For a moment the three of them were silent. There was no gainsaying what Poppy had said. It was just true. Just true.

“But I have not come to talk about that,” said Poppy. “I have come because I am very frightened. I am frightened that I am going to lose my job, and if I do, then how are we going to pay for the house we have bought? All my wages go on the payments for that, Mma. Every thebe. So if I lose my job we shall have to move, and you know how difficult it is to get somewhere nice to live. There are just not enough houses.”

Mma Ramotswe took up a pen from her desk and twined her fingers about it. Yes, this woman was right. She, Mma Ramotswe, was fortunate in owning her house in Zebra Drive. If she had to try to buy it today it would be impossible. How did people survive when housing was so expensive? It was a bit of a mystery to her.

Poppy was looking at her.

“Please go on, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I hope you don’t mind if I fiddle with this pen. I am still listening to you. It is easier to listen if one has something to do with one’s hands.”

Poppy made a gesture of assent. “I do not mind, Mma. You can fiddle. I will carry on talking and will tell you why I am frightened. But first I must tell you a little bit about my job, as you must know this if you are to help me.

“I was always interested in cooking, Mma. When I was a girl I was always the one in the kitchen, cooking all the food for the family. My grandmother was the one who taught me. She had always cooked and she could make very simple food taste very good. Maize meal. Sorghum. Those very plain things tasted very good when my grandmother had added her herbs to them. Herbs or a little bit of meat if we were lucky, or even chopped-up Mopani worms. Oh, those were very good. I cannot resist Mopani worms, Mma. Can you?”

“No Motswana can resist them,” said Mma Ramotswe, smiling. “I would love to have some right now, but I’m sorry, Mma …”

Poppy took a sip of her tea. “Yes, Mopani worms! Anyway, I went off to do a catering course in South Africa. I was very lucky to get a place on it, and a scholarship too. It was one whole year and I learned a very great deal about cooking while I was on it. I learned how to cook for one hundred, two hundred people, as easily as we cook for four or five people. It is not all that difficult, you know, Mma Ramotswe, as long as you get the quantities right.

“I came back to Botswana and got my first job up at one of the diamond mines, the one at Orapa. They have canteens for the miners there, and I was assistant to one of the chefs in charge of that. It was very hard work and those miners were very hungry! But I learned more and more, and I also met my husband, who was a senior cook up there. He cooked in the guest house that the mining company had for their visitors. They liked to give these visitors good food and the man I married was the cook who did that.