Paul Torday - Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

He sipped the last of his whisky and said, ‘Malcolm, have they dinner for us?’

I am tired now and cannot remember much of the rest of the evening, but I remember those words of his exactly as he spoke them. I know that he is, as he says he is, mad, but it is a gentle even a noble form of madness, and one that cannot be resisted. What we ate and drank I cannot say, except that it was all delicious. I think we had lamb. The sheikh drank no wine with dinner, only water, and he ate little and spoke only enough to encourage Harriet and me to talk of this and that.

One other thing he said, as we drank small cups of cardamom-flavoured coffee in the library after dinner: ‘If this project succeeds, then it will be God who has succeeded and God who should be thanked. If it fails, then you, Dr Alfred, can say that a poor, foolish, deluded man insisted that you tried to achieve the impossible. And no doubt some good will come from the work you do whatever happens. Some new thing will be known that was not known before, and you will be rightly praised for it and all else will be forgotten. And if it fails, the fault will be mine, because my heart was not pure enough, my vision not clear enough, my strength not great enough. But all things can be done if God wills it so.’

He put his cup of coffee down and smiled at us, preparing to bid us goodnight. Something made me say, ‘But nothing bad will happen, Your Excellency, if this project does not work.’

‘I have spoken to many scholars and imams about my dream of salmon fishing. I have told them how I believe this magical creature brings us all nearer to God-by the mystery of its life, by the long journey that it makes through the oceans until it finds the waters of its home streams, which is so like our own journey towards God. And they have told me that a Muslim may fish as well as a Jew or a Christian, without any offence to God. But that is not what the jihadis will say. They will say I am bringing the ways of the crusader to the land of Islam. If I fail, then at best they will ridicule me. If they think I might succeed, then they will certainly try to kill me.’

It is dark night now and the heavy curtains are drawn in my bedroom but I can still hear the owls shrieking in the woods. In a minute I will put down my pen but I must write these words: I feel at peace.

19 July

David Sugden called me into his office this morning. He waved me to a chair. He was beaming. ‘You seem to have worked your charms on your Arab friend.’

‘Sheikh Muhammad, I suppose you mean?’

He nodded and pushed a thick sheaf of documents across the desk. ‘This arrived from Freshwaters this morning. They are the sheikh’s legal advisers. Very expensive I should think they are, too.’ He tapped the documents with his forefinger. ‘Five million quid. Right there.’

It turned out that Freshwaters had sent us a draft contract to provide a legal and commercial framework for the Yemen salmon project.

‘It’s all there,’ said David. ‘Our legal people are looking at it, but it has everything we would want. No-fault clauses if it doesn’t work, payment no matter what happens, bank guarantees to support it, milestone payments to keep the cash rolling in. It is,’ he said, rolling his eyes at the ceiling, ‘manna from heaven. If I can’t get some of that five million into some of my underfunded budgets, then I’ve lost my touch.’

I said that I hoped we were not going to take Sheikh Muhammad’s money under false pretences.

This must have sounded rather prim because David flapped his hands at me and replied, ‘Don’t be such an old woman, Alfred. You know what I mean. I meant every department in NCFE can charge time to this project for one reason or another. He’ll get his salmon river in the desert-or not, as the case may be. We get five million pounds whatever happens. Now, let’s talk about details. I’m going to head the project and take responsibility for communications with other departments…’

‘The Foreign Office, you mean?’

David tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger in a stagey gesture. ‘The prime minister’s office has become involved now; Peter Maxwell is keeping himself in touch with this. But you should forget I said that. In fact I must ask you to be very discreet about all this. The sheikh, the Foreign Office and indeed everyone wants to keep the lid on this project until we are certain we know what will come out of it. So, please remember, keep your mouth buttoned up.’ He laughed to show he had intended a joke. ‘Now then. Where were we? Yes. You are to be in charge of operations: I mean the research team and then project management. You will report to me.’

He turned his computer screen round so I could see it and led me through a project plan. What a bureaucrat! He has organised it so that I will do all the work and he will take all the credit (but not the blame, if there is to be blame). He really doesn’t know what this is all about. He has no conception of how difficult it is going to be, how much scientific research has to be done, the ecosystem models that will have to be built, the environmental impact assessments, modelling the dissolved oxygen levels in Yemeni watercourses, bacterial sampling. My head feels as if it might explode when I think about the complexity of it all. And here is this idiot talking about ‘milestones’ and ‘deliverables’ and ‘resource allocation’.

23 July

Mary came back from Geneva this afternoon. She’s in the spare room asleep. Home for two hours, and we had a row.

First of all, when I tried to tell her about Sheikh Muhammad and his wonderful vision of salmon running the waters of the Yemeni wadis, she dismissed it by saying, ‘The old boy must be insane. Are you sure you want to be associated with something quite as bonkers as that?’

‘But you told me to,’ I said.

‘I told you not to throw over your job in a tantrum; I didn’t tell you to attach your name to something that sounds like professional suicide. Still, I expect you know your own business best.’

‘I hope I do,’ I said stiffly.

There was a long silence and then she said she was sorry, it had been a long day.

Mary often says it has been a long day. She seems to think she is the only one who gets stuck late in the office, who has to sit through tedious meetings resisting the urge to drum one’s fingers or doodle all over the agenda. We all get tired. I had a bubble of excitement inside me, a picture captured within that bubble of the sheikh in his white robes speaking of visions of shining salmon rivers in his quiet voice, of the black waters of his own river in the Highlands, of the sea trout that lurked there. I wanted to talk about the private jet that flew us there, of the grave and immaculate butler Malcolm, of the bubbles in the champagne. Somewhere in this picture, seen through the wrong end of a telescope, was Harriet, beautiful in her evening gown, head on one side, leaning forward to listen to the sheikh saying something. I wanted to share all this with Mary. I wanted to share my scientific excitement with her, the thought that with Sheikh Muhammad’s money I could do something different, something that had never been done before; change the rules of the game.

But she wasn’t interested, and the picture in the bubble darkened and went out, and I buried it deep within me. It’s the first time I haven’t shared something important with her. She just didn’t want to know.

Later over supper I found out what was on her mind.

‘They want me to move to Geneva,’ she said. She didn’t look at me when she spoke, but concentrated on getting her pasta round her fork.

‘Move?’ I asked, putting my own fork down.