The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party by Alexander McCall Smith

surely be even more expensive than they already were.
    She looked for the pair of shoes that Mma Ramotswe had identified. There was a pair placed on a pedestal, and she thought they were probably the ones. She peered at them. They were attractive, yes, and she could see how they might be tempting for somebody slightly older, but they were not quite right. Her eye moved to another pair, and then met the gaze of the assistant inside the shop,who was looking back out at her. The assistant waved; they knew each other and got on well.
    Mma Makutsi pushed open the glass door of the shop. “
Dumela,
Patricia. You are well?”
    The assistant smiled. “I saw you before you saw me, my sister. I could tell that you were coming in here. Shoes for your wedding?”
    Mma Makutsi nodded. “Phuti has encouraged me. He says that I can buy whatever shoes I want. There is no budget on these.”
    Patricia was impressed. She clapped her hands together like a schoolgirl anticipating a treat. “No budget! He is a very good fiancé if he says ‘no budget’! You must marry him quickly, Grace, so that he becomes a husband who says ‘no budget.’ Such husbands are very unusual. In fact, you usually only find them in museums, they are so rare. Husband museums.”
    They both laughed. But then Patricia leaned forward to touch Mma Makutsi sympathetically on the forearm. “I heard, Mma. I heard that bad news about poor Phuti’s accident. So sad!”
    Mma Makutsi thanked her. “He has made a very good recovery. You know that he lost a foot?”
    Patricia closed her eyes in sympathy. They had a small box of single shoes in the back of the shop—shoes that had been separated from their twin through theft or bad stock control; would one of these fit Phuti, and thus find a home that way? She wondered whether she should ask, but decided that it might not be tactful, particularly so soon after the accident; perhaps later she might say, “Mma, there are some men’s single shoes in the back, if they could be of any use …” Instead she said now, “Ow! I’d heard that, Mma. That was very bad news.”
    But bad news should not be allowed to interfere with the business of buying shoes, and the subject was gently changed. Leading Mma Makutsi to the display stands, Patricia gestured to the temptingarray of shoes. “Look at this, Mma: Is this not a sight that makes you happy that you’re a woman?”
    They both laughed again.
    “I am always happy I’m a woman,” said Mma Makutsi. “Not just when I see nice shoes like this; I think that all the time.”
    She paused, her eye caught by a pair of black patent-leather shoes with red piping round the sides. They were not wedding shoes, but would be very suitable for wearing to dances—if she was going to go to dances, of course, which was now perhaps rather doubtful after Phuti’s injury.
    “Being a man is not easy,” Mma Makutsi continued. “They are always struggling to prove that they are better than the next man.”
    “And they have those very rough skins,” offered Patricia.
    Mma Makutsi had not really reflected on that, but Patricia was right, she thought. Phuti’s skin was not all that rough, but there was certainly a place on his neck where it looked as if he had reacted to the razor. Perhaps he should grow a beard. But that would merely exchange roughness for prickliness, and she was not sure which was worse.
    “And yet,” Mma Makutsi said. “And yet there is much to be said for some men.”
    “Oh, that is true,” said Patricia. “Just as there are some women who are …” She left the sentence unfinished.
    “Very bad,” suggested Mma Makutsi.
    There was a silence, finally broken by Patricia. “Such as …”
    “Violet Sephotho.”
    “Exactly.”
    Again there was a silence. Then Patricia said, as if speaking to herself, “Violet Sephotho, the politician.”
    Mma Makutsi frowned. “Did I hear you correctly, Mma? Did you say, ‘Violet Sephotho, the politician’?”
    Patricia