journey, not a real one, but a journey nonetheless. There had been the journey to her final grade at the Botswana Secretarial College, with the marks as milestones along the way: sixty-eight per cent in her first examination, seventy-four in the second; then on to eighty-five per cent; and finally, in a seemingly impossible leap, ninety-seven per cent, and the glory that had come with that. That had surely been a journey.
And then there had come the hunt for the first job—a journey of disappointing blind alleys and wrong turnings, as she discovered that at that level of secretarial employment a crude form of discrimination was at work. She had gone to interview after interview, dressed in the sole good dress that she possessed, and had discovered time and time again that the employer was not in the slightest bit interested in how she had done at the College. All that was required was that one should have passed and got the diploma; that was all. What was on the diploma did not matter, it seemed; all that counted was that one should be glamorous, which Mma Makutsi was realistic enough to know she was not. She had those large round glasses; she had that difficult skin; her clothes spoke of the hardship of her life. No, she was not glamorous.
Here was an agency, though, that implied that hard work and persistence would be rewarded. And the reward would come, no doubt, in the shape of a challenging and interesting job, with a large company, she imagined, in an office with air conditioning and a gleaming staff canteen. She would move amongst highly motivated people, who would be smartly dressed. She would live in a world of memos and targets and workshops. It would be a world away from the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, with its battered old filing cabinets and its two tea-pots.
She had made up her mind, and the decision made her feel more optimistic about the day ahead. She rose from the table and began to wash up the breakfast plates. Two hours later, having made satisfactory progress with her new dress, she put away the sewing machine, locked the house, and began to walk into town. It was a cool day, but the sun was still there; it was perfect, she thought; it was weather for walking, and for thinking as one walked. The doubts of the earlier part of the day had disappeared and now seemed so baseless, so unimportant. She would miss Mma Ramotswe, just as she would miss any friend, but to think, as she did, that her life would be empty without her was a piece of nonsense. There would be plenty of new colleagues once she started her new job and, without being disloyal to Mma Ramotswe, many of them would perhaps be a little bit more exciting than her former employer. It was all very well being of traditional shape, believing in the old Botswana values, and drinking bush tea, but there was another world to explore, a world filled with exciting, modern people, the people who formed opinions, who set the pace in fashion and in witty things to say. That was the world to which she could now graduate, although of course she would always have a soft spot for Mma Ramotswe and the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Even a thoroughly modern person would like Mma Ramotswe, in the way in which modern people can retain affection for their aunts back in the villages even though they really had nothing in common any more with those aunts.
She had kept the issue of the paper in which the advertisement appeared, and had noted down the address of the agency. It was not a long way away—a half hour walk at the most—and this walk went quickly, made all the quicker by the thoughts she was entertaining of the interview that no doubt lay ahead of her.
“Ninety-seven per cent?” the agency person might say. “Is that correct? Not a misprint?”
“No, Mma. Ninety-seven per cent.”
“Well, that’s very impressive, I must say! And there’s a job which I think would be just right for you. It’s a pretty high-level job, mind you. But then you’ve been…”
“An associate detective. Second from the top in the organisation.”
“I see. Well, I think you’re the lady for the job. The pay is good, by the way. And all the usual benefits.”
“Air conditioning?”
“Naturally.”
The thought of this exchange was deeply satisfying; absorbing too, with the result that she walked past her destination and had to turn back and retrace her footsteps. But there it was, the Superior Positions Office Employment Agency, on the second floor of a slightly run-down, but still promising-looking building not far from the Catholic church. Once she had climbed the stairs, she saw a sign pointing down a corridor inviting visitors to ring the bell on the door and enter. The corridor was dark, and had a slightly unpleasant smell to it, but the door of the agency office had been recently painted and, reflected Mma Makutsi, she was not going to work there, in that building, which was only a means to a much-better-appointed end.
It was a small room, dominated by a desk in the middle of the floor. At this desk there was a slight young woman with elaborately braided hair. She was applying varnish to her nails as Mma Makutsi entered, and she looked up with a vague air of annoyance that she should be disturbed in this task. But she greeted Mma Makutsi in the proper way before asking, “Do you have an appointment, Mma?”
Mma Makutsi shook her head. “Your advertisement in the Daily News said that none was necessary.”
The receptionist pursed her lips. “You should not believe everything you read in the papers, Mma,” she said. “I don’t.”
“Even when it’s your own advertisement?” asked Mma Makutsi.
For a moment the receptionist said nothing. She dipped the varnish brush into the container and dabbed it thoughtfully on the nail of an index finger.
“You’re an experienced secretary, Mma?” she asked at last.
“Yes,” said Mma Makutsi. “And I’d like to see somebody more senior, please.”
A further silence ensued. Then the receptionist picked up her telephone and spoke into the receiver.
“She’ll see you in a few minutes, Mma,” she said. “She’s seeing somebody else at the moment. You can wait over there.” She pointed to a chair in the corner of the room. Beside the chair was a small table laden with magazines.