“Careful,” he said. “This door is not very wide.”

Another voice answered, but she did not hear what it said. It was a female voice but not, she realised with a rush of relief, the voice of that terrible woman. Who was he bringing back to the house? Another woman? That would be good, because then she could tell that Ramotswe woman that he was not faithful to her and that might put an end to the marriage before it started.

But then the wheelchair came in and she saw the girl, pushed by her small brother, enter the house. She was at a loss what to think. What was her employer doing bringing these children into the house? They must be relatives; the children of some distant cousin. The old Botswana morality dictated that you had to provide for such people, no matter how distant the connection.

“I am here, Rra,” she called out. “Your lunch is ready.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked up. “Ah,” he said. “There are some children with me. They will need to eat.”

“There will be enough,” she called out. “I have made a good stew.”

She waited a few minutes before going into the living room, busying herself with the mashing of the overcooked potatoes. When she did go though, wiping her hands industriously on a kitchen rag, she found Mr J.L.B. Matekoni sitting in his chair. On the other side of the room, looking out of the window, was a girl, with a young boy, presumably her brother, standing beside her. The maid stared at the children, taking in at a glance what sort of children they were. Basarwa, she thought: unmistakable. The girl had that colour skin, the light brown, the colour of cattle dung; the boy had those eyes that those people have, a bit like Chinese eyes, and his buttocks stuck out in a little shelf behind him.

“These children have come to live here,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, lowering his eyes as he spoke. “They are from the orphan farm, but I am going to be looking after them.”

The maid’s eyes widened. She had not expected this. Masarwa children being brought into an ordinary person’s house and allowed to live there was something no self-respecting person would do. These people were thieves—she never doubted that—and they should not be encouraged to come and live in respectable Batswana houses. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni may be trying to be kind, but there were limits to charity.

She stared at her employer. “They are staying here? For how many days?”

He did not look up at her. He was too ashamed, she thought.

“They are staying here for a long time. I am not planning to take them back.”

She was silent. She wondered whether this had something to do with that Ramotswe woman. She might have decided that the children could come and stay as part of her programme to take over his life. First you move in some Masarwa children, and then you move in yourself. The moving in of the children may even have been part of a plot against herself, of course. Mma Ramotswe might well have expected that she would not approve of such children coming into the house and in this way she might force her out even before she moved in altogether. Well, if that was her plan, then she would do everything in her power to thwart it. She would show her that she liked these children and that she was happy to have them in the house. It would be difficult, but she could do it.