The Operator
SAMUEL COBBY GRANT
THE OPERATOR
EPISODEÂ 19
Pat and KL were doing some general cleaning in his home. It was a Saturday but he hasn’t gone to the Machine Shop.
Pat had seen a used toothbrush under his bed and so had decided that his room needed a cleanup, which he grudgingly accepted.
They were almost done when Pat received a phone call. She answered the call and screamed almost immediately. It was a shrill scream. The phone dropped from her hand and the back of the phone got detached, dislodging the phone’s battery. Kuuku rushed to her side, noticing the tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked seeing how she had clenched her fists.
“It’s Nana Yaw. He has collapsed,” she said, her voice quavering.
“Ohh, what happened?” he asked, getting confused.
“I am going to Accra,” she said, with a determined lilt in her voice as fresh tears coasted down her cheeks.
Kuuku just kept mute. He quickly washed his hands and face, changed his attire, getting ready for the trip to Accra.
He saw that she was still standing where he had left her. Hurriedly, he went to her and engulfed her in a comforting hug, and assured her that everything was going to be alright. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her whole body frame trembling against his.
He took charge then and drove her to her home.
She sat on the bed as if in a trance and he picked up some clothes for her to wear. He even helped her wear them and after making sure that he had closed every door and window well, drove away with her in her BMW to Accra, still whispering assurances to her that everything was going to be fine.
He drove carefully but stole glances at her from the corner of his eye. She was leaning deep into the seat with her eyes closed but he knew that she wasn’t asleep.
He filled the fuel tank when they got to Cape Coast and used the opportunity to buy some fish pies and bottles of water from the eatery attached to the gas station, knowing that she hadn’t taken in any food apart from the cup of tea she had taken in the morning.
He drove out of the fueling station intending to make good time in getting her to her family in Accra.
About a half of a mile after rejoining the highway, a blue-black salon car, a Passat recklessly cut in across him and he quickly applied his brake, desperately wrenching the steering wheel to the right to avoid having his fender hit.
Angry, he parked by the side of the road and stared furiously at the offending driver who didn’t even stop to apologize or make any gesture of apology. He rather drove into the premises of a hedge-enclosed Guest House.
Kuuku saw him alight with a lady companion and stared after them for a while.
He saw that Pat still had her eyes shut, seemingly oblivious of what had transpired. Quite shaken about the near-miss, he shook his head and made a decision then. He made a call to the Police, answered a few crisp questions, in addition to mentioning the name and location of the Guest House to the one at the other end of the call.
He carefully rejoined the flow of traffic towards Mankessim.
He parked the car when he got to Winneba, shook Pat into wakefulness and offered her a pie, which she reluctantly accepted when she realized that he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
Then, he opened a bottle of water and made her drink some before continuing with the journey. He hummed a melody of a song she liked singing as he cruised towards Accra. She woke up again and picked another of the pies and wolfed it down as she was beginning to feel some hunger. With a teasing smile beginning to play around his lips, he glanced sideways at her and got the reaction he had anticipated.
“What?” she asked him playfully as she drank some more of the water.
“Oh nothing,” he said, raising his left hand in surrender from the steering wheel.
She smiled at him with her grieve stricken face and proceeded to put tiny pieces of the fish pie into his mouth. Carefully, she cleaned his lips with her ever-present perfumed paper napkin. Then, she pushed back the headrest of the seat and closed her eyes once again.
They got through Kasoa and its annoying traffic jam. He shook her awake when they got to Kaneshie for directions to her family’s home at Awudome Estates.
Pat directed him to drive through the already opened gate and he parked in front of the nice terrazzo house with its balcony flower garden.
She didn’t even wait for the car to fully stop before she jumped out and dashed into the house.
Feeling abandoned, he cut the engine and got out to lean against it and waited for close to fifteen minutes debating with himself whether to go to the door and knock or not. Then he saw Pat’s mom emerging from the house, laughing loudly.
As he stared at her with confusion on why she was laughing, Nana Yaw the supposedly collapsed man came into view, laughing and dragging his sister, Pat after him.
 He stared hard at them. Pat was laughing so hard that she had tears streaming down her face. They got to where he was and they were still laughing. He was now amused
“I am so sorry for leaving you alone here,” Pat said, sobering down a bit but still laughing.
“Please forgive her. She thought her brother was dead and forgot about you being with her when she found that her brother was still alive,” her mom chipped in, pleading on her behalf.
“Hello, man,” Nana Yaw shook hands with him.
“Sorry, my son, for having you dragged from Takoradi to Accra. If this stupid girl had listened well to what she was being told, she wouldn’t come with you without a luggage” her mom explained.
“No worries, Mom. I guess God wanted it this way. It’s all for a good cause,” he replied and glanced at the now shame-faced Pat and smiled.
“Actually, Nana Yaw really collapsed. But with happiness. His childhood crush finally accepted to be his girlfriend,” Pat explained.
“Hahaha.. Is that so?” Kuuku asked, looking at the happy faced Nana Yaw.
“You’ll see her soon enough. I have invited her to dinner,” Mad. Genevieve said.
Kuuku shot a quick look at Pat. He really hadn’t thought about staying beyond bringing her to Accra. She stared back apologetically at him and pleaded with her eyes.
“Why don’t you show him the guest room, Pat,” she instructed her daughter.
“I am sorry for making you go through this but we have no choice,” Pat said when they got to the room.
“That’s easy for you to say. After all, you have a change of clothes here while I have none,” he said jestingly.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get Nana Yaw to find you something.”
“Don’t bother. I don’t need any attire to enable me to sleep with you,” he said and she threw a pillow at him.
***
Dinner was a grand affair. Pat and her mother wore matching dinner dresses and even had both of their hair tied in ponytails.
Nana Yaw wore a pair of jeans with a cream-coloured, round-necked, long-sleeved shirt to match, while Kuuku looked handsome in the new white jeans with a white polo shirt Nana Yaw had rummaged from the bottom of his suitcase.
And Dora, the star of the evening, looked adorable in the slacks and shirt she was wearing. She was of the same height and age as Pat but had a very fair complexion.
Dinner was superb. It consisted of rice and conned beef gravy, boiled yam and palaver sauce, spiced gizzard, flour embalmed fried redfish and banku and tilapia. Dessert consisted of chocolate ice cream and fruits salad.
Kuuku had his fill, enjoying the well-prepared meal.
They chatted gaily, and he saw that Dora was very much in love with Nana Yaw from the way she was constantly looking into his eyes, which made him wonder why she hasn’t accepted him until now. She caught him looking at her and smiled shyly. She seemed to be a very shy person.
“She was my classmate in JSS, you know” Pat chipped in when she saw him looking at her.
“I see,” he said with amusement.
“She used to come to the house on the pretence of not understanding what we had learnt in class just to get Nana Yaw to give her some attention,” Pat said, getting Dora to laugh with her.
“Maybe she really didn’t understand.”
“How can she not understand a lesson she scored 10 over 10 in,” Pat said with a smile. They all joined in laughing at Dora.
“So why then didn’t you accept him until now,” Kuuku asked.
Dora smiled mischievously and replied. “Because I didn’t want him to collapse.”
They all joined in the resultant laughter and everything moved on smoothly.
Dora even shared a couch with her new boyfriend when they moved to the living room to watch a movie.
Nana Yaw left with Dora after a while as she was feeling sleepy.
The elderly woman didn’t leave the young ones even when it was well past her bedtime. It wasn’t until Kuuku began to show signs of sleepiness and had left to the guest room that she went to bed.
He fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow and he was in dreamland when his phone rang. He shot a look at the bedside clock and saw that it was almost midnight. He saw that it was Pat on the phone.
“Hi dear. Miss me?”
“Yes. I am feeling cold. Come to my room now,” she whispered in a throaty voice.
“Cold or lonely.”
“Just come. 3rd door on your left,” she snapped and ended the call.
He needed no further invitation. He got out of bed and tiptoed along the corridor and saw that the door was slightly open. He entered and found Pat already by the door. She shut the door and kissed him fiercely and at the same time, pushed him towards the bed until the back of his legs touched the foot of the bed. She then pushed him onto the bed and he fell on his back. The bed caved in, making a very loud noise, shattering the silence of the night.
Nana Yaw heard the noise as he was working on something on his laptop. He quickly recognized the sound for what it was and quickly dashed into his sister’s room, to behold the sight of the hapless Kuuku struggling to get out of the bed as his sister was standing by gaping at him, her palm covering her opened mouth.
“Quickly, go quickly before mom gets here,” he pulled him off the bed and watched with amusement at the comical image of Kuuku half running back into his assigned room.
No sooner had he left than the elderly lady made her appearance. She looked at her children and enquired about the loud sound.
“I went to the washroom and the bed caved in when I fell back on it,” Pat explained, smoothly.
She looked at both son and daughter with uncertainty but turned and left them, tight-lipped.
Then, she paused as she was passing by the guest room. She put her ears against the door to listen to God knows what, but the door which was not even well-closed opened from the pressure she was exerting on it and found herself looking at the deeply asleep son of her classmate.
Seeing that not even thunder or hailstorm could wake him up from the deep sleep, she closed the door gently and left, in order not to disturb him.
To be continued…
[insert-comment-form][stextbox id=”info” caption=”JOIN US ON WHATSAPP“]
Join the Kleva Whatsapp family with the link below
https://chat.whatsapp.com/91Sg5eGo6sLIAQlIvR7gnv
Enjoy The Truck Driver by Samuel Cobby Grant here:
A Father" />
A Mother" />
Zac 29-Episode 1" />
Childless : Final Episode
3 Comments
Leave your reply.