Mma Ramotswe signalled to Mma Makutsi for a cup of tea. Tea helped clients to talk, and this woman looked ill at ease and needed to relax.

“May I ask you your name, Mma?” Mma Ramotswe began.

“It is Poppy,” the woman said. “Poppy Maope. I am normally just called Poppy.”

“It is a very pretty name, Mma. I should like to be called Poppy.”

The compliment drew a smile. “I used to be embarrassed about it,” said Poppy. “I used to try to hide my name from people. I thought it was a very silly name.”

Mma Ramotswe shook her head. There was nothing embarrassing about the name Poppy, but there was no telling what names people would find embarrassing. Take Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, for instance. Very few people, if any, knew what his initials stood for. He had told her, of course, as he was then her fiancé, but nobody else seemed to know; certainly not Mma Makutsi, who had asked her outright and had been informed that unfortunately she could not be told.

“Some names are private,” Mma Ramotswe had said. “This is the case with Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. He has always been known as Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, and that is the way he wishes it to be.”

The tea made, Mma Makutsi brought two cups over and placed them on the desk. As she put them down, Mma Ramotswe saw her looking at the client, as if preparing to say something, and threw her a warning glance.

“I have come to see you on a very private matter,” Poppy began. “It is very hard to talk about it.”

Mma Ramotswe stretched out a hand across the desk, just far enough to touch Poppy lightly on the forearm. It is a marriage matter, she thought, and these are never easy to talk about; they often bring tears and sorrow, just at the talking of them.

“If it is a marriage question, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe gently, “just remember that we—that is, Mma Makutsi over there and myself—we have heard everything that there is to be said on such matters. There is nothing we have not heard.”

“Nothing,” confirmed Mma Makutsi, sipping at her tea. And she thought of that client, a man, who had come in the previous week and told them that extraordinary story and how difficult it had been for both of them not to laugh when he had described how … Oh, it was important not to think of that, or one would begin to laugh all over again.

Poppy shook her head vehemently. “It is not a marriage matter,” she said. “My husband is a good man. We are very happily married.”

Mma Ramotswe folded her arms. “I am happy to hear that,” she said. “How many people can say that in these troubled times? Ever since women allowed men to think that they did not need to get married, everything has gone wrong. That is what I think, Mma.”

Poppy thought for a moment. “I think you may be right,” she said. “Look at the mess. Look at what all this unfaithfulness has done. People are dying because of that, aren’t they? Many people are dying.”