K2 – Koo, I must admit that story you told of the guy who was brought to your house by a girl you were chasing, and how he betrayed your trust by
telling her something you had confided to him (hoping that “a man to another man against
a woman” story would remain between you two) moved me greatly. I mean if he wanted the girl, he should try to use his own means – charm, generosity, etc – to impress her instead of ratting up on another man like that. And after he had well and truly whacked the akrantier soup your friend had laboriously created in London?”
– It could have constituted a motive for murder, couldn’t it?
– Hmm! The aspect of it that interested me most was the fact that your friend was robbed of his chance to bed the woman he had worked so hard to impress. It reminds me of a time that I too was
robbed of a low-hanging fruit that I was eager to pluck and eat!
– You were into such things, man?
I thought your Presbyterian upbringing had killed off your natural instincts?
– Haha! You don’t know what is in Dodowa forest!
There are some women who can turn the head of even the most ascetic of men. Just take my words for it that everything I shall relate to you will be the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!
– Okay, fire away!
– I must warn you that my tale may not be as absorbing as yours, because it happened in
Accra not in London!
– Nonsense! Human behaviour is the same everywhere.
Who gave you the idea that the scene of a story can change the essence of it, in terms of drama and human interest contained in it? Are you afflicted with an inferiority complex or what?
– Ok, sorry. But in truth, I always enjoy stories better
when their location is strange, as it forces my imagination to work harder.
– Ok fire ahead!
– Well, you may have heard that some years ago, Ghana ran short of most imports, and that the more experienced good traders in Accra, for example,
turned their homes in into “beer parlours”, where one could almost always find cold beer on a hot afternoon.
The rest of the catering trade used bribery to obtain
supplies, but they pretended that they paid twice the normal price, and so they could only make a profit if they trebled the price of beer in particular.
Those of us who could afford it paid and only grumbled quietly under our breath.
Eventually, the place became a secretive watering
hole, where married men could take their “playmates” for a drink after work. So, I wasn’t
surprised when, one day, a friend of mine brought in one of the most beautiful girls I had ever set eyes upon.
Now, by sheer good luck, it turned out that the girl was not the paramour of the guy who had brought her (as we all suspected) but rather, the sister of his girlfriend! The guy soon left her with us, apol-
ogising and explaining that he had a meeting at his office that he could not afford to miss.
He’d come back for her as soon as the meeting was over, he promised.
He need not have worried, however, for I dare you to imagine how hard the rest of us tried to impress the girl, after she’d been unexpectedly left in our company. Everyone offered to buy her drinks of all
sorts.
But she demurely sipped what her companion had
bought for her and politely declined all offers. She was good company, though, and laughed at our jokes (which we polished in order not to offend
her.) Eventually, I was delighted to extract from her the intelligence that she lived quite close to me, and I eased her anxiety about when and how she
would get back home, by assuring her that even if her companion was delayed, I would get her home safely.
After my assurances, she visibly relaxed. We drank, we told jokes, I even managed to brush a hand against her knee, whilst pretending to have become over-excited by a rather jovial story I was telling her. “If she’d given any sign of recoiling at my touch, I would have got the message. But she didn’t
remove her knee.
Nor did she give the impression that my hand was
lingering a bit.
No! Man, I was elated!
(TO BE CONTINUED)
By Cameron Duodu