Mma Makutsi swallowed. She knew that she had to be kinder to Charlie and she was trying, she really was. But how should a woman—any woman—react to a young man who said some of the things that Charlie said? Who had said, for example, that women could not fly aeroplanes because they would always be looking in the mirror to check that their lipstick was all right? Yes, Charlie had said that; those were his exact words, and she had exploded and said that he needed to wake up to the fact that women were flying aeroplanes right over his head at that very moment. Charlie had gone to the window and looked up at the sky and said that he could not see any aeroplanes being flown by women, and was this because they had perhaps already crashed? Mma Ramotswe had intervened then and politely taken Charlie to task, while Mma Makutsi calmed down. Those occasions were difficult. She knew Charlie would grow up eventually, but what if he grew up from a young man who held opinions like that into an older man who thought exactly the same way? That was the trouble with growing up: people did not always grow up in the way in which you might like them to grow up. And that, as Mma Ramotswe would put it, was a well-known fact.

Now Mma Rosemary reached out and took Mma Makutsi’s hand in hers. It was an entirely natural gesture—one of acceptance, one of solidarity. “You are now with us,” she said.

Mma Makutsi saw Phuti break into a smile, and she smiled too. “It is very good,” she said.

“And you have chosen such a beautiful woman,” Mma Rosemary said to Phuti. “You are a lucky man to have a beautiful wife like this. We are all very proud of you, Rra.”

Mma Makutsi felt her hands being gently squeezed as this compliment was paid; it showed, she thought, that it was meant. You did not squeeze hands when you lied; it could not be done.

“You are very kind to me, Mma Rosemary,” she said.

The other woman beamed up at her; she was considerably shorter than Mma Makutsi. “That is because you have made our Phuti so happy, Mma Radiphuti,” she said. “And that has made us all happy.”

They moved off. Mma Makutsi thought: Mma Radiphuti—that is me; I am Mma Radiphuti. I am the wife of this wonderful, kind man and I am not dreaming. This has happened. I am Mma Radiphuti.

“She is the best polisher in all Botswana,” remarked Phuti as they continued on their way into the store. “She can make tables glow like the sun. People come in, you see, and they touch the tables after they have been eating fat cakes or doughnuts. And so the tables have fingerprints all over them. Mma Rosemary sorts that out with her tins of polish and her rags.”