A Darn Good Year..(Episode 4)

Feeling bored, Sam picked her phone and called her friend Shelly. She was caught in the busy Lagos traffic and she cancelled their appointment for another time as they both agreed they were getting old and tired. She smiled and stood up to leave when the rumpled newspaper caught her attention as she picked it up and convinced herself that it was of importance to Kojo or maybe she just wanted to see him again. What she felt for him was strange, she could not place it. He struck her as someone who was confident and had lot of control but a phone call changed everything as he turned feeble and looked lost. Suddenly it hit her that he reminded her of her dead son. She blinked her eyes as she tried hard to fight the tears now streaming down her face and left the lounge to go home.

Kojo drove straight to the hospital and asked for his personal physician. He spoke to him in private, fear written all over his face as he explained himself. He was scheduled for a test immediately and was asked to come the next day for the result.                                                                                         Back in the house Kojo paced up and down trying to calm him he reached for a bottle of brandy and took a gulp. The sting piercing down to his spine he fought hard to sit on a couch and wondered how he got himself into this mess.  It started when his mother died and his largehearted father took another wife whom had children from previous marriage. From age twelve  he had been abused sexually by his step mother and he could not talk for fear. This secret pain he lived with till he had the courage to flee from Ghana to Nigeria in search of a better life.  In Nigeria he got noticed as a handsome young man and was used as male escort for society women. He turned down offers of romance from them as he had come to hate women. While struggling to establish himself as a professional photographer he needed funds and he was approached by a guy named Donald. Donald later turned out to be his close friend and introduced him to a thriving business so long as one can keep his mouth shut ………homosexuality. Growing desperate with need he decided to give it a try after all he had lost all interest in feminine folks as they all strike him as vultures. He was to be introduced to another client today by Donald his supposed pimp when he called to inform him that senator Williams one of his former clients was found dead in his bathroom. He wrote a suicide note telling the world he had lived secretly being a gay man and found out from the doctors he had A.I.D.S, he decided to put an end to his miserable life. His political career was having a downturn as he had been called back from his constituency, following allegations of his homosexuality that was becoming so evident.                                                                

Kojo took another swig and smiled shakily at himself. He was at a risk of having the disease himself, he had vowed at the beginning of this year to be celibate but could not turn down the greens.  Suddenly,he felt a touch on his hand and remembered Sam. Her touch was heavenly, smile was contagious and her pain was evident. His pulse quickened as he remembered the horoscope section again and looked around for the paper. “I must have forgotten it” he said and smiled as he relished the thought of seeing or talking to Sam again. Maybe God was finally answering his prayers.

A Darn Good Year ...(Episode 3)

The lounge {1:30pm}

Kojo, a  good looking man in his mid thirties strolled casually to the news stand and picked his favorite newspaper. He scanned through the headlines and later flipped the pages to the horoscope section which always made him smile because the predictions had always been wrong but time and again, yet he kept reading them. He scrolled to Virgo and it read “romance in the air, for your companion awaits you” he laughed out loud this time not minding the strange stares of onlookers.

At this time the lounge would be filled to capacity as most people have lunch meetings in the place due to the locations of eat-out eateries that surround it. He glanced at his wristwatch again and smiled as he thought bad business does pay. He is often ashamed to say what he does to make a living and he has never told anyone. Sooner or later he would have to return to his native country Ghana and has been thinking about how to leave this shameful job of his but he has become addicted to it and doesn’t know how to even tell them at home. Though he had plans on opening a studio and going back to professional photography but he lacked the will to start again. There is so much pressure from home for him to get married and raise kids as a man should.

He snapped back to reality and frowned suddenly as he saw a vacant table with a lady with such a lovely smile………He forgot what he was thinking and smiled back at her walking hastily towards her like she was a ghost. Sam dropped the phone and frowned “what do you want young man”, Kojo fidgeted and said “you, have a breathtaking smile Ma’am, may I join you. This is the only free …….”

“because I reserved it. But you may seat till my friend comes around” Sam snapped.

Kojo nodded and took a seat on the table for four and tried not to notice the lady but he could not help it. She was beautiful, dark and astonishing, though something seemed missing, but he couldn’t figure it out. It was like she had a secret pain that was killing her. Maybe it’s a terminal disease he mused silently and then he heard a knock on the table and met Sam’s angry face, “you have been staring”

“Oh, I’m sorry I couldn’t help myself……”

Kojo’s eyes drifted lazily from her and came to rest on the newspaper he had bought that afternoon. He flicked it and his gaze dropped to the horoscope section again and this time he frowned…

"She can’t be the one besides I’m sure I am no longer inclined to the females. She is charming and very captivating but she is older than me and I’m sure she must be in her late forties if not fifty years already" he murmured. And his frown deepened. 

Sam knocked the table again and was about asking what was wrong with him when his phone rang. Relieved, Kojo quickly picked it not willing to disclose what he had been thinking. He must have been a fool to think that a prediction that had never worked for him would suddenly start working.

“Good morning don” and there was a long silence as he listened carefully to the caller. His hand now crushing the newspaper he held , Sam’s hand reached impulsively for his and he dropped the phone. Sam was not sure if he did that because she reached for him or from the news he heard from the phone. He looked lost and scared at the same time. Sam knocked on the table again and he looked startled, she smiled as she said “your phone fell off”.

 He mumbled a quick thank you and picked it. “I’m sorry ma’am but I have to leave right now”, Sam felt confused and could only ask “I’m Samantha, what is your name”

“Kojo”, came the reply

“Be careful” she called out after him. He heard that and nodded as he walked out of the lounge leaving behind his newspaper.

A Darn Good Year ..Episode 2

Immediately she reached down to the tub and dragged her friend out of the pool to the floor, the smell of liquor dominant as all the content had been emptied. She clasped her hand together, closed her eyes for a short moment and began to revive her. Sam awoke from unconsciousness and sneezed continuously as she looked to see her best friend and gave a lame smile.

Now sitting in her bedroom in dry clothes, holding a mug of tea in her shaky palms, Shelly asked “ what has gotten into you”, she gave another lame smile and replied “ I was just trying to have my bath and look better than last year for my dear friend”. Shelly studied her closely, she looked so frail and fragile, the huge circles under her eyes now evident, she flinched suddenly and Shelly asked “the nightmares again” “Yes and I can’t help it, I killed him Shelly, I fed him with silly ideas on true love and Laura since her divorce from that gold digger hardly comes home. I’m left with a husband whose spirit left since Jason died. I and Segun are like strangers in this house and we hardly exchange monosyllables now as he either gives a nod or just ignore me. I feel like a living corpse” now crying she mumbled “It would have been better if I were dead but I lack the courage to kill myself”

“Let it out dear” and Shelly hugged her friend closely,

“It’s not your fault, I should have been here to help, Jason killed himself and that was a cowardly act…..You found true love and married your first love. There is nothing wrong in sharing your experience with your children, Laura refused to see beyond her nose and stubbornly married Thomas. If you asked me she got what she deserved and I hope she is learning from her mistakes now. As for Segun, I hate to say this but he has disappointed me. Ignoring you and treating you like a piece of furniture is not the way to go. You have not failed as a wife and a mother”

Shelly, left some minutes later to attend to an urgent matter but fixed a lunch date with Sam, convincing her that she has to go out and see the beauty of life instead of being enclosed like an Egyptian mummy.

Later in the day, Segun sent a text to her phone saying he won’t be spending the night at home as he has a deal to seal.  Segun had brought another strategy into their cold war that is “see no evil, hear no evil”, he was a senior executive and had every right to be excluded from the so called overnight deal, but he chose the office above her again. Sam gave a sight and was about crying as she hushed herself and shook her head saying “I won’t cry for you, never will I” and she dozed off.

A darn good year ....Episode 1

LAGOS (AJAH) 2:35pm

 Mrs. Toba Lawson.

The home of the Lawson’s was unarguably one of the best on 21road of Sun view estate, classy but not flamboyant with well mowed grass to the flowers that welcomed one into the house one cannot help but feel intimidated by the presence of the house. Nothing in the world is perfect they say but this was near perfection.

In the bar sat a 49yr old lady, with dark circles under her eyes, rough hair and generally looked unkempt. This is the woman of the house, Mrs. Sam Toba-Lawson. 

Samantha poured herself another glass of scotch iced it and marched to the living room in careless abandon as she struggled to pull her robe closer to her chest. She sank into a nearby sofa looked lazily at the grandfathers clock across her and suddenly remembered that Shelly her best friend who went on sabbatical to lecture in Australia just breezed into the country. Shelly promised to check on her today by 3pm. Instinctively she stood up and dragged herself to the bathroom ran water in the tub, still holding the bottle of scotch in her hand. She steadied herself as she sat by the edge of tub and smelled her breathe. Awful. Speaking sluggishly she said “will have to clean my mess, Shelly must not find me in this sorry state” and she slipped into oblivion.

LAGOS (AJAH) 3:10pm

Shelly walked into the familiar building with a smile on her face, gaining entrance now into the high and mighty Toba –Lawson was like the proverbial camel going through the eye of a needle. The security men were expectedly strict and firm, thank God for the instruction Sam had given earlier in the day to her entrance once she had identified herself and satisfied their probing questions.

The last Three hundred and sixty five days, though short but a lot had happened. Her best friend Sam had become more secretive than ever and hardly talked much or replied the phone calls and emails they exchanged while she was in the land of the kiwis ever since……. “Jeez, I’m meant to make her happy, not to bring back those sad memories” she said aloud and quickly cautioned herself as she walked into the living room.

 A glass cup was carelessly dropped on the couch and she could perceive a faint smell of liquor, she picked the glass and smelt it, it was still fresh. “Since when did Sam start drinking, or is someone else in this house” she said clearly irritated. Sam, Sam, Samantha….” She called out with no answer she started walking through the rooms in the building when a strange thought crossed her mind “loneliness means suicidal” she froze and all of a sudden she doubled her pace and started searching frantically for her. She entered another room and could hear the sound of running water, straight to the bathroom and she found her friend unconscious, drowning in her bath tub.