‘There is plenty of help for her in the house, Mma. There is that girl who works in the kitchen – she is a very good cook. And she keeps things clean too. And then there is my aunt.’

‘Your aunt?’ Mma Ramotswe said sharply.

Phuti sighed. ‘She is coming to the house for six weeks,’ he said. ‘Grace’s mother is late now, and she says that there must be a senior female relative to help with the baby and all the things that need to be done. She says that it is her duty to come, since we will not let the baby go to her place. In fact…’

She waited for him to continue but he was having difficulty with the words. Mma Makutsi had told her that it was always like that – when Phuti was upset or nervous about something, the words would not come, or would come out in pieces, or sometimes in the wrong order.

‘Has she already come to the house?’ she asked.

‘Y… yes. She is there now.’

Mma Ramotswe was not sure what to say. Phuti’s aunt was a difficult woman, by any standards, and could try even the patience of Dr Moffat, the most patient of men, who would listen to people talking about their problems and their sorrows for any length of time and never urge them to hurry up, because our problems and our sorrows may be a story that is very long in the telling, and he understood that. And Professor Tlou had been the same – that wise man who knew more about the history of Botswana than anybody else, but who had always been prepared to listen to people telling their own story, even if he had heard similar things from many others before. He was late now, but he had not been forgotten and it was as if his wisdom and kindness were still there; which they were, in a way, because people still remembered and that made them a little bit wiser and kinder themselves.

The aunt was not in that company. She was, Mma Ramotswe feared, someone who would probably never improve very much, even if there were times that she appeared to be a little less difficult. But it was always worth trying; there were few people who were so unpleasant that you could not get through to them with courtesy or praise. That was often what such people really wanted – to be praised, to be loved – and that was what could change them.