Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni wound down his window. “Yes, Mma Ramotswe,” he said. “I'll go to the butcher. What do we need this time?”

She shook her head. He saw that she was looking at him intently, as if she were expecting a message or waiting for him to say something.

“What is it, Mma Ramotswe?”

She shook her head. “I don't know, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. I suppose I just wanted to say something to you. And now I don't really know what it is.”

He began to smile, and was on the point of chiding her for being forgetful, when he stopped. There was something in her demeanour that suggested concern; it was almost as if she were frightened; as if she wanted to be reassured by him. He reached out of the window and touched her arm gently, then took her hand in his, awkwardly, as his position inside the cab of the truck did not make it easy. “What is it, Mma Ramotswe? Is there anything wrong?”

She answered no, there was nothing wrong. Did he know how sometimes you felt horribly anxious; you felt that something was going to happen? He thought about that for a moment; yes, he understood that feeling, but nothing bad was going to happen. And then he asked her whether she was upset about her van. She shook her head to that.

“Then what is it?”

She gave his hand a squeeze. “I wanted to thank you,” she said.

He was puzzled. “For what? Thank me for what?”

“For everything that you've given me, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.”

He looked away. He was not one for displays of emotion; he never had been, but it made his heart swell to be thanked by this woman who stood for so much in his eyes; who stood for kindness and generosity and understanding; for a country of which he was so proud; who stood for Africa and all the love that Africa contained.

“I am the one who should say thank you, Mma Ramotswe,” he said. “You are the one who has given everything.”

She gave his hand a last, fond squeeze and then stood back. “I mustn't hold you up,” she said. “Lobatse.”

He sighed. “Yes, Lobatse.”

He put the truck into gear and she watched him drive out onto the road. In the background, she heard the neighbour's dogs start to bark at the sound of the truck's engine. Those dogs, she thought; they lay in wait for anything that passed, human or mechanical, ready to defend their tiny patch of territory against whatever incursion, as do we all.

IT HAD BEEN a very unsettling feeling, but she had largely recovered from it by the time she herself left the house half an hour later. The children had been dispatched to school, Puso pushing Motholeli's wheelchair for the short journey. He was old enough to do that now, and did it without complaint; it was lodged in his mind somewhere, thought Mma Ramotswe, that his sister had looked after him, had saved his life, in fact, when he was very small. He did not remember that, of course, but he had been told about it, and he knew.