Read Online To the Land of Long Lost Friends: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (20) by Alexander McCall Smith - Free Book Online

problem.”
    The waitress arrived with their order. “Here are your chips, Mma,” she said to Mma Ramotswe. “Do not feel that you have to finish them. If you would like to leave some, that will be all right.”
    Calviniah gave the waitress a discouraging look. “You are very kind, Mma. We shall see about that.” And then to Mma Ramotswe she said, “As you were saying, Mma, after that man, Note…”
    “I learned my lesson,” Mma Ramotswe supplied. “I learned to tell the difference between a good man and a…not-so-good man. I met a man called Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, a mechanic.”
    Calviniah brightened. “A mechanic, Mma? They make very fine husbands. They are famous for that. If a lady can find a mechanic, then she should not hesitate.”
    “I did not,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But I must tell you, Mma, I had to wait some time before he asked me to marry him. I thought he’d never get around to it, but then eventually he did. And then, after we had become engaged, he took a long, long time to talk about a wedding.”
    Calviniah nodded at the familiar story. “We are going to have to change everything,” she said. “In future, it is the women who are going to ask the men to marry them. It is the women who will decide the date and make all the arrangements. In that way, valuable time will not be lost.”
    They began their meal. The chips were perfectly cooked, as was the fish.
    “And you?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “What about your husband, Mma?”
    “He is a very good man,” said Calviniah. “He is called Ernest. Sometimes people call him by the nickname Shiny, but I do not like that. He doesn’t seem to mind, but I do.”
    “Why have a nickname when you have a perfectly good name already?” asked Mma Ramotswe.
    “Those are my thoughts too,” said Calviniah. “It is a male thing, I think. Men are always giving one another these names. Ernest has a friend who is called Trousers. I don’t know why they use that name, but that is what they call him. His real name is Thomas, but they call him Trousers. None of them knows why.”
    “And family, Mma? Do you and Ernest have children?”
    Calviniah nodded and then averted her eyes briefly. “I had heard about you, Mma. I heard that…”
    “Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe quietly. “My baby is late.”
    Reaching across the table, Calviniah placed a hand gently on Mma Ramotswe’s arm. “I’m so sorry, Mma. I’m so sorry about that.”
    Mma Ramotswe inclined her head. “It was a long time ago now.”
    “I know. But your heart must still be broken, Mma.”
    Was it? Mma Ramotswe thought about her friend’s words. There were so many things in this life that we had to regret that we sometimes forgot those things that belonged to the distant past. Or the pain was dulled, which was a different thing, of course.
    “We have two foster children,” she said. “We love them very much.”
    For a few moments Calviniah was silent, before continuing, “Yes, we love our children so much, don’t we? And we expect them to love us back, but—” She broke off, as if she felt she had already said too much.
    Mma Ramotswe waited.
    “Then they go off,” said Calviniah. “They go off and find their own friends. They start living their own lives and there is no place for you in those lives. That is what hurts.”
    “That has happened to you, Mma?”
    Their eyes met, and Mma Ramotswe had her answer.
    “My first-born is a girl,” Calviniah said. “Nametso. She is twenty-four now. She has a job in Gaborone—a good job in the diamond-sorting office. You know that place out near the airport?”
    Mma Ramotswe knew it. It was in that building that Botswana collected the diamonds from its open-pit diamond mines—a trickle of brilliance wrested from thousands of tons of raw rock. A job at the sorting tables was highly valued, and any parent would be proud of a daughter who worked there.
    “We were very close,” Calviniah continued. “And then…” She shrugged. “Suddenly