She asked Lottie if she could take a job as a waitress in the local café and when she saw the spark of gratitude in her mother’s eyes she felt ashamed, because her offer was not as generous as it sounded. She wanted more than anything to be out of the house. And she was embarrassed at seeing her mother behind the market stall in her apron, smiling with determination as she served thickset farmers and their wives and well-dressed ladies from town, taking cheek from kids younger than Hannah herself. But Lottie touched her daughter’s cheek gently.

‘No job for now, my dear. I want you to concentrate on your studies, Hannah, and I don’t want anything to distract you. First, get your diploma. Then I have a plan for you.’ She bent down to a drawer in the bottom of the dresser and took out an old box.

‘Pa doesn’t know about this. If he did—’ she hesitated. ‘Well, you know where it would go. Everything I’ve earned from the sewing and the things I make, I’ve put away for you. When your course is finished, I’m going to send you to university in Johannesburg. Any subject you want. You can stay with my brother while you’re there. It will take a while to get the money together, but it will come. Just be patient a little longer.’

Lottie pushed her hair back from her face with a tired gesture, and in the light filtering into the room Hannah saw lines on her mother’s face that had never been there before. Her eyes blurred with tears. She wanted to scream at Lottie, to tell her that she couldn’t stand being the reason for her own mother’s drudgery. She didn’t care about university in Johannesburg. What she wanted was for things to be as they were, and no amount of hard-earned money was going to make it better here. She looked at the scratched lid of the tin box that held her mother’s dreams for her and turned away, sick with guilt.

Three weeks later, Lottie was at the market when Hannah heard the post arrive. She ran to the box, and lifted out the letter with the Kenya postmark. Piet! Piet was home! She ripped open the envelope and started to read.

Dear Ma, Pa and Hannah,