John Simpson - Change of Course

‘Some fun!’ she chastised. ‘Was that the cause of my father’s accident? An un-roadworthy vehicle?’

‘No, definitely not. He had a brand-new car; one of the few. It was a made-in-Mexico VW Beetle that came in on one of the convoys. The state of the cars had reached a crisis point – people couldn’t do their jobs – they couldn’t get about. So half-a-dozen VWs got bumped up the convoy list.’

‘So, how come he got a new car, and you didn’t?’

I ran my fingers through the greying vestiges of my hair, and chuckled. ‘Because I was new back then. Your father was older and established. He was also someone the company would bend over backwards to please. He found them a lot of diamonds, made them a lot of money.’

‘I’m pleased to hear that.’ Her face lit up. ‘But, back to your friendship; what changed between you on your second contract? A party or something?’

‘No. We had some memorable parties … but it was a work situation that threw us together. It was right at the start of the contract.’ I pointed at the notebook as though its title would validate everything I was about to say. I told her about the helicopter flight with Geoff Morgan and Thys Gerber, and how we’d landed at Cambunda so Geoff could take Thys to see the river diversion. ‘The river diversion was your father’s baby.’

‘I understand babies, but river diversion?’

I explained that most of the diamonds mined in Angola were from alluvial deposits: riverbeds or former riverbeds. To mine the bottom of a river it’s necessary first to dig a new course for it, then to redirect the flow before pumping out the original course. ‘The pumping was just about finished with this one when Morgan went to see it with Thys – but it looked very unpromising. Morgan was furious – he got a bee in his bonnet that there was nothing in it. When he’d calmed down a bit, he ordered me to test the ore; put it through the plant, the next day.’

‘And my father …?’

‘Morgan ordered him to do the test with me; as a penance for screwing up. I liked Morgan generally, but he had a nasty habit of rubbing people’s noses in their mistakes.’

‘Surely Morgan wasn’t the only person to see the diversion. Did everyone think it was rubbish?’

I thought back to the previous night, to the last pages I’d read before going back to bed.

***

It was late afternoon when we landed at the helipad behind the mine offices in Mumbulo. I went to Geoff’s office where I signed the mail bag over to his secretary. Thys then gave me a lift to the company house where I lived; it was known as ‘the Madhouse’ because it had the best courtyard for parties and often hosted them. The sun was setting, and it would be dark within half an hour. I didn’t need my watch to know it was five-thirty p.m. give or take ten minutes.

The Portuguese had built Mumbulo on a grid. Two broad, mango tree-lined streets ran up the hill from the town’s heart: the edifício público – the administration building – and the five-a-side football arena. A series of smaller streets linked with them every hundred metres or so. The houses in the main streets were all similar, built in the Portuguese colonial style. They were bungalows, set back about twenty metres from the road and all had five or six steps leading up from a path to a low-walled veranda. Each house had a spacious walled courtyard at the rear and small service roads ran behind the courtyards. The town had expanded over the years and the later additions deviated from the rigidity of the original footprint. The size and quality of the buildings also changed, deteriorating to shanty town dwellings, or bairros, as the locals called them, on the northern and western outskirts.

The mango trees lining the street provided a lush canopy and a profusion of pawpaw trees sprouted from improbable places, even from mortar courses in walls, softening the appearance of the town and lending it an untidy charm. Black and white goats were everywhere; they roamed where they liked, casually taking their pick of the choicest grass and the best viewpoints. One goat was standing on the veranda wall of the Madhouse as we pulled up and another was sprawling on the roof of the house next door. It was all good and familiar, but, although I was looking forward to getting back to work and seeing my colleagues again, my mood was subdued by the prospect of another six months before seeing home once more. It was a bit like a prison sentence except that it paid well. There were no cars parked in front of the house, so I guessed Carlos was still out at work. I went in, took a beer from the fridge, picked up a chair and went to relax on the veranda while I waited for my housemate to return.

I shared the Madhouse with Carlos Pereira, a mining engineer who looked after the mines north of Mumbulo, in the Nocredo direction. We had become good friends and we often shared transport as vehicles were in short supply and we covered the same geographical area.

The sun had just about gone. It was six o’clock; and a steady flow of vehicles washed along the street as workers returned home. Finally, a familiar Land Rover pulled up and Carlos bounded up to the veranda to greet me. Although he was Portuguese, his English was virtually faultless.

‘The wanderer returns,’ he said. ‘It’s good to have you back. Good leave?’ We shook hands and hugged warmly.

‘I wish I could say I was glad to be back, but you know how it is. Leave was great. It was good to see my parents, and friends. I did lots of travelling, lots of drinking, and I blew lots of money … How were things here?’ I asked tentatively.

‘Well, they were okay until today. I spent most of the day repairing the dams at the Txicaca diversion so the pumps could hold the level down. Then when we saw the bottom of Txicaca for the first time, it looked to be a total washout. Sand, sand and more sand; a bit gritty maybe – very few rocks, at least, not that I could see. Basically, it’s been months of wasted time and money. If we have to mine it, the volume targets will be buggered – you can’t mine what isn’t there. It’s a nightmare. Bloody river diversions.’

‘Yup. Geoff dumped me at the Cambunda plant today while he went to show Txicaca off to that new security guy. They’d picked me up at Nocredo with the chopper. He was seething when he got back; I was glad Thys was there. He copped the worst of it. Geoff wants me to test the stuff with Jim Lodge at Cambunda tomorrow. I don’t envy Jim when Geoff finds him. He’ll be looking for a scapegoat. I think he’s shitting himself about what he’ll report to London as he’s probably been making exaggerated claims to them.’

‘I’ll keep my head down, I think. Morgan’s unpredictable when pissed off, to put it mildly.’

I shook my can; it was nearly empty. ‘You want a beer?’

He nodded and I fetched a couple of cans from the fridge.

‘Steve’s been looking forward to your return,’ said Carlos, as he clicked open his icy can. ‘Dryden’s had him running around like a headless chicken, looking after your area as well as the south.’ Kevin Dryden was the Metallurgical Manager, my boss, and Steve Vernon’s. ‘Steve’s knackered. I don’t understand why Dryden doesn’t help you guys; he just sits on his arse in his office all day.’

‘I think he’d get lost. It’s probably better that he stays in and does the paperwork; he can’t do any harm there. It beats me though how he keeps busy without any field work to occupy him.’ I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Dryden again. He could ruin a good day just by being in it.

‘What about Jim Lodge?’ I said. ‘You’re a big mate of his. What’s he like to work with? And how’s he going to take this?’

‘He’s easy to work with, if a little secretive; but Txicaca? He won’t take that well; he’s used to getting things right. I’ve always thought he was infallible with diamonds but maybe he’s just been lucky, and his luck’s just run out.’