The Handsome Man's Deluxe Cafe by Alexander McCall Smith

himself feeling sorry for them. Presumably these people—whoever they were—had to eat somewhere, and he did not like the thought of them wandering around, excluded from this … this circuit, whatever that was. “What circuit?” he asked. “What is this circuit?”
    Mma Makutsi made a vaguely circular movement with her hand. “It is the circuit for fashionable people,” she said. The circular movements became wider. “It is that circuit.”
    â€œOh,” said Phuti. And then added, “I see.”

CHAPTER FOUR

ELECTRIC DOGS AND OTHER THINGS
    T HE MEETING at the Sengupta house had been arranged by Mma Makutsi, who had pointedly insisted on setting it up.
    â€œIt will look better,” she said, “if I telephone to arrange a time to see these people.”
    Mma Ramotswe looked up enquiringly. “But I can do that, Mma. Thank you, anyway.”
    Mma Makutsi shook her head. “No, it would be better if I did it, Mma. If you phone, then they will think that we are the sort of outfit where the bo—” She almost said
boss
, but stopped herself. “… where the senior director has to phone herself.”
    Mma Ramotswe smiled inwardly. There were two things that had become apparent from this exchange. The first of these was that Mma Makutsi wanted to ensure that she was included in the visit to the Sengupta house, rather than staying behind to keep the office open. The second of these was that even if, as a result of a slip of the tongue on Mma Ramotswe’s part, she had now become a co-director, she nonetheless acknowledged that she was the junior co-director, if there could be such a thing. That, at least, was reassuring.
    Now they drew up in front of the Sengupta house. It was an area where the plots were lined with substantial whitewashed walls;the gates set into these walls were generally far from modest—statements of the importance of the people who lived behind them. As they arrived, Mma Ramotswe thought of her own gate on Zebra Drive—a ramshackle affair that had never fully recovered from being hit several years ago by Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s green truck. He had said that he would repair it—and he would certainly be capable of doing that—but somehow it was never done, and the gate languished, tipped at an angle, on its twisted supports. She had raised the subject with him, of course, but that did not seem to make much difference, even when she reminded him that although he was always prepared to respond to Mma Potokwane’s request to fix the water borehole pump at the Orphan Farm or attend to her increasingly eccentric minibus, still he could not find the time to repair his own gate. “I shall do it,” he said. But that, she reflected, was what all husbands promised; every wife, she imagined, had a mental list of things that her husband should do but realistically never would do.
    They had been seen, perhaps by a hidden camera, and the gate started to slide open to admit them.
    â€œAn electric gate,” said Mma Makutsi.
    â€œYou could have one,” said Mma Ramotswe, as she swung the white van onto the driveway. “Phuti could afford to put electric gates on your new house.”
    â€œWe do not need one,” said Mma Makutsi. “We have two dogs now. They sleep outside in a shed. One is very fat—like a barrel on legs. They bark and bark if somebody comes. That is enough.”
    â€œPerhaps you can get electric dogs now,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Maybe that will be the new thing.”
    Mma Makutsi let out a hoot of laughter. “Electric dogs …”
    And then, with a sudden impact, the front wing of the tiny white van hit the edge of the electric gate. The van came to a shuddering stop, as did the gate.
    Mma Ramotswe looked at Mma Makutsi. “I have hit the gate, Mma,” she said.
    For a few moments Mma Makutsi said nothing. Then she turned to Mma Ramotswe