It was an effort for her not to cry too. But she could not cry, because she had to tell him something, and she could not talk and weep at the same time. “Puso, I haven’t spoken to you about this, and I’m sorry. I didn’t think about it. I just didn’t. Don’t be cross with Mummy for that. Don’t be cross with me.”

She stopped herself. She had said it. She had called herself his mother. She had not done that before; she had been Mma Ramotswe to the children, just as she was Mma Ramotswe to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. She had not wanted to be their mother because she had been a mother, once, and was no longer. But that was wrong, so wrong. Of course she was a mother. We could all be a mother, all of us; even a man could be a mother.

Puso was looking at her. He began to say something, but did not; instead his eyes seemed to open wider and he stared at her in wonderment.

“Yes,” she said. “You mustn’t be cross with your mummy. I should have talked to you about these things that some people say. Unkind things about Masarwa. They’re not true, you know. We are all the same. All the same people. Bushmen, San, whatever you want to call them, and us, Batswana. White people too. Everybody. Inside us, we are exactly the same. You know that, don’t you? And we all come from the same mother, a long, long time ago, right here in Africa, up in East Africa somewhere. There was a lady who had some children, and they were the ancestors of every one of us, even of people who do not live in Africa. We are all the sons and daughters of that lady.”

He had stopped crying. His hand was resting on her wrist, lightly, but she felt the warmth. She looked down at the miracle, the sheer miracle of human flesh, so vulnerable, so valuable.

“Better now?” It was not a good idea, she thought, to talk about these things at too great length. A few words were all that was needed.

He nodded, and she eased herself back into her seat and started the engine again. He reached for the handle of the passenger door and closed it.

“What was that lady’s name?” he asked as they continued their journey.

“Which lady?”

“That lady who had the children. The one in East Africa.”

She laughed. “They didn’t have names in those days, Puso. It was a long, long time ago. Long before Botswana.”

He looked disappointed. “Makutsi, maybe.”