As the dirty car drove into the parking lot outside King’s Towers, the building that housed Kazi Nyingi Audit House, the driver could hear his own heart pounding above the roar of the engine.

He checked his watch for the umpteenth time; 9am. Normally, he would have relied on his cellphone to know the time, but this was not a normal morning. If he looked at his phone, he was sure there would be several messages from his boss, reminding him that their meeting with a top client was at 7:10am sharp, almost two hours earlier.

He did not wait for the lift, preferring to take the stairs, three at a time.

He found his boss standing in the middle of the open-plan office, next to his desk. “Jack, to my office, please,” the boss said. There were no greetings and no pretensions to courtesy. She was livid.

As Jack followed her to the office, he knew it was over. He had been given the last warning the previous day. He had vowed to himself that he would never again allow his car to play long-held tricks with his mind, namely diverting to Friends Corner Bar and Grill instead of going straight home.

“Jack I have no words for you. I don’t even think we have anything to discuss. I’m sending you away for two weeks to go figure out whether you need this job or you need more time to drink until late in the morning...” she said, her eyes piercing his from behind her owlish, horn-rimmed glasses.

“I have not touched alcohol in days...” Jack started. Her eyes narrowed: “Jack, if it were not for courtesy I’d have started this talk by opening the window to allow in fresh air. You are reeking of alcohol,” she said, admiring her ability to edit her words as she spoke.

She was of a mind to say, “Cheap, stale alcohol,” and for good measure, add the smell of recycled dirty socks and fungi-infested toes. Good sense and emotional intelligence, however, prevailed.

“Is there something you would like to say?” she asked, standing up and moving away from the swivel chair behind her polished mahogany desk and sitting on the visitor’s seat facing his.

Police case

“Please, have mercy on me. I’ve gone through a lot lately. I have a police case that has really disturbed me,” he pleaded.

“Police case!” she inched closer, nose upturned.

“Yes, I had an altercation with my wife and she reported me to the police, so on Monday I spent the night in the cells and was released late in the morning. That is how I got late to work...” he said, face downcast.

“And on Tuesday?” she probed, her expression apprehensive.

“On Tuesday I had to prepare the children to go to school as my wife was not around. I also had to organise for the youngest to be taken in by a day care centre near home,” he said, his eyes watery with hope.

“We pay you a lot of money, Jack. You don’t have a house help?” Her voice had a vindictiveness that bordered on contempt. “I’ve seen you drive in. Your car is dirty. I don’t want to go into personal grooming, but I’m sorry the way you carry yourself does not befit your stature and seniority. You are a senior auditor, Jack!”

“I know...” he said, beaten.

Then she looked at him from his head to his shoes. “And what happened yesterday? You missed yet another crucial meeting today and the evidence is that you were out drinking!”

“I had sworn not to go to the bar again, but ...”

“Don’t get me started on that withdrawal symptoms nonsense because that will mean I send you away with enough gratuity to spend six months in a rehab!”

“No, actually, it was about my wife. She looked for my friends at the local pub and they called me there. I was keen not to drink but they insisted we had to sit and solve the issues I had with my wife for her to withdraw the case against me and come back home,” he said.

“So you drank?” she asked, a ray of understanding on her face.

“Yes, they insisted I had to stay up late and that we had to toast to the truce,” he said.

If Jack had the guts to say the truth, he would have mentioned that no one had cash among his friends to drink. Until Mwega, his best friend and chief mediator, won some Ksh20,000 ($200) from a sports betting firm.

“It’s a sign that what we have agreed on here has blessings from above,” Mwega had declared, standing on a high stool and ringing a bell above the counter that meant he was buying three drinks for everyone in the bar.  

If he was willing to divulge more, Jack would have told his boss that the fight with his wife had nothing to do with his personal choices. His wife had for long complained that he had no time to take the children to school or to help them with homework.

He reported to work early and worked late, which, according his wife, had made him a stranger to his own children.

On the Sunday they fought, he had woken up and announced that he was not driving the family to church and that they would skip the usual after-church garden lunch because he was going to work.

“If you can’t skip work on a Sunday, I will remove this wedding ring and let you put it on your boss’s finger!” she had vowed.

“I have warned you enough times.” He had just eyeballed her and just when he was side-stepping her to get out of the bedroom, she had blocked his path in a not-so-sentimental embrace. He slapped her across the face. It almost blinded her.

************

“It’s good to hear that your wife is back but I’ll still send you home,” his boss concluded, standing up. She was six-feet tall.

“But...”

“No buts, Jack. You are forgiven, but this will be the very last warning. Just go home and clean up. At least make sure your shoes match. Be here by noon.”

He looked at his shoes. One had laces and the other was a slip-on.

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