The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon Read Online Free Page A

You are a lawyer.’
    Mma Sheba half-turned to reply. ‘You’re very observant, Mma. But I suppose that is what comes with being a detective. You have to notice things in your job.’
    ‘And in your job too, Mma,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘When you’re reading through papers, you must always be looking for things that shouldn’t be there.’
    Mma Sheba laughed. ‘Yes, you must. People will try to put things into contracts in the hope that the other side won’t see them. We have to be on our toes.’
    ‘So, Mma…’ prompted Mma Ramotswe.
    ‘Let me tell you a little about myself,’ said Mma Sheba. ‘Then you will feel that you know me better. And then…’ She paused, with the air of one about to reveal an important secret. ‘Then I shall tell you about why I have come to see you.’
     
    ‘As you know, Mma,’ said Mma Sheba, ‘I am an attorney. My office – the one that your assistant —’
    ‘Associate detective,’ interrupted Mma Makutsi.
    ‘That your associate detective mentioned. I have two partners in the firm, Mma. One of them is a woman, and one is a man. We all get on very well together and we have different areas of speciality. I am the one who does trusts and executories: I look after people’s wills and estates after their death. We are quite busy these days, not because more people are becoming late but because there is more money in the country. The more money you have, then the more money there is in your estate after your death. I have one assistant, who is newly qualified, and I might even need to get another one before too long.’
    ‘You are fortunate that your business is doing so well,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘Not everybody is in that position these days.’
    ‘Indeed they are not,’ said Mma Sheba. ‘One of my partners handles insolvencies. He’s very busy these days.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘People who have built up a good business over the years, who have worked hard all their lives, suddenly find that the economic climate is very different.’
    ‘It is very sad for them,’ said Mma Ramotswe.
    Mma Makutsi had now made the tea and brought two mugs that she placed before Mma Ramotswe and Mma Sheba. ‘These are both redbush,’ she said. ‘I shall be drinking ordinary tea myself.’
    Mma Sheba thanked her, and Mma Ramotswe was pleased to see that some of Mma Makutsi’s prickliness disappeared.
    Mma Sheba continued with her tale. ‘I drew up a will about four years ago,’ she said. ‘It was for a man who had been a client of my firm for some time – a farmer called Rra Molapo.’
    ‘I know that family,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘Or rather, I know of them. Was his father not one of Seretse Khama’s ministers?’
    Mma Sheba nodded. ‘Yes, he was in the government then. The Khamas and the Molapos were good friends, but I think the old man – that’s the father of my client – became a bit bored with politics and so he bought a farm down on the other side of the Gaborone Dam. It was quite a good farm, and of course land was cheaper in those days. He was a skilled farmer, and the land was in good order when my client, that’s Edgar Molapo, took over. The old man died and Rra Edgar took on the running of the farm. He did quite well: he won prizes for his Brahman bulls and I think they even used some of them for breeding on the other side of the border. He made a fair amount of money out of cattle.’
    Mma Ramotswe thought of her own father, Obed Ramotswe, whom she referred to as her ‘late daddy’. Whenever anybody mentioned cattle, memories of him came back to her, and she was at his side again, at the cattle post, admiring the herd that he had built up through being able to judge them so well. She heard their lowing, and she smelled the sweet smell that always hung in the air above them – the smell of forage and dust, the smell of their hides when wet, the very smell of her country.
    ‘There is nothing like a good herd of cattle,’ she mused.
    Mma Sheba