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and cut off a small corner. This she tossed to the dog, who caught it in his jaws, swallowing it in a single gulp. Phuti now returned and washed his hands in the sink.
    ‘I’ve left him outside,’ he said. ‘That will scare his wife away. They often come in twos.’
    She looked away. She had wanted the snake killed – it was her doing – and now she had made a widow.
    Phuti stood beside her. ‘The important thing is that you are all right,’ he said. ‘It’s not good to be frightened when…’ He reached over and placed a hand gently on her stomach.
    She laid her own hand gently on top of his. ‘I had a fright, but now I am feeling better. And he is feeling better too.’ She glanced down at her stomach; she was sure it was a boy.
    ‘How much longer?’ he asked. ‘I keep forgetting.’
    She shrugged. ‘Three weeks. Twenty-one days, in fact.’
    He let out a low whistle. ‘Have you talked to Mma Ramotswe about maternity leave yet?’
    ‘I’ll talk to her soon,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to bother people about our baby, Phuti. Just you. Just in case…’
    He understood. ‘But now you can speak,’ he said. ‘Now the baby will be almost ready. Nothing can go wrong at this stage.’
    She was worried by his saying things like that. There were plenty of things that could go wrong, even at this stage; men simply did not understand.
    ‘I’ll speak to her tomorrow,’ she said.
    ‘Tomorrow? Don’t forget, then. It’s not fair to keep her waiting.’
    She smiled at him, her Phuti, the father of her unborn child, the man who had brought her to all this – this house, this state of comfort, this happiness.
     
    After dinner, they spent an hour or so in the room they had prepared for the baby. Phuti had found the necessary furniture in the Double Comfort Furniture Store: a cot, a changing table and a chest of drawers. There was also an easy chair for Mma Makutsi to use when she came to comfort the baby at night, and a pair of curtains with a rabbit design. Now they set to sorting out a pile of baby clothes that Mma Makutsi had bought at a sale at Riverwalk and checking the contents of a drawer that she had stocked with baby oil, powder and a selection of other supplies.
    Phuti was tired, and went to bed early. Mealies was to stay overnight, to be returned to his owner the following day, and he was bedded down on an old blanket on the kitchen floor. They had given him more steak, and a bowl of sorghum porridge mixed with gravy. This had been wolfed down with gusto, and the dog now looked even more barrel-like as he stretched out on the blanket.
    Mma Makutsi was still getting used to her new kitchen and was happy to stand for long periods simply gazing at its pristine surfaces, at its capacious fridge and its numerous cupboards and shelves. She did this for a while after Phuti had gone to bed, and then, since it was a warm evening, she decided to go out into the yard with a final cup of tea before retiring.
    Most of the garden was uncleared bush, but Phuti had made an attempt to cut the grass in the immediate curtilage of the house, giving it the appearance of a rough, half-cultivated field. This would be the beginnings of a lawn, she hoped, once they had the time to tend to it. She had already planted several small bushes that Mma Ramotswe and Mr J. L. B. Matekoni had given them as a housewarming present, and these were surrounded by neatly arranged rings of stones. She had never had a proper garden and was excited by the prospect of creating a small oasis of green in the surrounding brown. She would have a shelter, perhaps, under which chairs could be set out, allowing people to sit and drink tea in the fresh air. It was a thrilling prospect.
    Sipping at her tea, she took a few steps away from the light spilling out of the kitchen door in order to accustom her eyes to the darkness. The sky above Botswana was a great expanse of stars – uncountable thousands of them – so dense in places as to give an