Incompatible…

AARON ANSAH-AGYEMAN

INCOMPATIBLE

A ChrisEffe Thriller

CHAPTER 2

The silver Mercedes slowly cruised up to the gate and stopped.

The driver came out, walked round to the passenger door, opened it, and stepped aside as Effe got down. They chatted for a few minutes, and then they hugged.

Effe turned toward the side gate.

Her phone began to ring as she pressed the doorbell, but she ignored it. The young man got into the car, executed a U-turn, and drove away with a light honk on the car horn to say goodnight.

Effe waved at him as the small gate was opened by the security man. She entered, and as the gate was locked behind her, she paused and took out her phone.

It was from Chris. She sighed, annoyed, and picked the call.

“Yes, Chris?”

“It’s after midnight, Effe!” Chris grated out, his voice bitter.

Effe sighed heavily as she strived for calm.

“Goodnight, Chris.”

“Are you cutting me off? Effe, are you really cutting me off?” he asked, his voice pained.

“Good gracious, Chris!” Effe said, losing her iron control. “I’ve told you time and again I don’t like this attitude of yours, this insecurity, these obsessive jealousies! I went out on a date, and you call me at this time to query me?”

“It’s almost one o’clock in the morning, Effe!” he shouted, getting angry. “He just brought you back! I saw you!”

She was astounded.

Her eyes opened wide with disbelief and abrasive anger.

“You saw me?” she whispered, aghast. “You saw me? You’ve been waiting outside all this while, Chris? What’s wrong with you?”

“Love, Effe, love is exactly what’s wrong with me!” he said, almost tearfully. “You know just how much I love you! I’ve told you if you want to hang out, hang out with me! I don’t have dates with other girls, but you always –”

“Stop it right there, Chris!” she broke in angrily. “The fact that I love you doesn’t mean I should be with you everywhere I want to be! I have friends, and I enjoy going out! You don’t like going out, preferring to stay indoors! That’s where we’re different! You have to learn to trust me! How could you stay outside for so long simply because someone took me out, Chris Bawa? If you don’t stop this you’ll push me away! Stop it! I’m not your baby! Go home, Chris, I’m done talking to you.”

She cut the call and immediately switched off her phone, and then she walked quickly into the huge beautiful house, her heart beating with anger.

Outside, under the trees, Chris Bawa called Effe’s number and tried again when he received the switched-off voice note.

He sighed miserably and turned towards home.

It was a long walk to the new building he shared with his father. His WhatsApp notification dinged, and he activated WhatsApp immediately, thinking Effe was chatting him.

It wasn’t Effe.

It was a message from Baaba.

“Mr. Loverboy, Ef has landed o! You go fit go bed now! I know you stillllllllll dey the tree under, oh Chris!”

Chris Bawa sighed again.

The house he shared with his father had come into view now.

It was in darkness because there was no electricity. It was a pastor’s house, but it was uncompleted. They could not afford rent, so the pastor had completed two rooms and the hall for them, and they had moved in as caretakers.

Chris’ father owned two plots of land, bought with all the proceeds he could save from his carpentry job. He had willed it to Chris, praying that he would be able to build on it someday.

The house they lived in was not painted, and the rest of the rooms were not completed. Chris unlocked the padlocks, opened the creaking metal gates, locked it again, and turned left in the corridor to the hall where there was a mattress on the floor.

He took off his clothing because it was so hot. He fetched a bucket of cold water, took it the bathroom and took a cold bath. He dried himself and went to lie down on the mattress.

Even then, it took a long time before he slept. He was thinking of Effe and how she was treating him. He didn’t blame Effe too much, though. There were a whole lot of bad factors affecting their relationship.

Chris was twenty-five years old, and he had virtually known Effe all his life. They attended the same primary school and passed on to secondary school. She went to a girls only school, and he went to a boys’ only school.

In primary school, she had been a class lower than he was.

Her parents were rich, but Chris’ father had been a poor carpenter. Chris’ mother was still alive, but they were separated. His mother had married another man with whom she had two other children. Chris’ mother, Lois, came from a very influential and rich family, the Yeboahs. Her parents had not liked their daughter marrying Chris’ father, and so they had almost disowned their own daughter.

Lois Yeboah eventually divorced Brand Bawa and married a man her parents approved of. Chris had suffered a lot growing up because his mother left when Chris was just about ten years old.

Chris had been named after his grandfather, so his surname had been Yeboah.

The first thing Chris did when he was eighteen years was to change his name from Yeboah to his father’s surname, Bawa. This had made both his mother and grandfather disown him. They stopped giving him money, saying they would never help him unless he changed his name back to Chris Yeboah, but Chris had not budged. Now his own mother, grandparents, and relatives didn’t like him very much as a result.

He and Effe had found out they were in love in primary school, but it had not really been love, just a strong and emotional attraction, and a fiery awareness that confused and excited them.

Chris used to walk to school at that time, but getting to his final year in school, Effe had made their chauffeur pick him too whenever she was going home with her sister Eyram and her cousin Baaba since they lived in the same neighbourhood.

When Chris left for secondary school, they had not seen each other for a while, but he missed her terribly.  And then she wrote to him. It had been a short note, actually, asking how he was doing and how he was faring in school.

She also wrote about how she would also be going to secondary school the following year.

Receiving that letter had been the happiest day of his secondary school life, and he had lain in bed the whole night just reading it over and again.

He replied that letter with a long missive, and when he came home on vacation, they had met whenever she could get away from home. They either visited the beach or sat under the trees and talked and talked and talked.

When she turned eighteen, they had spent more time together, and their love had blossomed. He proposed to her when he was twenty-one and she was twenty, and she had accepted with a lot of shy blushes and giggles.

Her father was an industrialist, and her mother a banker. They were friends with Chris’ mother and grandparents, but when Chris fell out with his mother, they had been totally hostile to him. Effe’s mother, especially, wanted Effe out of any relationship with Chris.

Things became a little bit more complicated when Effe’s father, Ken Kedem, tried to take over the two plots of land Chris’ father had bought with his sweat and toil. Evidently, the plot of land was quite near the Kedem residence, and they did not want Chris’ father putting up a building anywhere near them.

The Kedems had at first offered to buy the land from Chris’ father, but he refused. They then managed, somehow, to get the owners of the land to backdate a document that showed they had bought the land first, after obviously giving a lot of money to the original landowners.

The case was presently in court.

Chris had been furious about how Effe’s parents were treating his father, but he and Effe had vowed not to let their family wrangling destroy their love.

However, after passing out of the University, Effe was now working with her father in his industrial company, whilst Chris established his own IT Company, although he was presently the sole employee.