Paul Torday: Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

Malcolm surprised and delighted me by saying, ‘His Excellency thought you might like to fish for an hour or two before you meet him, to relax for a while after your journey. He hopes these clothes will be comfortable. We had to guess your size.’ He pointed to a bell push beside the bed and told me that, if I rang for him when I was ready, he would take me to meet the gillie, Colin McPherson.

Half an hour later I was walking along the bank of the river we had driven up with Colin beside me. Colin was short, sandy-haired, square-faced and taciturn. He looked gloomily at me when I was introduced to him, wearing the brand new Snowbee waders which had been left out for me and feeling rather foolish.

‘You’ll not have been after a fish before, sir?’ he asked.

‘As a matter of fact, I have,’ I told him. His face brightened fleetingly, then relapsed into its scowl.

‘Most of the gentlemen that comes to see the laird haven’t had a rod in their hand before in their life.’

I said I would do my best, and we walked down to the river, Colin carrying a fifteen-foot rod and a landing net. He told me a little about the river, and about the fishing, as we walked along the bank. The river was about thirty yards wide and there was a good flow of water. ‘We had some rain the night, and a few fish have maybe come up. But I doubt you’ll see a fish today.’

At last we came to a dank pool fifty yards long or so, running out into white water over gravel shoals. Rowan trees and alders overhung the far bank, and I could see a few threads of cast hanging from the branches where over-ambitious fishermen had snagged their lines. ‘You’re no worse off fishing here than anywhere,’ suggested Colin. He looked as if he doubted very much whether I would ever see let alone catch a fish. He handed me the rod he had put up for me. I tried it a few times to get the feel of it. It was beautifully balanced, stiff and powerful. I waded into the water a few feet, as Colin had suggested, and started to put line out.

‘Put some line out, take a step, then put a bit more out and take a step,’ Colin instructed me from the bank.

When I had got a bit of line out I tried a double Spey cast and saw with pleasure how the line shot out like silk, the fly landing on the water as gently as thistledown.

‘I’ve seen worse casts than that,’ said Colin, in a friendlier tone than he had used up until then. Then he sat down on the bank, took out a pipe and started to fiddle around with it. I forgot about him and concentrated on the fishing. A step, cast the line out, watch the fly come round gently on the dark water, strip the line, a step, and cast the line. Mesmerised by the flowing water and the silent beauty of the pool, I fished it down slowly and carefully. Once I saw a swirl and some bubbles just beyond my line, right beneath the opposite bank in the slow water, which I thought might have been a fish moving. But I did not dare lengthen my cast for fear of tangling my line in the overhanging branches. Once there was a flash of blue and bronze and I heard Colin, now some yards upstream, say, ‘Kingfisher.’

At last I reached the end of the run, and the water was too slow to fish down any further, so I waded back to the bank. By that time I had almost forgotten where I was, I was so absorbed by what I was doing, so tranquillised by the absolute silence apart from the music of the water over the gravel as it ran out to the next pool below. Then Colin appeared at my elbow.

‘I’ll change the fly for something with a wee bit more colour. Maybe an Ally Shrimp. There’s a fish showing beneath those alder trees.’

‘I think I moved it,’ I told him.

We walked back up the bank, and while Colin tied on a new fly I looked behind me. The road to the house ran past and beyond was the moor. I heard the shrill shouting of a pair of oystercatchers and, further away, the unmistakable cackle of a grouse. Colin handed me the rod, and I stepped into the head of the pool again. I fished down again as before, and just as I was coming to the place where I thought I had seen something move, I felt that prickling in the back of the neck we sometimes get when someone is watching us. I put the line out, and turned my head to look. About thirty yards behind me and a little bit above me, on the road, stood a small man in a white headdress and white robes. He looked absolutely out of place on that road, with the heather moor behind him. He stood very upright and quite still. He was watching me intently.

A tug on my line made me snap my attention back to the river. There was a swirl, then splashing, and suddenly line started screaming off the reel at a prodigious rate as the fish took the fly and ran. My heart beating, I lifted the rod tip and started to play my fish. It did not take long: after ten minutes I had brought a medium-sized silver sea trout to the water’s edge, which Colin deftly landed in his net.

‘Five pound,’ he said. ‘No bad.’ He seemed pleased.

‘We’ll put it back,’ I said. Colin did not approve of this idea, but he did as I asked and then we set out back towards the house.

Later

In the end it was not until this evening that I met the client. When I returned to the house I was handed over to Malcolm, who turned out to be the butler. I always imagined butlers wore black coats and striped trousers, looked like Sir John Gielgud and went everywhere with a glass of sherry balanced on a silver tray. Malcolm wore a dark suit, a white shirt and a dark tie. He looked sombre and discreet and moved noiselessly about the house. He showed me back to my room, where I changed back into the clothes I had flown up in. Then I was given tea in the library, with cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off and the day’s papers to read-all of them, from TheTimes through to the Sun .

From time to time Malcolm would put his head round the door and apologise for keeping me waiting. His Excellency was engaged in a conference call that was taking longer than expected. His Excellency was at prayer again. His Excellency was in a meeting but would be free at any moment. Finally I asked, ‘What time is our flight back to London?’

‘Tomorrow morning, sir, after breakfast.’

‘But I didn’t pack anything-I didn’t know we were expected to stay.’

‘Don’t worry, sir; you’ll find everything is ready in your room.’

Malcolm’s pager went off and he excused himself and left. A little while later he came back and said, ‘I’ve taken the liberty of running your bath, sir. If you care to go upstairs and have a bath and change, His Excellency will meet you here in the library for drinks at seven o’clock.’ I shook my head in disbelief and followed Malcolm upstairs again. He showed me to my room. By then I was beginning to know my way. I went in and had my bath, stretched out full length in steaming water infused with something that smelt of pine, wondering at the strangeness of the day.

As I lay gazing at the ceiling of the bathroom I felt a profound sense of peace steal over me. It was as if I was on holiday. I was away from the office, away from home, and I had had the wholly unexpected pleasure of catching a fish, something that happened to me about once every other year (Mary is not keen on fishing holidays; she says they are barbaric, a waste of money, boring for non-participants and therefore a self-indulgence on my part). I stepped out of the bath and dried myself with a huge white towel, and wandered back into the bedroom. Although it was high summer, a fire had been lit and table lamps switched on. The bedroom was warm and softly lit, encouraging me to lie on the bed for twenty minutes’ sleep. But I thought I might not wake up in time for dinner so I sat and wrote down a few words in my diary about the journey here, and the sea trout I caught.