In the Company of Alexander McCall Smith

A few years ago I had a try at writing in the style of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, and so I couldn't resist entering a competition on Alexander McCall Smith's Facebook page to write a piece of a Mma Ramotswe story.

It turned out to be quite challenging because the word count was very low (300 words max) and I needed to somehow wrap up the story told by the previous weeks' winners.

Here's my entry. It's the sixth part of a six-part story so if you wish you can read the other entries to understand the story (mine's the one attributed to "Mumbletoes Hornswoggle").

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The little white van was soon travelling along the Lobatse Road once more. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni frowned disapprovingly at the speedometer but he did not say anything to Mma Ramotswe. He knew speed was important sometimes, and perhaps on occasions it was good to push an engine a little faster than the engine would like.

“Clovis Andersen says this is the best stage of a case, Rra,” Mma Ramotswe said. “It is the denouement.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni did not know what a denouement was. He decided it was best not to ask Mma Ramotswe for a definition while she was driving her little white van at such speeds.

“And here we are,” said Mma Ramotswe as she parked the little white van outside the Gaborone City Council building. It took them an hour to arrange a meeting with the deputy mayor, but when at last they were able to present their findings to him, he was delighted.

“This Violet Sephotho is a bad woman,” he said. “She has done many bad things but this is the first time we have some proof. Now she will not be able to stand in the election and this is a good thing for Gaborone.”

It was strange, thought Mr J.L.B. Matekoni as Mma Ramotswe drove him back to Speedy Motors. He had thought Mma Ramotswe would be happy that the case was solved but she was sad and quiet. Perhaps it was because she was such a kind person that she felt sorry for someone as bad as Violet Sephotho. She was a complex woman and he – well – he found his mind wondering if Mma Potokwani would provide them with fruit cake in celebration of another solved case.

The heart may feel sadness, he said to himself, but there will always be cake.

Warm Salad

This is a daft email I sent to my future wife in the style of Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.

This is how you cook, right?

Mr M. J. Makifali, the renowned novelist and international hamburger salesman, was a man who did not enjoy cold salad. Modern ways of eating salad immediately after it had been removed from the fridge were not his ways. Lettuces and tomatoes, he believed, should be eaten at the temperature of the room in which the eating was to be done. That was all there was to it. Many men – and even some women – said that cold salad was good salad but Mr M. J. Makifali preferred to eat warm salad. It was a very healthy way to eat salad. If the salad was cold then he would not want to eat it and then would he eat salad at all? Probably not. And, as everyone in Swindana often said, salad was a very healthy thing to eat.

Mr M. J. Makifali allowed his thoughts to wander away from salad. There were many good things in his life; for instance he was pleased that Miss N. J. Bigiwigi, the talented founder of the Notebeni Interpreting Agency, was to be his wife. It was a good thing to marry an interpreter. Mr M. J. Makifali was not a man to whom conversation came easily and so it made him happy that he was to marry a lady who was able to talk. He looked down at his shoes. They were not shiny shoes but they were good, sturdy shoes with white laces.

“Eat all the salad you want,” they seemed to say to him. “It can be warm or cold. We do not care; we are shoes, we do not eat.”

Mr M. J. Makifali ignored his shoes. Talking wives were a good thing but talking shoes were another thing altogether. “The tongues of shoes should never wag,” he said to himself. It seemed a wise thing to say when confronted with talking shoes. Besides, there were more immediate things to be worried about, like salad. Mr M. J. Makifali tapped his elbows together in the traditional Swindana fashion and settled down to eat. The shoes could take care of themselves.