‘A bicycle,’ Reverend Michael said, happy, as always, to be the bearer of not only salvation but knowledge as well.

The woman knew from received information that the bicycle was the entire thing; she did not mean the bicycle, and so she said, ‘No. Not that … but that,’ making sure to point where the round parts were.

‘Oh, you mean the wheels?’ a still happy Reverend Michael asked.

She had seen a few carriages and automobiles. The village owned quite a number of donkey carts. She knew what wheels were. She did not mean the wheels, and so she said, ‘No. Not that … but that.’

As far as Reverend Michael could see, she was still pointing at the round parts, the wheels, so he was momentarily no longer happy; he was confounded. He looked at the bicycle trying to see what it was that she was pointing at. ‘Do you mean the spokes?’ he asked presently. ‘The silver wires?’

‘The spokes,’ she said, and it was her turn to be happy. The word was as beautiful as the thing it named. ‘Spokes,’ she repeated.

Now, as Spokes opened the station door, stepped into the cool evening air, and placed his fedora on his head, he was just grateful that his mother’s fancy had not been caught by the handlebars or the tail light. Some others, he knew, had not been so fortunate as to have a mother name them for something that carried on after the journey had ended.

Spokes carefully placed the white envelope in the messenger bag that had once belonged to his father and which he kept in his bicycle’s basket, pegged the bottoms of his trousers, and then mounted the rusty but trusty Raleigh his wife had bought him for his forty-fifth birthday to replace the ancient Raleigh he had also inherited from his father. As he rode home through the townships, he followed the Milky Way with its constellation of many stars. The beauty of the moment made him feel better about the ending of things.

The scent of chicken and dumplings, his favourite meal, greeted Spokes even before he entered the red-bricked, five-roomed house with a tiny veranda that he and his wife had called home for twenty years. Spokes found himself salivating and smiling as he chained the bicycle to the laundry line and then locked it to his father’s bicycle, removed the messenger bag from the basket, ran his forefinger over his moustache, walked onto the stoep, walked over the shiny surface of the veranda, and opened the door to his home – each step making him stand up straighter … taller … prouder.

It is quite possible that on 20 December 1979, many men in Mpopoma Township loved their wives, but it is not possible that any of them loved their wives as much as Spokes loved the lovely Loveness when he stepped over the threshold into his home, and was surrounded by the warm and inviting smell of the perfect welcome home.