Mma Makutsi listened to this. “People can be very dirty,” she said. “They have dirty hands. Not all people, but quite a lot of people do.”

Phuti agreed with this. “It must be very difficult if you are a person who has to shake hands with people all day. A president, maybe, or a big film star. All those people come up to you and say, Please shake my hand, and you want to ask them if they’ve washed their hands. But you can’t do that, can you—not if you’re one of these politicians or film stars. You have to shake hands first and then you must think afterwards: Have they washed their hands?”

They passed one of the tables that had been freshly polished by Mma Rosemary. “See that?” said Phuti, pointing at the gleaming hardwood surface. “That is like a mirror. If you had a table like that, you could use it to shave with in the morning. You could look at your face in the surface and shave.”

The sofas were next, and there they stopped. Mma Makutsi gazed out over the large array of highly stuffed, opulent-looking couches. Many of them were made of leather, most of it black, but in some cases cream or highly coloured reds and greens. She wondered what it would be like to have a red leather sofa, and for a moment she saw herself seated on such a thing, fanned perhaps by one of those large electric fans, drinking tea and eating some rich morsel. If one had a sofa like that, one might sit on it all day, supported in the utmost comfort, reflecting on one’s good fortune though not, she hoped, without a thought for those whose own sofas were less comfortable, or indeed for those who had no sofa at all.