The Double Comfort Safari Club - By Alexander McCall Smith Page 0,8

Ramotswe. There was no trace of sarcasm in her voice; Mma Ramotswe did not believe in sarcasm. “This idea is about teapots. About efficiency and teapots. Yes, it’s about those two things.”

“Good,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Anybody who could invent a more efficient teapot would be doing a great service to …” She paused, before concluding: “to all tea-drinking people.”

Mma Makutsi swallowed; sometimes it was easier to deal with a hostile reaction rather than a welcoming one. “Well, I don’t think I could invent a new teapot, Mma. I am not that sort of person. But—”

Mma Ramotswe interrupted her with a laugh. “Anybody can invent something, Mma. Even you and I—we might invent something. You do not have to be a scientist to invent something very important. Some inventions just happen. Penicillin. You know about that?”

Mma Makutsi saw the conversation drifting away from teapots. “I was wondering …”

“We were taught about penicillin in school,” Mma Ramotswe mused. “At Mochudi. We were taught about the man who found penicillin growing in …” She tailed off. Again, it was hard to remember, even if she could see herself quite clearly in the school on the top of the kopje overlooking Mochudi, with the morning sun coming through the window, illuminating in its shafts of light the little flecks of floating dust; and the voice of the teacher telling them about the great inventions that had changed the world. Everything, all these great things, had happened so far away—or so it seemed to her at the time. The world was made to sound as if it belonged to other people—to those who lived in distant countries that were so different from Botswana; that was before people had learned to assert that the world was theirs too, that what happened in Botswana was every bit as important, and valuable, as what happened anywhere else.

But where had that doctor grown the penicillin that was to save so many lives? In his garden? She thought not. It was in his laboratory somewhere, perhaps in a cup of tea that he left on a windowsill, as Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had done once and Mma Ramotswe had discovered it, months later, when the half-finished liquid had turned to green mould.

“In a cup of tea,” she said hesitantly. “Maybe. Or in a saucer, perhaps.”

“That is very interesting, Mma,” said Mma Makutsi briskly. “But I have been thinking about a more efficient way of making the tea in this office. I am not interested in making penicillin or inventing anything.”

Mma Ramotswe nodded encouragingly. “It is a good thing to be efficient,” she said.

Mma Makutsi seized her chance. “So why don’t we use the big teapot to make the ordinary tea,” she said. “There are always more people wanting ordinary tea—Mr. Polopetsi, for instance, and Charlie and Fanwell. If we made the ordinary tea in that big pot, then I would not have to make a second pot.” She paused. “And it would make no difference to your red bush tea, Mma. You would still have more than enough.”

For a few moments Mma Ramotswe said nothing. I’ve offended her, thought Mma Makutsi. I shouldn’t have spoken about this. But then Mma Ramotswe, who had been looking out of the window, as if pondering this casually lobbed bombshell, turned to Mma Makutsi and smiled. “That is a very good idea, Mma,” she said. “Every business needs new ideas, and that is one. Change the pots next time you make tea.” She paused. “I do not mind having the smaller pot. Not at all.” And then, after a further pause, “Even if I have always loved that big teapot.”

“Then you must still have it,” said Mma Makutsi quickly. “Efficiency isn’t the only thing, Mma.”

Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “No, what you said, Mma, is quite right. There is no point in filling a big teapot with red bush tea if I am the only one who drinks it. I do not want to be selfish.”

You are never selfish, thought Mma Makutsi, ruefully. Never. I am the selfish one. “But I did not mean to take it from you,” she said. And she tried to explain: this was no act of petty office self-aggrandisement; it was not that. Nor was it the act of a bored bureaucrat, of one of those who sought to bring about change in the well-ordered ways of others simply because they had to find something to do. It was not that, either. “I am not one of those people who