Read Tea Time for the Traditionally Built for Free Online

humour. “It is because you ladies are women,” he said. “It is not something that women understand.” He paused, and then added hurriedly, “Of course there are many things that men do not understand. They do not understand some of the things that women understand. Such as …” He trailed off.
    “Yes, Rra?” prompted Mma Ramotswe.
    Mr. Molofololo waved a hand in the air. “There are many things. Women's business. Shoes maybe. That sort of thing.”
    Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi exchanged glances. He is right, thought Mma Ramotswe; men do not understand shoes— not completely, not in the deep way in which women understand them. For men, shoes were simply things you put on your feet; for women, shoes were … well, there was no time to go into that.
    Mr. Molofololo moved on. “Perhaps it would be best, Mma, if I told you a little bit about myself. Then you will understand why this problem that I have come to see you about is such a big one.” He paused, and put a hand over his heart. Mma Ramotswenoticed the starched cuff of his shirt and the heavy gold cuff-links. It was a strange thing about rich men, she reflected. If they have made the money themselves, then they are usually keen to let you know just how much money they have; if they had got it from their father, or even their grandfather, then they often never mentioned it. Mr. Molofololo had obviously made his money himself.
    “This problem,” he went on, “hurts me here. Right here—in my heart.”
    Mma Ramotswe inclined her head gravely. Everybody who consulted her was, in their way, hurting—even this rich man with his big Mercedes-Benz and his expensive cuff-links. Human hurt was like lightning; it did not choose its targets, but struck, with rough equality and little regard to position, achievement, or moral desert.
    “I have worked very hard, Mma Ramotswe,” Mr. Molofololo went on. “Ever since I was a small boy I have worked. I herded cattle, you know, the same as all small boys from the villages. We were poor people, you understand. And then I went to school and I worked harder than any of the other boys. When the other boys were playing football, I studied and studied. Then when the school principal asked me what I wanted to be, I said that I would be an accountant. I had read somewhere about CAs, and I said,
I will be a CA one day
. And that is what I now am. I am a chartered accountant, but I am also a businessman. I have many shops. Here. There. Many shops.”
    Mma Ramotswe noticed that Mma Makutsi was listening intently to this, and she knew why. Her assistant had worked her way out of poverty, and had achieved ninety-seven per cent in the final examinations of the Botswana Secretarial College by dint of sheer, unremitting hard work. If Mma Makutsi identified with Mr. Molofololo's story, it was because it was her story too, except for the herding, and the football, the chartered accountancy, and the shops—except for all the details, in fact.
    “But you know how it is, Mma,” Mr. Molofololo continued. “When you are a success in business, you begin to think of the things that you've missed while you were working so hard. That is why you hear people say:
I have been working, working, working, and now my children are grown up and I did not see that happen
. Have you heard people say that, Mma?”
    Mma Ramotswe had not, but she could imagine that people might indeed say it, so she nodded.
    Mr. Molofololo leaned back in his chair. “And do you know what I thought, Mma Ramotswe? I will tell you. I thought: I never played football, and now it is too late. That is what I thought. You can't have a man in his fifties running round the football field, can you? His heart will say no. So it was too late.”
    He paused, and then, with the air of one making an important announcement, he said, “But if it was too late to play football myself, it was not too late to buy a football team, Mma. Hah! So I bought a team that had not been doing very