The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine by Alexander McCall Smith Page B

much to you?”
    “Of course. We were sitting in a corridor for a long time.”
    “What about?”
    “What did she talk about? Oh, this and that. Phuti had a business trip over the border—to Johannesburg. She spoke about that a lot. Apparently, he bought a new vacuum cleaner while he was over there. She had a lot to say about that too.”
    “And anything else?”
    He scratched his head. “You know how she is. She says all sorts of things. She said something about one of her uncles from Bobonong being bitten by a spider. Apparently, he almost lost a finger.”
    Mma Ramotswe smiled at that—not at the thought of the uncle’s misfortune, but because the travails of Mma Makutsi’s uncles were a frequent topic of conversation in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. It seemed that the Makutsi uncles led exceptionally accident-prone lives: one had recently been kicked by a mule, another had discovered that part of his savings—fortunately only a small part—had been eaten by termites, and now there was this uncle who had been bitten by a spider. But this was not what she wanted to find out. “Anything about work?” she asked. “Anything about the agency?”
    Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni took a few moments to answer. “I think everything is all right,” he said. “You mustn’t worry about that, you know. Remember, you’re on holiday.”
    “Oh, I’m not worried, Rra,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I have complete faith in Mma Makutsi.”
    “Then you do not need to worry at all,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “For the next two weeks you can forget about work altogether. You can be like one of those pilots who put their planes on autopilot. They can read the newspaper if they like.”
    “But there is a pilot,” said Mma Ramotswe. “There’s Mma Makutsi.”
    Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni smiled. “Well, she’s at the controls now, not you.” He paused. “And you’ll be pleased to hear that she’s taken on a major case.”
    She spun round. “A major case? Did she say—”
    He cut her short. “She didn’t tell me what it was. But she did say that something big has turned up.”
    “That was all she said?”
    “That was all she told me.” He seemed to recollect something. “But then she said something else.”
    He looked at Mma Ramotswe as if he were assessing whether to pass on a piece of sensitive information. She was surprised; there were no secrets between them, but perhaps Mma Makutsi was trying to keep her in the dark and had asked him not to reveal whatever it was she had told him. She felt her face flush—really, it was too bad. Mma Makutsi had no business elbowing her out like this, even to the extent of recruiting Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni as an ally.
    “I would not want you to break a confidence, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni,” said Mma Ramotswe. “If she told you not to tell me, then I would be the last person”—she paused for effect—“the very last person to persuade you to reveal something confidential.”
    His reaction reassured her. “But, Mma, there is nothing I wouldn’t tell you. You know that!”
    Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni usually spoke in quiet, considered tones. Now there was an emotional edge to his voice.
    She immediately felt guilty. “I’m very sorry, Rra. I wasn’t thinking. I know that you would never keep anything from me.”
    As she spoke, she imagined what it would be like to live with somebody who had secrets. Instead of a comfortable atmosphere of trust there would be a nagging insecurity, like a corrosive crust, eating away at the fabric of the marriage. Doubts would spread like weeds, making it impossible to relax, spoiling everything. She stopped her train of thought right there. She had already experienced all that during her earlier, disastrous marriage to Note Mokoti, ladies’ man, trumpeter, and bully. What had possessed her to marry that man? How could she have thought that she would be able to domesticate him? Of course she had been very young then, and when we are very young we think it