Mrs Louisa Alcott stopped running and relaxed somewhat as she watched a man whom she swiftly recognised as Emil Coetzee step out of the bakkie. She was well aware that romance novels often begin in a similar fashion, throwing the hero and heroine together in surprising and seemingly improbable ways, so she began to entertain the possibility that this could be the beginning of something wonderful for her.

Emil Coetzee, with his blond hair, was not as dark as she liked her heroes to be, but he – in his denim shirt, khaki trousers, veldskoene and well-worn cowboy hat – was definitely dressed like her heroes. And there was never any denying that he was an exceptionally handsome man, even in the middle of his life. Mrs Louisa Alcott watched him open and latch his bonnet in place before he became engulfed by the plumes of smoke that billowed from the car. Aware that he would probably need her help, she took a few steps towards him, and then remembered that she still had her pink, blue and yellow rollers in her hair, and was wearing a very comfortable but not very becoming or flattering yellow-and-white shift dress patterned with pink roses.

She watched Emil Coetzee open the tailgate of his car looking for things that could help him in his situation, and calculated that she had just enough time for a metamorphosis. She rushed into her house and made very quick work of changing into a navy-blue A-line dress with a white sailor’s collar. The dress pronounced her breasts, cinched her waist and outlined her hips. She removed the curlers from her hair, brushed and teased it into Farrah Fawcett playfulness, put on a good and sensible pair of navy-blue shoes and applied enough makeup to make her glow appropriate for that time of day. Just as she was applying her lipstick to a pouted and kiss-ready mouth, she heard the engine of the bakkie start up again. Surely Emil Coetzee, a man of many obvious talents, could not have fixed his smoking engine so quickly?

When Mrs Louisa Alcott emerged from the cocoon that was her home, she was a very beautiful butterfly, and when she looked at the road where the bakkie had been parked, all she saw was the trail of dust that the vehicle had left in its wake. Looking as pretty as a picture that had no one to admire it, she decided to make the best of a bad situation. She went to sit on her white bench, picked up the overturned Mills & Boon novel, and traced the gold, amber and brown lines that ran along its spine and under its title. Her hero had come and gone, but the war was over and there was still hope. Perhaps there would even be a happy ending for her.

Nothing truly surprising – something that she could not handle – ever happened in the small village nestled in one of the many almost-forgotten corners of the world that Dikeledi Moyana, the postman, called home, and she preferred it that way. She prized the equilibrium of her life above all else and was forever vigilant against anything that sought to disturb it.