“You'll get used to it, Grace,” he said. “You will not feel it at all. Peri-peri chicken, vindaloo curries—everything. It will all taste equally good.”

She was doubtful, but for Phuti's sake was still prepared to put up with what she thought to be excessively fiery dishes; and now she was making one of these, dropping several large pinches of flaked chilli into the marinade of oil and lemon juice that she had prepared shortly before Phuti's arrival.

She dipped a finger into the sauce and then dabbed it against her tongue. Immediately she felt an intense stinging sensation and reached for a glass of water to cool the burning. How can he do it? she asked herself. This made her reflect on how often one had to pose that question about men. They did all sorts of inexplicable things, and women were always asking themselves the same question: How can they do it?

When Phuti arrived half an hour later, the chicken was almost ready. Phuti sat at her table, which was covered with a new yellow tablecloth she had recently bought, and watched Mma Makutsi attend to the final preparations.

“I am a very lucky man to be marrying somebody who can make peri-peri chicken,” he announced. “I always wanted to meet such a lady.”

She laughed. “Would you not marry me if I could not make peri-peri chicken?”

Phuti thought this very amusing. He was not quite as quick as Mma Makutsi, and he enjoyed her ability to make light-hearted comments such as this. He would have liked to have been able to reply with some witty riposte, but what could he say? Of course he would have married her, irrespective of her ability to cook peri-peri chicken. Indeed, he had not even known about that until after he had proposed.

“I would marry you,” he said, “even if you could cook nothing—nothing at all! I would marry you even if you wore glasses, which you do, of course.”

For a while nothing was said as both of them tried to work out the significance of the last remark. Then Phuti cleared his throat. “Of course I do not mind glasses, and yours are very pretty, Grace. That is what I think.”

Mma Makutsi stirred the peri-peri chicken rather more aggressively than perhaps was necessary. “The chicken is almost ready, Phuti,” she said. “I will serve you now.”

They ate in silence, and it was several minutes before Phuti spoke. “When I said …” he began. “I didn't mean …”

“Of course not. I didn't think that you meant that.”

During the ensuing silence Mma Makutsi drank several glasses of water. It felt to her as if a hot iron had been run across her tongue, and the water, curiously enough, seemed only to make each successive mouthful more fiery. When the chicken was finished, she served a dessert of pineapple and custard that she knew Phuti would like, and this seemed to dispel the gloom that had settled over the table.