I shrugged. ‘You know politics better than I do. I suppose if you don’t think we can help, we probably can’t.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Thanks for listening anyway.’

‘Any time. How about a drink now you’re here?’

‘I have to get back.’

He smiled at me. ‘Well – don’t be a stranger. Hopefully I can be more useful next time.’

I forced myself to smile back.

I’d started spending the weekends visiting Maud, driving back on Fridays after lunch and arriving in the cool, green light of late afternoon. I’d follow her around on her daily tour of inspection, measuring the saplings in the orchard, overseeing the building of higher stockades for the cattle after lions had taken two of them, talking to Massiti about the crops. After we’d finished she would visit the workers in their huts, Scotty at her heels. Several more had sprung up since we’d bought the land and the compound was getting crowded. The women sat in the entrances to their homes, stirring beans or rolling out the dough for chapattis, and children played in the dirt with cars Joseph made for them out of wire and bottle tops. Sometimes the older children ran up to us with gifts of raw sugarcane or wild honeycomb that we ate on the veranda until our fingers and chins were sticky with the stuff.

‘I never want to leave,’ Maud said, ‘how could anywhere else be better?’

Our family spent Christmas at Kiboko for the first time, so Maud could organise celebrations for the workers. The totos put on a nativity play, and Joseph accompanied them on the concertina. All the adults were given a glass of sherry and Abdullah handed out sweets for the children. Even Bulawayo seemed to enjoy himself, singing and laughing like everyone else.

After the meal, the four of us pulled crackers and played games by the fire. My father opened a bottle of champagne and we toasted the success of the farm, and the plans for the railway.

‘I couldn’t do it without you,’ he said to me.

‘To Theo,’ Maud said.

‘And Maud – you’ll be sixteen in no time,’ my father said. ‘I’m sure some young fellow will be glad of that.’

‘I turned sixteen years ago,’ Maud said. She was laughing, but her eyes were worried. ‘Are you feeling well, Daddy?’

‘Of course, of course.’ My father waved her away. A little champagne slopped out of his glass. ‘Been working too hard. Anyway, what had I been going to say? I couldn’t do it without you, Theo.’

I saw my mother watching us over her glass and wondered for a moment what she was thinking, if she felt triumphant at all about the change in my attitude to work, or took credit for it, even. I shrugged off that idea before it irritated me too much.