There was no reply. “We must be careful that we have enough power in future,” intoned a voice on the radio. “We cannot always buy our power from our neighbours, who have a shortage themselves. What is it they said? Enough’s enough: no more power for you, Botswana, or you, Swaziland. You go and buy candles.”

Mma Ramotswe was not interested in that. She was thinking of what the house-mother had said: She was like a balloon with all the air taken out of it. She felt a tinge of alarm. Sometimes people had a stroke without realising what had happened, and then they became confused and could fail to reply when somebody came to their door and called Ko, ko! Could Mma Potokwane be lying unconscious, in the kitchen perhaps, or on the cold floor of the bathroom? Her husband was often away for days, she had said: he had cattle somewhere. If that were so, then it might be a long time before anybody thought to look for her, and by then it could be too late. A floor was no place to lie for very long, even in warm weather.

She pushed the door fully open and entered the house, calling out Mma Potokwane’s name as she did so. Her voice seemed so loud; even louder than the voice of the engineer who was expressing a view on coal-fired power stations on Radio Botswana. “These stations are much better than they used to be,” he said. “Like so many things.”

Like so many things, thought Mma Ramotswe. Like medicines, like supplies of vegetables in the supermarkets, like electric fans, like the road to Lobatse, like … She entered the sitting room, and there, on the couch before her, was Mma Potokwane, sitting as motionless as a figure in a painting or a photograph—clearly not dead, but not herself. Like a balloon that has had the air taken out of it. Yes, just like that.

Mma Potokwane’s eyes registered the arrival of Mma Ramotswe and she moved slightly, as if beginning to get up to welcome her but then thinking better of it.

“Mma, are you all right? You didn’t answer. I called out and …”

Mma Potokwane raised a hand to point to a chair. “You should sit down, Mma. Yes, I am all right, but not all right really. I’ll tell you. You sit down.”

Mma Ramotswe did as she was bade. “But you do not look very well, Mma. Are you sure you’re not ill?”

Mma Potokwane shook her head. “I’m not ill,” she said. “No, that is not the problem.”

Mma Ramotswe waited for her to continue, and she did.

“I am shocked, Mma; that is all. I shall be better soon, I think, but now I am shocked.”

“You’ve had bad news?”