“And the only reason why you needed a new home was because your mother was late. She would have kept you if she had not become late. You know that too?”

This time there was not even a murmur. She persisted, though. “You can be proud of your mummy, you know, and of your daddy. The two peoples of this country. You are lucky to belong to both of them.”

He reached for the door handle, suddenly and without warning. He was so quick that she hardly saw it happen before the door was open and the wind was rushing in. Outside, the side of the road was a flash; the dusty brown of the verge, the black of the tar. She shouted out in alarm, and reached for him with one hand, her other hand remaining on the wheel, but slipping. At the same time, she braked sharply, sending the tiny white van sliding off the road. Puso, jolted forward by the braking motion, fell against the dashboard. He struggled to free himself from Mma Ramotswe’s grip, but she held him tightly. He cried out.

For a few moments after the van had come to a halt, there was complete silence. The engine had stalled and there was just that odd, irregular ticking noise that comes from hot machinery, a settling down, a contracting of overheated parts.

“Are you all right?”

He did not answer her question, but sobbed. He turned his head away.

“You cannot jump out of a car,” stuttered Mma Ramotswe. The shock of what had happened had hit her, and she felt herself trembling.

Puso opened his eyes and looked at her briefly, as if to take her in for the first time. Then his gaze slid away. “I don’t want to be…that,” he said. “I don’t want to.”

Her heart went out to him. She reached forward and tried to hug him to her, but he wriggled out of her embrace.

“There is nothing wrong…nothing wrong with being what you are, Puso! Nothing.” She paused. The boy was still sobbing, his hands over his face, his frame shaking. She bent down to draw him close, overcoming his resistance, holding him to her. She had held her own child, had hugged the tiny figure, all those years ago, during those brief few hours of motherhood; and since then she had hardly done it. Now she did. It was an embrace that drew on the love which had somehow been stifled when she lost her child, drew on those wells of affection and feeling. Had she failed this little boy? Of course she had, and the realisation of this was painful to her. Why had she not given him the love that he so very much needed and that she, in turn, needed to give?