Blue Shoes and Happiness by Alexander McCall Smith

course. They will pass, she told herself; they will pass.
    Beside her, in her own silence, Mma Makutsi was mulling over the brief exchange that she had had with Mma Ramotswe on the subject of feminism. Mma Ramotswe had been right—she was sure of that—and she had inadvertently frightened Phuti Radiphuti. It had been so foolish of her. Of course she believed in those things which the feminists stood up for—the right of women to have a good job and be paid the same amount as men doing the same work; the right of women to be free of bullying by their husbands. But that was all just good common sense, fairness really, and the fact that you supported these goals did not make you one of those feminists who said that men were finished. How could they say such a thing? We were all people—men and women—and you could never say that one group of people was less important than another. She would never say that, and yet Phuti Radiphuti now probably imagined that she would.
    They passed a man asking for a ride, waving his hand up and down to stop a well-disposed vehicle. Other cars were driving past regardless, but Mma Ramotswe believed that this was not the old Botswana way and made an elaborate set of hand signals to indicate to him that they were shortly going to turn off. The tiny white van swerved as she did so, and for a moment it must have seemed to the man that they were intending to run him down, but he understood and acknowledged them with a friendly wave.
    â€œPeople say that these days you should not stop for people like that,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But how can they be so heartless? Do you remember when my van broke down and I had to get back to town in the darkness? Somebody stopped for me, didn’t they? Otherwise I could still be out here at the side of the road, even now, getting thinner and thinner.”
    Mma Makutsi was glad to be distracted from her morbid thoughts of engagements broken on the grounds of undisclosed feminism. She laughed at Mma Ramotswe’s comment. “That is one way to go on a diet,” she said.
    Mma Ramotswe threw her a sideways glance. “Do you think that I need to go on a diet, Mma?” she asked.
    â€œNo,” said Mma Makutsi. “I do not think that you need to go on a diet.” She paused, and then added, “Others may, of course.”
    â€œHah!” said Mma Ramotswe. “You must be thinking of those people who hold that it is wrong to be a traditionally built lady. There are such people, you know.”
    â€œThey should mind their own business,” said Mma Makutsi. “I am traditionally built too, you know. Not as traditionally built as you, of course—by a long way. But I am not a very thin lady.”
    Mma Ramotswe said nothing. She was not enjoying this conversation, and she was glad that the turn-off to Mokolodi had now appeared. Slowing down, she steered the van off the main road and onto the secondary road that ran alongside for a short way until it headed off into the bush. As the van turned, an observer would have noticed that it listed markedly to one side, Mma Ramotswe’s side, while Mma Makutsi’s side was higher—an appearance that would have confirmed what had just been said by Mma Makutsi. But there was nobody to see this; only the grey lourie on the acacia branch, the go-away bird, which saw so much but confided in none.

CHAPTER SIX

    HOW TO DEAL WITH AN ANGRY OSTRICH
    T HE ARRIVAL OF Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi at Mokolodi Game Reserve would normally be an occasion for the barking of dogs and for laughter and the shaking of hands. Mma Ramotswe was known here—her father’s brother, her senior uncle, was also the uncle (by a second marriage) to the workshop supervisor. And if that were not enough, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s cousin’s daughter worked in the kitchen at the restaurant. So it was in Botswana, almost everywhere; ties of kinship, no matter how attenuated by