he food looked interesting, which made me suspicious of it since I knew that food was not meant to be interesting but filling Besides the rice, there was something that might have been potato: I could not be sure since it was smothered in a thick, white tasteless gravy. Although I gallantly placed small portions of it in my mouth, it refused to go down my throat in large quantities. In fact nothing was going down my throat in large quantities. I discovered that using a knife and fork was not as easy as it looked; most of m supper was landing on the table, on my chest, in my lap , everywhere except in my mouth. In a way this was not a bad thing because ie taste of those potatoes made everything else, even the , Which was properl i iand tomatoes as Pr tenn cooked with plenty of salt and onions

Lucia, who had grown shrewd in her years of dealing with men denied that the foetus was Takesure’s. She accredited it instead tomy father, although this could not have been true. My father, doin his best not to offend Babamukuru, had sensibly not allowed himself to enjoy Lucia’s voluptuousness until after she had fallen pregnant. From this feat of self-control Lucia had deduced that my

Nyasha didn’t want to go home that Christmas either, and this made me apprehensive, because it was likely that there would be another of our bloody family scenes.