Further out, a kingfisher hovered and then plummeted, stone-like, into the water; a splash of white spray, and then up again to a vantage point in the air. She watched this for a few moments, and smiled. Everything has its place, she thought; everything. And then she turned round and made her way slowly back up the track towards the van, to await the arrival of Mma Potokwane and the children. She thought she could hear an engine now, straining somewhere not too far away. That would be one of the orphan farm’s minibuses, nursed and kept alive by Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, officially retired by Derek James, who ran the orphan farm office, and replaced with something newer, but brought back by Mma Potokwane, who could not bear to waste anything. The old minibuses were now used for work like this, since Mma Potokwane did not like the thought of the newer vehicles destroying their suspension on these bumpy roads.
There were two familiar old blue minibuses. The first one, driven somewhat erratically by Mma Potokwane, drew up close to where Mma Ramotswe was standing and the matron herself got out. She opened the rear door and a chattering group of children spilled forth.
Mma Ramotswe made a quick mental count. There had been nineteen children in a vehicle made for twelve.
Mma Potokwane guessed Mma Ramotswe’s thoughts. “It was perfectly all right,” she said. “Children are smaller. There’s always room for one or two more children.” She turned and clapped her hands. “Now, children, nobody is to go in the water. Play up here. Look, there used to be some swings over there. And a slide. So there’s lots to do.”
“Be careful of crocodiles,” warned Mma Ramotswe. “You don’t want to be eaten.”
A small boy with wide eyes looked up at Mma Ramotswe. “Would a crocodile eat me, Mma?” he asked politely. “Even me?”
Mma Ramotswe smiled. Even me. None of us thinks that we will be eaten; no child thinks that he will die. “Only if you weren’t careful,” she said. “Careful boys are never eaten by crocodiles. That is well known.” As she spoke, she realised that this was not true: that farmer had been careful. But children could not be told the unvarnished truth.
“I’ll be careful, Mma.”
“Good.”
Mma Potokwane had brought two of the housemothers with them, as well as a couple of volunteers from Maru-a-Pula School. The children flocked round the teenage volunteers while the housemothers set out the picnic on small trestle tables. Mma Potokwane and Mma Ramotswe found a small section of wall, shaded by a tree, and sat down on that.
Mma Potokwane drew a deep breath. “I am always happy when I am in the bush,” she said. “I think everybody is.”
“I certainly am,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I live in a town, but I do not think my heart lives there.”
“Our stomachs live in towns,” said Mma Potokwane, patting the front of her dress. “That is where the work is. Our stomachs know that. But our hearts are usually somewhere else.”
They were silent for a while. Above them, in the branches of the acacia, a small bird hopped from twig to twig. Mma Ramotswe watched the children exploring the abandoned playground. Two boys were kicking at the fallen swing posts, causing the dried mud of the termites’ activity to puff up in little clouds of dust.
She pointed to the boys. “Why do boys destroy things?”
Mma Potokwane sighed. “That is just what they do,” she said. “When I first started to work with children, years ago, I used to ask myself questions like that. But then I realised that there was no point. Boys are the way they are and girls are the way we are. You might as well ask why those dassies sit on the top of rocks. That’s just the way they are.”
It was true, thought Mma Ramotswe. She liked doing the things that she liked doing, and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was the same. She watched the children. “They seem very happy,” she said.
“They are,” she said. “Most of them have had a bad start. Now things are going well for them. They know that we love them. That is all they need to know.” She paused, and looked out over the water. “In fact, Mma Ramotswe, that’s really all that a child needs to know—to know that it is loved. That is all.”
Again, thought Mma Ramotswe, that was true.
“And if there’s bad behaviour,” Mma Potokwane went on. “If there’s bad behaviour, the quickest way of stopping it is to give more love. That always works, you know. People say that we must punish when there is wrongdoing, but if you punish you’re only punishing yourself. And what’s the point of that?”
“Love,” mused Mma Ramotswe; such a small, powerful word.
Mma Potokwane’s stomach grumbled. “We must eat very soon. But, yes, love is the answer, Mma. Let me tell you about something that happened at the orphan farm. We had a child who was stealing from the food cupboard. Everybody knew that. The housemother in charge of that cupboard had seen the child do it. The other children knew.
“We talked to the child and told him that what he was doing was wrong. But still the stealing went on. And so we tried something different. We put a lock on the cupboard.”
Mma Ramotswe laughed. “That seems reasonable enough, Mma.”
“You may laugh,” said Mma Potokwane. “But then let me tell you what we did next. We gave the key to that child. All the children have little tasks that they must do. We put that boy in charge of the cupboard.”
“And?”
“And that stopped the stealing. Trust did it. We trusted him, and he knew it. So he stopped stealing. That was the end of the stealing.”
Mma Ramotswe was thinking. At the back of her mind there was something that she thought she might say to Mma Makutsi about this. But her thoughts were interrupted by one of the housemothers bringing them a large tin plate on which several pieces of fruit cake had been laid, along with a number of syrup sandwiches. The housemother handed the plate to Mma Ramotswe and went back to the children.
Mma Potokwane glanced at her friend. “I think that is for both of us, Mma,” she said anxiously.
“Of course,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Of course.”
They ate in silence, and contentment. The children, their mouths filled with syrup sandwiches, were quiet now, and again they could hear the birds.
“What we are trying to do with these children,” said Mma Potokwane suddenly, “is to give them good things to remember. We want to make so many good memories for them that the bad ones are pushed into a corner and forgotten.”
“That is very good,” said Mma Ramotswe.
Mma Potokwane licked a small trace of syrup off a finger. “Yes,” she said. “And what about you, Mma Ramotswe? What are your favourite memories? Do you have any that are very special?”
Mma Ramotswe did not have to think about that. “My Daddy,” she said. “He was a good man, and I remember him. I remember walking with him along a road—I don’t remember where it was—but I remember how we did not have to talk to one another, we just walked together, and were perfectly happy. And then…and then…”
“Yes?”
She was uncertain if she should tell Mma Potokwane about this, but she was her old friend, and she did. “Then there’s another memory. I remember Mr J.L.B. Matekoni asking me to marry him. One evening at Zebra Drive. He had just finished fixing my van and he asked me to marry him. It was almost dark, but not quite. You know that time of the evening? That is when he asked me.”
Mma Potokwane listened gravely to the confidence. She would reciprocate, she thought.
“Funny,” she said. “I think it was the other way round with me. I asked my husband. In fact, it was definitely me. I was the one.”
Mma Ramotswe, recalling her discussion with Mma Makutsi, suppressed a smile. That’s two things I need to tell her, she said to herself.