This information did nothing to convince Sitshengisiwe that Eunice was telling the truth. The one and only time she had seen Eunice’s son was the day Eunice had brought him to work. Sitshengisiwe, at the time living with Philemon in the boy’s kia of the Rutherfords’ house, had caught a glimpse of the boy in his ill-fitting, blue paper-boy suit as he clutched his mother’s gloved hand and allowed his knees to knock, and she had been convinced then that he would never amount to much. That had been the day that Eunice’s fortunes had changed because she had talked to Emil Coetzee – about Lord knew what – and stopped coming to work. Eunice now informed her that after that conversation with Emil Coetzee, she had been able to train to be a nurse and to educate her son at one of the best schools for Africans in the City of Kings.

‘America? A doctor?’ Sitshengisiwe said, a little too late because she was still having a difficult time believing that the boy was amounting to anything much at all.

‘Yes,’ Eunice said with an obvious bite in her pride.

Sitshengisiwe knew then that some of her doubt had shown, and so she smiled and nodded with more eagerness.

‘Married that beauty queen. You know the one. The one on the covers of all those magazines. Thandi Hadebe,’ Eunice said, her already puffed-out chest moving beyond the steering wheel and making its way to the windscreen.

Although Sitshengisiwe was not altogether certain which one of the many beautiful faces to grace the covers of magazines belonged to Thandi Hadebe, she said with sufficient enthusiasm, ‘Thandi Hadebe!’

‘Yes. Thandi Hadebe,’ Eunice said as her puffed-out chest pressed against the windscreen. ‘They called me all the way from America and said to me, “Mom” – that is what they call me now, “Mom” – “Mom, you can’t be forever walking here, there and everywhere. We have bought you a car. All you have to do is go and pick it up at Duly’s.”’ At this point, Eunice’s chest was threatening to crack the windscreen.

Not knowing what else to say, Sitshengisiwe said, ‘At Duly’s?’

Satisfied, Eunice nodded like a queen before she asked, ‘And you? Still with Philemon?’ She somehow made the name Philemon sound like something she wanted to get off her skin.

‘Yes,’ Sitshengisiwe said, rotating her wedding ring, which had once again lost its sparkle, around and around and around.

‘And your children? How many are they now?’

‘Four. One more came after you left the Rutherfords. All the maids who came after you were not up to your standard. Even Madam said so.’

At the mention of her history as the Rutherfords’ maid, Eunice actually stiffened and shivered, and her puffed-out chest eased off the windscreen.