If Loveness’s conjecture – after Daisy named her daughter Dikeledi – that Daisy was from Bechuanaland was correct, then the villagers’ hands were truly tied, because who knew what was contained within the customs and traditions of the Tswana people? Perhaps all this gift-giving and receiving was part and parcel of their gender relations. The union (which was not a marriage) between S’jumba and Daisy was the perfect example of why elders always warned against going to look for a log for your home fire in faraway places.

To be fair, the villagers thought and felt these things only during the beginning of their co-existence with Daisy. They tried to keep her at bay, but she was so pleasant and helpful to everybody that in time, it became difficult for the villagers to build a solid wall of spite and malice against her. When village men made advances towards her in not-so-clandestine ways, and she, in that easy laughing way of hers, spurned them, no one, especially the men’s wives, could take offence because she made it clear that she was not interested in any of their husbands. The men in turn were let down so gently that they did not feel the rejection. What really won over anyone who still had reservations about Daisy was how she devoutly and painstakingly went around the village salving the bent and cracked backs of the truly ancient villagers with her own secret concoction.

In time, Daisy was, if not universally loved, definitely highly esteemed. So when S’jumba came home for the one month in the year that his factory baas allowed, the villagers decided not to tell him about Jasper Mlangeni, the Idlazonke shopkeeper, Raftopoulos, the Greek travelling salesman, and the arithmetic teacher over at Krum’s Place – after all, what they had witnessed was the receiving of goods and nothing else.

Just as everyone had got used to her and her easy ways, Daisy was dead.

When Constable Spokes Moloi came and told them that her remains had been found by a bend in the river in what had once been Qhubeka Village and was now the Ashtonbury Farm and Estate, the villagers were surprised to discover how very little they knew about Daisy. They wished they had not let her charm them into leaving her a thing unknown amongst them. Eager to prove to the constable that they knew more than they did, the villagers began to dispute everything they had hitherto known.