She chuckled. ‘What an unhappy woman she must be who would envy Ama! But thank you, I should be grateful for Kwesi.’

After that we were quiet for a while. I always loved to see her moving quietly about her work. Having finished unpacking, she knocked the dirt out of the tray and started making fire to prepare the evening meal. She started humming a religious lyric. She was a Methodist.

We are fighting

We are fighting

We are fighting for Canaan, the Heavenly Kingdom above.

I watched her and my eyes became misty, she looked so much like my own mother. Presently, the fire began to smoke. She turned round. ‘Chicha.’

‘Maami Ama.’

‘Do you know that tomorrow I am going to have a formal divorce?’

‘Oh!’ And I could not help the dismay in my voice.

I had heard, soon after my arrival in the village, that the parents of that most beautiful boy were as good as divorced. I had hoped they would come to a respectful understanding for the boy’s sake. Later on when I got to know his mother, I had wished for this, for her own sweet self’s sake too. But as time went on I had realised this could not be or was not even desirable. Kodjo Fi was a selfish and bullying man, whom no decent woman ought to have married. He got on marvellously with his two other wives but they were three of a feather. Yet I was sorry to hear Maami was going to have a final breach with him.

‘Yes, I am,’ she went on. ‘I should. What am I going on like this for? What is man struggling after? Seven years is a long time to bear ill-usage from a man coupled with contempt and insults from his wives. What have I done to deserve the abuse of his sisters? And his mother!’

‘Does she insult you too?’ I exclaimed.

‘Why not? Don’t you think she would? Considering that I don’t buy her the most expensive cloths on the market and I don’t give her the best fish from my soup, like her daughters-in-law do.’

I laughed. ‘The mean old witch!’

‘Chicha, don’t laugh. I am quite sure she wanted to eat Kwesi but I baptised him and she couldn’t.’

‘Oh, don’t say that, Maami. I am quite sure they all like you, only you don’t know.’

‘My child, they don’t. They hate me.’

But what happened?’ I asked the question I had wanted to ask for so long.