John Simpson - Change of Course

I said nothing but I couldn’t help thinking that Jim Lodge would have behaved in the same way. ‘Anyway,’ she said, anxious to move on, ‘this is what was in that drawer.’ She reached down and withdrew a thin cardboard file from her shoulder bag and put it on the table in front of me. I caught her eye; she nodded.

I could see, before opening it, that there was very little in the file. The first few items were her birth certificate and papers relating to her adoption. The birth certificate named her mother as Gillian Lodge and her father as James Edgar Lodge (deceased), and she had been born in Whitby in North Yorkshire. The only surprise was Lodge’s middle name; I had known he intended to settle in Whitby. There were photocopies of two death certificates: for Gillian Lodge who had died of pneumonia in Whitby on 15th December 1985, and James Edgar Lodge who had died of injuries received in a road traffic accident on 14th December 1984, in Angola. The latter had an endorsement from the British Embassy in Luanda. My tongue felt very dry.

The only other items in the file were three newspaper cuttings. Two were about the tragedy of a baby girl who had lost her father before she was even born and her mother before she was six months old. The other was about James Lodge’s death. It was the same as a cutting in my shoebox except that Sophie’s had a black and white photograph, which was missing from mine. It looked as though it had been taken at an end-of-week party, which fitted with the caption: ‘Party – 13th December 1984 – James Lodge (second from left)’. His face was almost completely obscured by another one, mine. We looked to be in earnest conversation.

The report was very sketchy, and it told the story that had been agreed between the mine management and the British Embassy.

British Geologist Killed in Angola

Luanda, Angola, 18 December 1984. Sources at the British Embassy in Luanda have confirmed that a British geologist, James Lodge, 32, was killed at the weekend in a road accident in the north east of Angola, in the Lunda Norte province. He had been in charge of prospecting for a British diamond mining company. It is believed that the vehicle he was driving left the road and plunged into a river, killing him instantly. His body was found by a fellow worker, David Young, aged 25.

This is especially tragic as Lodge had married two months previously in Whitby, Yorkshire. His widow, Gillian, aged 25, has been informed.

His body will be repatriated for burial in Whitby.

‘It’s not much is it?’ she said.

‘No,’ I muttered. I suddenly felt very cold and my mind seemed to be jumping around; we weren’t supposed to be talking about this yet; I wasn’t ready. I panicked. ‘And it’s bullshit.’

She had appeared quite relaxed until then, but I saw her stiffen, knitting her eyebrows in concentration. ‘You mean … it wasn’t an accident?’

I hesitated, looking for a way out, ‘It wasn’t just me who found him; there was a crowd of us.’

‘No!’ She shook her head vigorously. ‘I’m not buying that. You wouldn’t say “it’s bullshit” if that was all there was to it. Was it really an accident?’

Shit! I closed my eyes and squeezed the bridge of my nose. Not now! I’d planned to talk about Jim’s life and to leave his death till the end, where it belonged, but I sensed that she would not let it go. I would have to wing it and hope it satisfied her.

‘There was an accident and Jim, your dad, was involved …’

She winced. ‘Please don’t call him my dad – father, yes – but Michael Addison will always be my dad.’

‘Sorry. It was a Sunday. Your father was driving home, to Mumbulo, from a party in Nocredo. Mumbulo was the mining town where we worked and Nocredo was the administrative centre for several mining towns. He was alone, but there was another vehicle a few minutes behind him. He was using one of the mine roads. Someone stepped out into the road in front of him and he hit them. He did what you or I would have done here in England; he stopped to help. Kevin Dryden, who was driving the second vehicle, stopped to see what was going on. Apparently, there was a huge argument between your father and a group of Angolans, and it was turning nasty. Dryden said he tried to haul your father away to his car, but your father refused to move and fought to help the man he had hit.’

‘I don’t get it,’ she said. ‘He was trying to help. What was the argument about and …’? She hesitated. ‘If he wasn’t hurt in the accident, how come he died?’

‘All I know is that Dryden got away and drove to my house where a bunch of us were having a drink. He was obviously very shaken up; and pretty incoherent. He kept babbling random stuff like “he was stoned”, “he wouldn’t come”, “you have to go and help”. It didn’t make sense, but we could all see there was a problem and we had to do something. We got into whatever vehicles we had, everyone except Dryden, and we drove out to where he’d said. I can remember it being a very subdued drive. I had Carlos Pereira with me – he was a mining engineer – and we just kept on debating the phrase “he was stoned”. Was he on drugs, was he drunk, or was he stoned in a more biblical sense? We didn’t know what to expect. We were shitting ourselves. We didn’t know if we’d have to fight or what. When we got to the place Dryden had described, the road was deserted except for the body, your father. His car had been pushed over the edge of the road into the river. We were too late.’

‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘That must have been horrendous. Did you get counselling?’

I was surprised that she could even consider my state of mind after what I had just told her, even though her question was naive. I grunted and shook my head. ‘No such thing then. Even if there had been, anyone having it would have been laughed out of camp. It was a different world; things have changed for the better now. We just went straight back to work the following day and got on with it. But I do get flashbacks. Your father was the first person I ever saw dead.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘But how did he die? Was he stoned to death?’ Her face was a picture of horror.

‘I guess so. There were some rocks lying around and there was what looked like blood on some of them. There was blood everywhere. I never thought it was anything else.’

She was silent for a while and there were tears in her eyes. I wondered if she was imagining her father’s death or shedding tears for a love she should have known.

‘What happened to the man he hit?’ she asked.

The question hit me like a punch. Maybe the answer was in my notes, but I didn’t think so. I don’t think I had ever known. Had it even concerned me? I hoped so, but I couldn’t be sure and that worried me. I don’t think I had ever considered the other man. What had happened to him? ‘I assume he died,’ I said lamely.

‘Don’t you know?’ She sounded incredulous.

‘Why else would they have killed your father? It wouldn’t make sense if the other man hadn’t died.’

‘I guess you’re right, but I find it hard to believe you don’t actually know.’

‘Everyone was too traumatised and too focused on Jim to think about anyone else. We had a lot of theories, but I guess we mostly wanted to forget – it was too horrible. You might not believe me, but this is the first time I’ve spoken of this since about a month after it happened. We all just wanted to forget.’

‘What if there wasn’t another man … another body?’ she said.

‘There had to be. The Angolans would only have killed him if one of them had died, and there was a …’ I stopped. I couldn’t tell her that.

‘A what?’ she asked. ‘You were going to say something. What was it?’