The Wife ESCAPED!

With all this on her mind, Caro had unconsciously strolled through the noisy garage almost all the way to the road, she was only a few metres from it and half a stone-throw away, there was something dramatic going on.

A fat, very well-dressed woman was struggling to climb into a moving vehicle and from what Caro could see, she was no expert at it. The vehicle was slowly picking up speed and through all the noise, she could still manage to hear the woman’s little voice calling on the driver to stop so she could get in. But the vehicle was showing no signs of slowing down. The woman was in a precarious situation. It was clear that the driver had taken her unawares and suddenly started moving the vehicle while she was still in the process of climbing. As a result, she had a shaky handhold on the door and a risky foothold with her high heels!

Without thinking, Caro ran after the bus and caught up with it just as it left the garage and got unto the main road, where the driver would pick up real speed.

“Driver! Driver!”, she yelled, pounding her palm on the bus as she supported the woman with her other hand. The vehicle slowed down to a stop and the shaken and now sweating woman went into the bus, assisted by Caro, and found her seat.

“T… thank you, my dear. Thank you so much,” she said gratefully as she wiped the sweat from her brow.

“It’s no problem, ma. Hope you’re not hurt?”

“Oh no, I’m fine. Just a little shaken. These demons in the name of fellow passengers sat here watching me f…”

“Wetin dey happen for there?”, the driver suddenly bellowed from the front in no pleasant tone and not even bothering to look over his shoulder at the crowded passenger area.

“Oh you crazy fool!”, the woman spat in anger. “Do you know you almost killed me?”

“Madam, no dey talk to me like that! I no like that kind nonsense. You no get mouth? Why you no shout?”

“How would you hear my shouts when your stupid ears were filled with the blare of equally stupid music from your obsolete stereo?”

“Where your conductor sef? Why you no get conductor?”, Caro demanded from her standing position in front of the woman. She could see the driver hiss and shake his head and mutter something, most likely a profanity.

“Oh don’t mind him. He’s too greedy to have a…”

“Abeg, which one be all this one na? The woman don enter. Make we dey go where we dey go na,” one of the passengers suddenly shouted.

“Oh shut up, you bloated fool!”, the woman shot back.

“Madam, don’t talk to me like that! Who do you think you are? I have your type at home…”

“As a mother? I will not be measured side by side with the mother of a comprehensive tomfool like you and others in this miserable contraption who were heartless enough to sit and watch me almost get dragged on the road.”

A female passenger roused by the insult immediately shot back an angry response which was supported by angry rebukes from other passengers. The fat woman was equal to the task and she continued to give each of them their own dose of biting insults.

The bus was like a market under riot, everyone was cursing and shouting like a pack of hyenas. And Caro stood there, admiring the woman as she received and fired back shot after shot. But suddenly, the vehicle shot forward, almost throwing some passengers off their seats and quieting many. Caro herself was almost thrown over the next row of seats.

“Oh my dear. Are you alright?”, the woman asked as she helped her regain her balance.

“Yes yes, I’m fine. Driver! Abeg, stop o! I wan come down!”

In response, the driver turned up the volume of the music he had just resumed playing and stepped on the accelerator.

“Ah Driver! Stop na! I no be your passenger o!”, Caro shouted in fright as she struggled to maintain her balance in the rickety bus which was now traversing an archipelago of potholes.

“Driver!”, the woman shouted in support. “Don’t you hear what she’s saying? Stop this rickety thing now!”

But the rickety thing kept flying away with no sign of stopping. Caro felt like crying. What on earth had she gotten herself into? How on earth would she get back to her bus-stop? If only she knew the names of all these places, she would not have been so worried, but she knew nowhere!

The woman, on the other hand, was busy launching choice curses at the driver and she kept cursing until she was hoarse, then she paused to breathe. The other passengers all kept quiet, silently celebrating her dilemma.

“Sit down, my dear,” she said to Caro. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you get back to your home.”

“But there’s no empty seat.”

“Sit here, then,” she said, patting her thighs. “Come on, don’t be shy,” she urged as Caro hesitated.

So Caro sat down lightly on her thighs, spreading her legs apart and concentrating her weight on them.

“Don’t do that dear. You’ll give one of these heartless beings an excuse to quarrel. Just sit back and relax, I’m stronger than you think.”

Caro, embarrassed to mortification, obeyed and sat with her weight concentrated on her bottom.

“Good girl. Aren’t you a lamb,” the woman praised, further adding to Caro’s embarrassment.

***This text is property of Nô/velD/rama.Org.

When Caro and her friend arrived at her destination, they both climbed out of the bus as quickly as they could before the driver would speed off with them again. When their feet touched the ground, they both breathed a huge sigh of relief.

“Now let’s work on getting you back home,” the woman said as she opened her purse and extracted her phone. “Oh! Missed call from Mabel. Didn’t hear it ring. Must’ve been when those poultry birds were running their foul mouths at me. Where do you live, dear?”

“I… I don’t know, ma,” Caro stuttered.

“You don’t know where you live? How’s that?”

“I really don’t know the name of the area a…”

“You guys just moved there, I guess?”

“Umm… not really. Actually, I don’t really live there. I just hawk there.”

She said the last two words with downcast eyes. She wasn’t one to be ashamed of such things, but the woman had this sort of rich, prim and proper aura that somehow overwhelmed her.

“So, where exactly do you live? You can describe it, can’t you? With all the trouble, I really cannot recall that crazy motorpark where you saved my life. In fact, I know very little about these parts. I hardly travel by such means, you know.”

Caro nodded as if she really knew.

“So, if I put you on a vehicle, can you find your way back home?”

Caro remained silent for a while and stared at her feet. The woman watched her, wondering what on earth she was thinking.

“No,” she replied in sudden resignation, looking up at the woman’s chubby face. “I really don’t have a place of my own to stay. I usually sleep in the shop of the woman who owns the oranges I hawk.”

“Oh. How… Why? What happened?”

Then Caro narrated her story, the same false version she had told Beryl.

“Oh my Lord!”, the woman exclaimed even before she was done with her tale. “Do such demons still live amongst us? I shudder to think what you must have gone through for the past few weeks! Oh Lord, oh Lord, such a beautiful and smart young lady. How old are you?”

“Seventeen,” Caro lied glibly.

“Oh! Poor child, poor child. What will you do now? Will you come home with me?”

“Umm… I really don’t want to impose, ma…”

“Oh rubbish! I built my house with my own money and I decide who lives in it. So you will come along, won’t you?”

Caro nodded shyly, hoping she didn’t look like a homeless, choiceless beggar.

“Great. Now we have a journey to complete. Let’s go into the park.”

So, bag in hand, the woman and her new ward left the corridor of the closed shop where they had been standing and went deeper into the not-so-populated bus-stop.