The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon by Alexander McCall Smith

good too. She wrinkled her nose slightly in an effort to identify the scent.
    ‘That cream is made of aloes,’ said Mma Soleti. ‘But they have added lemon to it. That is what you’re smelling, Mma.’ She paused, spreading the cream in generous quantities across Mma Ramotswe’s brow. ‘Lemon juice is a very good skin cleanser, Mma,’ she continued. ‘It is good for oily skin and when you mix it with aloe then it heals very well too. You can drink lemon juice with honey in the mornings – that will clean your skin from within.’
    Mma Ramotswe frowned. ‘I drink tea in the mornings, Mma. I drink redbush tea.’
    ‘That is very good for the skin too,’ said Mma Soleti. ‘You can put cold redbush tea on your skin if you have a rash. Then you can drink what’s left over so that you are cleansed inside and outside.’
    Mma Ramotswe relaxed. She liked the idea of being cleansed inside and outside. And then she thought of Mma Makutsi and her difficult complexion. She had never broached the matter with her assistant, but she knew that skin problems had troubled Mma Makutsi for some time, although more recently her complexion seemed to have settled down. She was not the easiest person with whom to raise delicate issues, but Mma Ramotswe wondered whether she might suggest that her associate put lemon juice in her tea rather than milk. Perhaps it would be possible to do that tactfully, for instance by saying that she had heard that people who were concerned about their skin spoke highly of lemon juice. Not that she would be implying that Mma Makutsi was a person who needed to worry about her skin; she would not say anything like that.
    Of course, having a husband always took the sting out of your minor imperfections. Now that Mma Makutsi was married to Phuti Radiphuti she would no longer have to be concerned about attracting men and could stop worrying about skin issues and having to wear very large round glasses and so on. Mind you, no woman, Mma Ramotswe thought, should give up entirely and not concern herself with looking good for her husband. The best solution lay somewhere in the middle, as it always did: you could relax a bit but you should always remember that it gave your husband pleasure to gaze at a beautiful wife over the breakfast table. And beauty, she reminded herself, was both an inside and an outside quality. You could be very glamorous and beautiful on the outside, but if inside you were filled with human faults – jealousy, spite and the like – then no amount of exterior beauty would make up for that. Perhaps there was some sort of lemon juice for inside beauty… And even as she thought of it, she realised what it was: love and kindness. Love was the lemon juice that cleansed and kindness was the aloe that healed.
    Neither woman spoke for the rest of the treatment. Mma Ramotswe found herself feeling drowsy and at one point came close to sleep. It was very comforting sensing the potions on one’s skin and breathing their perfume. It was highly relaxing to feel Mma Soleti’s fingertips coaxing tension out of the skin. And so, when the creams were rubbed off and some final unguent applied, Mma Ramotswe found herself feeling vaguely disappointed, as when the final drops of a much looked-forward-to cup of tea are drained.
    ‘There we are,’ said Mma Soleti. ‘You can open your eyes now, Mma. The treatment is over.’
    Mma Ramotswe sat up. Her face felt as if it was glowing, as if she were basking in the first rays of an early morning sun. She raised a hand to touch her cheek. ‘It feels very smooth, Mma.’
    ‘That is because the creams have done their work and now it
is
smooth,’ said Mma Soleti, a note of pride in her voice. ‘Just like a baby’s skin.’ She paused. ‘Mma Ramotswe, I’m glad that you have enjoyed being my first customer in this new salon. First
free
customer. Free, remember.’
    Mma Ramotswe noticed the emphasis on the word
free.
Some things that are free are not free, she