ON THE DAY following Charlie’s accident—an accident of which nobody at the garage or the agency was yet aware—Mma Ramotswe decided not to work in her office but instead to go for a picnic. It was not a decision that was made on the spur of the moment; she had been invited almost two weeks previously by Mma Potokwane, had accepted, and then forgotten about it until a few hours before the gathering was due to take place. In some respects she would have preferred not to have remembered at all, as that would have given her a perfect excuse, even if a retrospective one, for not attending. But now it was too late: Mma Potokwane, the redoubtable matron of the orphan farm, would be expecting her and she had to go.

Mma Ramotswe and Mma Potokwane were old friends. Mma Makutsi, who had her difficulties with Mma Potokwane, the two having crossed swords on more than one occasion, had once asked Mma Ramotswe how they had first met. Mma Ramotswe had been unable to provide an answer. Some friends, she explained, seemed always to have been part of one’s life. Obviously there was a first meeting, but in the case of old friends that was usually so long ago, and so mundane at the time, that all memory of it had faded. Such friends were like favoured possessions—a cherished book, a favourite picture—how one acquired them was long forgotten, they were just there.

It had not always been the smoothest of friendships and there were some aspects of Mma Potokwane’s behaviour of which Mma Ramotswe frankly disapproved. Her bossiness was one such thing, particularly when it was directed at Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, who had long been incapable of refusing Mma Potokwane’s requests to fix various antiquated pieces of equipment at the orphan farm. It was all very well for her to order the orphans about—that was what one expected of the matron of an orphanage, since it was undoubtedly good for the children to lead ordered lives—but it was another thing altogether for her to adopt a similar manner when it came to adults.

“I feel sorry for that woman’s husband,” Mma Makutsi had once remarked, following upon a call that Mma Potokwane had made to the office. “No wonder he doesn’t ever say anything. Have you watched him? He just stands there. The poor man must be afraid to open his mouth.”

Out of loyalty to her friend, Mma Ramotswe refrained from saying anything about this, but when she gave some thought to Mma Makutsi’s less-than-charitable remark she had to acknowledge that it was probably true. Mma Potokwane’s husband was a small man, neither as tall nor as well built as his wife, and he gave every appearance of being both physically and emotionally floundering in the wake created by his wife.