On occasion, Mma Makutsi would join him for these meals at his father’s house, and she would sit through the same conversations, trying hard not to nod off during the narratives or the questions that interspersed them. What were the cattle like up at Bobonong this year? Were they thin? Were they different from the cattle down in the south? She noticed that when he was with his father, Phuti’s stammer became more acute. During the dinners that they had at her house, it was barely noticeable now, which spoke to the confidence which she had succeeded in building up in him. In her company, he was now quite capable of uttering long and involved sentences, either in Setswana or in English, without any hesitation or stumbling. This new-found fluency, of which he was so proud, enabled him to say things that he had been unable to say for years, and the words flowed out of him; words about childhood, about being a boy; words about the furniture business and the comfort, or otherwise, of the various sorts of chairs; and words about the pleasure, the sheer pleasure, of having found somebody with whom he would now start to share his life. It was as if a drought had ended—a drought that had made for expanses of silence, as drought will dry up a salt pan and render it white and powdery—and the words were like longed-for rain, turning the land green at last.

She soon found out what Phuti liked to eat, and she made sure that she always cooked these dishes for him. He liked meat, of course, and T-bone steaks in particular, which he would pick up and gnaw at with gusto. He liked marrow and broad green beans doused in melted butter, and he liked chopped-up biltong soaked in gravy and then served over mashed potato. All of these dishes she did for him, and each time he complimented her enthusiastically on her cooking as if it were the first time that he had said anything about it. She loved these compliments, and the nice things he said about her appearance. In her mind she had been no more than a woman with large glasses and a difficult skin; now she found herself described as one of the prettiest women in Botswana, with a nose that reminded him of … and here he mumbled and she did not catch what it was that her nose reminded him of, but it was surely a positive association and so she did not mind not knowing what it was.

That evening, after the drama with the snake, Mma Makutsi regaled Phuti with a full account of what had turned into a memorable day. She told him of the apprentices’ ridiculous account of their role in the removal of the snake, and he laughed at that. Then she told him about Poppy’s visit and her curious tale of the theft of the food and the threat of dismissal.

After Mma Makutsi had finished, Phuti sat in silence for a few minutes. “So?” he said at last. “So what can you do to help this woman? I don’t see how you’re going to save her job for her. What can you do?”