A day in the life of a VIP’s driver

By Ted Malanda

I suspect all big people are frightened that their senior aides will write books littered with dirty secrets about them.

I wouldn’t worry too much about that if I were them. The people who know the most damaging stuff about important people are the small, faceless workers we never see — the house girl, the gardener, the watchman and the driver.

It is the driver who is to be most feared, though. With house workers, one can affect an air of mystery and manage to pretend to be a nice guy. But the driver sees and hears it all.

He picks up the boss at the crack of dawn in Karen, which means he woke up at 3am because he lives on the opposite end of town — Dandora to be precise. For breakfast, he gulped down a cup of hot water.

But he needn’t have hurried because by the time he arrives in Karen, his boss is still snoring like a tractor. He will wait an hour till the big man wakes up, fool around the gym, shower, suit up and play with his grandson over a sumptuous breakfast.

“Let’s go,” the big man will then say. Not a word of apology.

They will head to meet a political contact whose name ideally belongs on a most wanted list. Meanwhile, the big man’s phone will keep ringing and the snippets of information that filter into the driver’s ear are enough to frighten the CID director to death.

Later, he will drive the big man to a city hotel for a meeting that starts with starters, proceeds to cold meats, graduates into hot meats and ends with fattening cakes.

The meeting lasts two hours, but the driver dares not dash to a kiosk for a snack lest the boss needs him suddenly.

And so it goes until another dinner meeting is held, as the driver’s roundworms grumble angrily in his stomach. Then the dinner meeting will proceed to yet another meeting on Ngong’ Road, where a pretty lass in a flimsy negligee will open the door.

That meeting will proceed under much clanking of wine glasses, giggles and a barrage of kisses till three in the morning, as the famished driver warms his bones by the watchman’s fire.