Morality for Beautiful Girls Read Online Free PDF

glanced up at the car on the ramp. It was one of those old French station wagons which were so popular in parts of Africa.
    “That one’s an example,” said the first apprentice. “It’s making steam out of its exhaust. It comes up in a big cloud. That means that a gasket has gone and that the coolant’s getting into the piston chamber. So that makes steam. Hiss. Lots of steam.”
    “Well,” said Mma Ramotswe, “why don’t you fix it? Mr J.L.B. Matekoni can’t hold your hand all the time, you know.”
    The younger apprentice pouted. “You think that it’s simple, Mma? You think it’s simple? You ever tried to take the cylinder head off a Peugeot? Have you done that, Mma?”
    Mma Ramotswe made a calming gesture. “I was not criticising you,” she said. “Why don’t you get Mr J.L.B. Matekoni to show you what to do?”
    The older apprentice looked irritated. “That’s all very well, Mma. But the trouble is that he won’t. And then he goes off home and leaves us to explain to the customers. They don’t like it. They say: Where’s my car? How do you expect me to get around if you’re going to take days and days to fix my car? Am I to walk, like a person with no car? That’s what they say, Mma.”
    Mma Ramotswe said nothing for a moment. It seemed so unlikely that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, who was normally so punctilious, would allow this to happen in his own business. He had built his reputation on getting repairs done well, and speedily. If anybody was dissatisfied with a job that he had done, they were fully entitled to bring the car back and he would do the whole thing again without charge. That was the way that he had always worked, and it seemed inconceivable that he would leave a car up on the ramp in the care of these two apprentices who seemed to know so little about engines and who could not be trusted not to take shortcuts.
    She decided to press the older apprentice a bit further. “Do you mean to tell me,” she said, her voice lowered, “do you mean to tell me that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni doesn’t
care
about these cars?”
    The apprentice stared at her, rudely allowing their eyes to lock. If he knew anything about proper behaviour, thought Mma Ramotswe, he wouldn’t keep eye contact with me; he would look down, as befits a junior in the presence of a senior.
    “Yes,” said the apprentice simply. “For the last ten days or so, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni seems to have lost interest in this garage. Only yesterday he told me that he thought he would go away to his village and that I should be left in charge. He said I should do my best.”
    Mma Ramotswe drew in her breath. She could tell that the young man was telling the truth, but it was a truth which was very difficult to believe.
    “And here’s another thing,” said the apprentice, wiping his hands on a piece of oil rag. “He hasn’t paid the spare parts supplier for two months. They telephoned the other day, when he had gone away early, and I took the call, didn’t I, Siletsi?”
    The other apprentice nodded.
    “Anyway,” he went on. “Anyway, they said that unless we paid within ten days they would not provide us with any further spare parts. They said that I should tell that to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni and get him to buck up his ways. That’s what they said. Me tell the boss. That’s what they said I should do.”
    “And did you?” asked Mma Ramotswe.
    “I did,” he said. “I said: A word in your ear, Rra. Just a word. Then I told him.”
    Mma Ramotswe watched his expression. It was clear that he was pleased to be cast in the role of the concerned employee, a role, she suspected, which he had not had occasion to occupy before.
    “And then? What did he say to your advice?”
    The apprentice sniffed, wiping his hand across his nose.
    “He said that he would try to do something about it. That’s what he said. But you know what I think? You know what I think is happening, Mma?”
    Mma Ramotswe looked at him expectantly.
    He went on, “I think