Walk Faster Than You Can Talk

1

My grandfather must have been a prophet, low-key. How else could he have known to come up with such a name and bestow it upon his son? My uncle Richman was exactly what his name said he was: a rich man. Filthy rich. He owned a group of companies, a number of houses and cars and was said to have a quarter of Accra working under him.

His daughters – just two of them – spent their vacations nowhere close to Cantonments, where he lived with them. They frequented beaches and hotels in those countries I only saw in my Instagram feed and on TikTok and sighed wishfully, or once in a while shouted, 'Walaahi, I must go here in future!' knowing very well I might never even set foot outside Ghana. Currently, they were in Seattle, or so he'd casually mentioned when I'd asked. Ei. Well, I was glad. They wouldn't be here to make me feel inferior here in my version of Seattle – the plush mansion they lived in and called home. I was on vacation, and was spending it with Uncle Rich in his home.

I had been giddy with excitement when my mother had come to my room the week before to announce that Uncle Rich was inviting me to his place.

'Your uncle asked me today why you've never been to his place,' she began. I asked her the same, realising she was the only thing that had been keeping me in Santasi all my life. I had never even travelled outside Kumasi.

'Ah, I thought he was the one who wasn't open to visitors. So you were the one who always bounced the invitation behind my back, ma?' I accused.

'Nana Kwadwo,' she began. I rolled my eyes. She only called me Nana Kwadwo when there was something serious to discuss. I was the one who should have been calling her Afia Agyeiwaa at that moment. What was more serious than she voluntarily sitting on all my opportunities to be exposed to other parts of the country? Did she know how the boys made fun of me in school because I had never been outside Kumasi before and was such a 'Kumasi boy'?

She dramatically dropped her voice to a whisper, 'Your uncle...'

She stopped and looked at my windows and around my room, and for the first time, ignored the pile of clothes that poked out from behind my bed. I figured it must really be serious then, whatever she had to say.

'...not to say that we don't trust him...'

I smirked, knowing what was next: mistrust. She told me all the rumours and accusations she had heard about Uncle Rich and all the mysterious things they say surrounded his life, including the death of his wife, Aunty Martha.

'But ma, do you believe these things yourself? Isn't he your only brother?'

'Yes, but he's not me and I'm not him, so I cannot speak for him. These things happen, Kwadwo. People make choices, and people change.'

'So why are you risking it this time? Why are you allowing me to go?'

'Because I have given excuses for far too long, and he's probably caught on. So go just this once. I don't totally believe all that, but with human beings... Now you are a bit grown up so you can tell when things are not right, can't you?' she looked at me for a response. Of course I nodded.

'Good. I will call you every day, and you will have to tell me every single thing you did in detail, and if you saw anything suspicious, so we can take the next necessary move, and quickly. And Kwadwo, don't go snooping around, for your own sake. Do you hear?'

I nodded, shuddering at the thought of discovering something that would, say, make me go mute permanently.

'So you're going in one week. Uncle Rich says you can stay for as long as you want, but you'll stay for one month. You have to have Chemistry classes this vacation – you can't spend all the time in Cantonments when you're failing Chemistry, wate? Pastor Kwarteng will come home before you go and I'll ask him to pray for you. I'll be fasting. Once a while when you're there, try and do same. Okay?'

I almost laughed. 'Okay, ma.' Who fasts when the bridegroom is around?

She let out a breath I hadn't realised she was holding, and smiled faintly, worry all over her face. I smiled back reassuringly, casting away the spirit of fear and keeping the excitement at bay, before it made her change her mind. I waited for her to leave, shut the door and take a few many steps away from it.

Then I jumped onto my bed. I was going to spend a month in a luxurious mansion in Accra! I jumped up and down and did a celebratory dance, stopping only when the bed was dangerously shaky and the wood was creaking really loudly. Falling back onto it, I sighed contentedly and began to fantasise: I would sleep for as long as I wanted to in a king size bed and leave this creaky excuse of a bed for a month; I would do absolutely no chores because there would be maids; there would be drinks and snacks for when I wanted to nibble on something after a long, hard day of watching DSTV and Netflix shows; and there was a pool in which I would relax and throw away all the stress Physics had put me through this term. He also had a gym, I'd heard. Building some muscles for the girls of Santasi to feast their eyes on wasn't a bad idea.

I planned to silently confuse my pompous classmates – the Accra-based ones and the ones from Ahodwo and Danyame who had other homes in Legon and Spintex and wouldn't let us rest – with streaks. Sometimes, the location filter would speak for me. Other times, I'd leave them to guess. I smirked, imagining the responses they would give: 'You in Accra?' 'Lmao didn't know you guys had gyms in Santasi. Interesting' 'That's not your house, is it?' 'You've moved?' I chuckled. I sat up, picking my phone to text Hans, then decided against it. He was one of the only guys from Accra who wasn't as mean as the rest of them were. I would tell him when I arrived, make plans with him, and we'd hang out – he lived in Cantonments too, so he could introduce me to a few nice dbee girls. It promised to be fun.