He was beautiful, but that was not important. Beauty does not play such a vital role in a man’s life as it does in a woman’s, or so people think. If a man’s beauty is so ill-mannered as to be noticeable, people discreetly ignore its existence. Only an immodest girl like me would dare comment on a boy’s beauty. ‘Kwesi is so handsome,’ I was always telling his mother. ‘If ever I am transferred from this place, I will kidnap him.’ I enjoyed teasing the dear woman and she enjoyed being teased about him. She would look scandalised, pleased and alarmed all in one fleeting moment.

‘Ei, Chicha. You should not say such things. The boy is not very handsome really.’ But she knew she was lying. ‘Besides, Chicha, who cares whether a boy is handsome or not?’ Again she knew that at least she cared, for, after all, didn’t the boy’s wonderful personality throw a warm light on the mother’s lively though already waning beauty? Then gingerly, but in a remarkably matter-of-fact tone, she would voice out her gnawing fear. ‘Please Chicha, I always know you are just making fun of me, but please, promise me you won’t take Kwesi away with you.’ Almost at once her tiny mouth would quiver and she would hide her eyes in her cloth as if ashamed of her great love and her fears. But I understood. ‘O, Maami, don’t cry, you know I don’t mean it.’

‘Chicha I am sorry, and I trust you. Only I can’t help fearing, can I? What will I do, Chicha, what would I do, should something happen to my child?’ She would raise her pretty eyes, glistening with unshed tears.

‘Nothing will happen to him,’ I would assure her. ‘He is a good boy. He does not fight and therefore there is no chance of anyone beating him. He is not dull, at least not too dull, which means he does not get more cane-lashes than the rest of his mates. . . .’

‘Chicha, I shall willingly submit to your canes if he gets his sums wrong,’ she would hastily intervene.

‘Don’t be funny. A little warming-up on a cold morning wouldn’t do him any harm. But if you say so, I won’t object to hitting that soft flesh of yours.’ At this, the tension would break and both of us begin laughing. Yet I always went away with the image of her quivering mouth and unshed tears in my mind.