Precious and Grace by Alexander McCall Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

Mma Makutsi.
    Susan nodded. “I did. I expected to forget it, but I didn’t. Even when…”
    She broke off. Mma Ramotswe waited.
    “Yes, Mma? Even when?”
    Susan did not answer directly. “I had something happen to me, Mma.”
    Mma Ramotswe caught her breath. She had been in this exact place before—and on more than one occasion. She had sat with a client, with Mma Makutsi at her desk behind her, and been told about some dark thing that had happened, and that could ruin the life of the one to whom it had happened. It was horribly, painfully familiar.
    “I am very sorry, my sister,” she whispered. “You do not need to talk about it. Not now. You can tell me later, if you wish.”
    Susan looked up, seemingly surprised by the gravity of Mma Ramotswe’s words. “But it happens to most people, Mma,” she said. “Most people fall in love, don’t they?”
    Mma Ramotswe stared at Susan uncomprehendingly. “But, Mma, I don’t see…”
    Susan smiled. “I’m sorry, Mma, I’ve confused matters. You see, all I meant was that my…well, I call it my Africa sickness, was very strong, and lasted even when something very important took over my life. That was all.”
    “I see…and that other thing was falling in love with somebody?”
    Mma Makutsi’s spectacles caught the light. “Hah!” she said. “That is something that can turn you upside down. Upside down. Like that.”
    “Well it did for me,” said Susan. “As I told you, I wasn’t very happy when we went off to Saskatoon. And I wasn’t happy all through high school there. I didn’t fit in, you see—the others had all grown up together, so I was the outsider. And so I was quite happy to go away to college, which I did when I was eighteen. I thought that would be a new beginning and it was, I suppose. I met new people. I made friends. My whole world opened out.”
    Mma Makutsi nodded. “When I came to the Botswana Secretarial College…,” she began. But Mma Ramotswe looked at her, and she stopped.
    “I went to university in a place called Kingston,” said Susan. “And I was happy there. Then I met a young man and I fell in love with him. I had never imagined what it was like to fall in love, Mma; I had no idea. I could only think of him, just of him, all the time. Nothing else mattered.”
    “That is what it is like,” muttered Mma Makutsi. “It is a very strange feeling.”
    “You were lucky,” said Mma Ramotswe. She hesitated. “As long as…as long as he loved you back.”
    “That is very important,” said Mma Makutsi. “If you fall in love and the other person does not notice you, you can feel very, very sad.”
    “He did,” said Susan. “He felt the same way. He told me that. We were very happy.”
    Mma Ramotswe shifted in her seat. She was beginning to feel anxious about this story. Was Susan expecting her to find this young man who had disappeared from her life? If so, how did Botswana come into it? Had the young man come here for some reason?
    “You were very fortunate, Mma,” said Mma Makutsi.
    “I was,” said Susan. “But I’m afraid it did not work out as I hoped it would. We went to Toronto together and we lived there for a few years and then…well, then, I’m afraid he went off with somebody else. And that was that.”
    “I’m very sorry,” said Mma Ramotswe.
    “And I’m sorry too,” said Mma Makutsi.
    Susan turned to smile at Mma Makutsi. “You’re very kind. Thank you. But that is not what I’ve come to see you about. I haven’t come here to tell you about that.”
    They waited. Through the wall, from the garage, there came the sound of metal striking metal.
    “There is a garage next door,” explained Mma Ramotswe. “It is my husband’s. Sometimes they make a noise.”
    “Sometimes a very big noise,” added Mma Makutsi. “This is not much of a noise.”
    The metallic sound stopped.
    “There,” said Mma Ramotswe. “We can talk again.”
    Susan took her cue. “I decided to come back to