Mma Ramotswe was not surprised. ‘People have different views. Certainly she was right about the old Botswana views – that is the position. My late father would never have imagined that any man would ask such a thing. He was a child of his time – as we all are, Rra.’

Phuti Radiphuti went on to describe what had happened. The man had begun to shout, he said, and had asked whose baby it was anyway. ‘The senior nurse shouted even more,’ he said. ‘She told him that the baby belonged to his wife and that he was just the father. He would be able to see the baby in due time, when his wife invited him to do so.’

‘And how did he react to that?’ asked Mma Ramotswe.

‘He was not very happy,’ replied Phuti. ‘And then the other junior nurse, who had not said anything, started to support him too. That made it two nurses and one man against one senior nurse. There was a lot of shouting.’ He paused. ‘Then more shouting started – this time from one of the ladies who was having a baby. And that stopped the man.’

‘He didn’t like it?’

‘No. He suddenly stopped shouting and he stood very still. I think he became frightened. Then he turned round and walked quickly away.’

Mma Ramotswe laughed. ‘He’d changed his mind?’

‘He decided that it was not a good idea after all,’ said Phuti.

Mma Ramotswe looked out of the window. She was remembering. She tried not to think about it, but every so often it came back to her – the birth of her only child all those years ago. Her baby by Note Mokoti; her baby who had lived for such a short time before being taken away from her. Her child, her baby – the only baby that she would ever have. She closed her eyes, trying to fend off the memory of how she had held the tiny baby, uncertain whether life had gone yet, and how they had taken the bundle from her, restraining her in the raw depth of her grief, because they said that she could not hold the child’s body for ever and would have to say goodbye. We all had to say goodbye, sooner or later, to those we loved – or they had to say goodbye to us. Those were the only two possibilities that this world allowed. But no matter how much we tried to face up to it, it never became easier.

She struggled to bring herself back. ‘So you waited outside?’

He nodded. ‘There is a place for fathers to go, but I think that most of us wanted to go outside. There were three other men there – the man who had changed his mind, and two others. One of them was a man who knew my cousin – a man who works in the Bank of Botswana. He has something to do with money.’