Kuki made excuses, of course; well, not excuses as such, but she said she cried not because of Emil but because her golden-haired boy, Everleigh, had not returned from the war. However, that was just the surface of things: Beatrice was certain that had Emil, the father, been kinder and more understanding, Everleigh, the son, would not have chosen to step on a landmine and make visible for all the eyes that fell upon him the raw and gaping wound that he had always been because of his father.

History would say that Everleigh Coetzee was a casualty of war but Beatrice knew otherwise. She knew that Everleigh Coetzee had been a casualty of Emil Coetzee.

‘Here’s to your divorce finally coming through. Here’s to your independence. Here’s to your being a free woman,’ Beatrice said, offering Kuki half of the scone.

Kuki took the offered scone and placed it on her plate, where Beatrice knew it would remain uneaten. ‘I miss him so much,’ she said and pushed the plate away, as though rejecting all the possible sweetness in her life.

Beatrice leaned over and squeezed Kuki’s hand in commiseration, wondering, all the while, if a festering wound always misses the sharp thing that created it. She hoped not, for Kuki’s sake.

Mrs Louisa Alcott was beginning to despair at the hero’s reluctance to see past his blind arrogance and notice that the pretty wallflower who was taming his most rebellious horse in the stables was really the woman that he loved and not the entitled heiress who had been his childhood sweetheart. How could the hero not have noticed by page ninety-nine that the wallflower was, like him, wild at heart?

As Mrs Louisa Alcott lay languidly on a white wrought-iron bench situated on an island of green lawn in her front garden, she turned to the cover of the Mills & Boon and looked at the ruggedness of the hero etched on it in relief, while the Australian outback stood hazily in the background. She had to remind herself of the reasons why she had reached for this particular Mills & Boon and not the dozens of others that the mobile library had brought within her easy reach the week before.

The artist who had painted the hero’s face had not only made it rugged and handsome but had also made it tanned to the point of being almost brown, but not so dark as to create confusion. His jaw was made of sharp lines, his chin was divided by a cleft, his cheek had the hint of a dimple, his nose was aristocratic and strong with nostrils flared slightly for the occasion, his mouth was made up of a curled upper lip and a slightly plump lower lip and gave the impression that he had just whispered something to the heroine, whom he held in his arms the way Clark Gable had held Vivien Leigh as Tara burnt. His hair was dark, full and thick with a slight wave to it that invited one’s fingers to run through it. All these qualities made for a very attractive face, but it was the eyes – they had a smoky amber colour and were nestled underneath beautifully arched brows – that had made Mrs Louisa Alcott reach for the book and choose it from the multitude. There was undeniable passion in those eyes. A man who looked at you with those eyes could make you do anything and make you feel everything that he did to you.