2007 - Salmon Fishing in the Yemen Read online

  And I fish, an unreconstructed activity of which Mary disapproves. She says fish feel pain whereas I, as a fishery scientist, know that they do not. It is perhaps the one subject on which we have to agree to disagree.

  So there it is: another anniversary. This year has been much like the last year, and that year was very like the one before. If I occasionally wish for a little more excitement, a little more passion in our lives, I can usually put this down to neglecting to follow the dietary guideline that people of my blood group (Type A) should follow: not too much meat. Occasionally I fall prey to temptation and eat some beef, and so it is not surprising I then have irrational feelings of…I am not sure what? Am I bored, perhaps? How could I be?

  It only takes something like this Yemen salmon project to raise its head to remind me that I have a dislike of the irrational, the unpredictable and the unknown.

  §

  8 June

  We had a departmental meeting today to consider the final draft of my paper ‘Effects of increased water acidity on the caddis fly larva’. Everyone is being very complimentary, especially David Sugden. Is this a peace offering? He has not pressed me again about the Yemen salmon project and I, of course, have done nothing. I have just kept my head down and am waiting for the whole issue to go away. Anyway, the director’s public praise for the work on caddis flies was a pat on the back for my team. In fact, David went so far as to say that, following the publication of my article, there was probably nothing further worth saying about the caddis fly. Praise indeed. At such times I know that the money doesn’t really matter. Mary sometimes complains that I am not paid enough, but there is much more to life than one’s salary. I have moved forward the boundaries of human knowledge about a little brown insect that, insignificant as it may be in itself, is a vital indicator of the health of our rivers.

  Both Trout & Salmon and Atlantic Salmon Journal want a press release.

  Mary is in New York. She was home all of Friday and Saturday. Nevertheless, the fridge is empty. I have just been down the street to the late-night Indian takeaway, to buy a few things to eat, and I am sitting here writing up my diary and mopping balti chicken from my lap after some of it slipped off the plastic fork. I have just realised that I forgot to buy any coffee for tomorrow morning.

  A last word of self-reproach after a day of professional triumph. How selfish I am, going on about my own success with my caddis fly research—I want to record my admiration for Mary, whose work, which I alluded to in yesterday’s entry and although of a different nature to mine, has attracted comment and admiration at her bank, InterFinance S. A. She is on the fast track at InterFinance. I am a huge believer in women doing well, and to see it happen to one’s own wife in the male-oriented world of finance is very rewarding. The female caddis fly also plays a profoundly important role in her social group.

  §

  9 June

  My bowel movements this morning were somewhat affected by the takeway, perhaps not surprisingly. I did not go for my usual morning run as I felt rather unwell. There was no coffee left in the tin, and the single pint of long-life milk was well out of date. I arrived at the office feeling out of sorts and it took me a while to get into gear.

  It is odd how quickly things can change in one’s life. For the last two days I have been contemplating the tranquil and intellectually engaged nature of my life with Mary, and the intense reward I can still derive from a piece of scientific work well done. All that seems, for the moment, as nothing.

  I now have to record one of the most unpleasant incidents of my professional career. At 10.00 a.m. I was sitting with Ray, selecting the most visually compelling photographs to accompany the caddis fly article, when Sally came in and told me David Sugden wanted to see me right away. I said I would go along to David’s office in a few minutes, as soon as Ray and I had finished.

  Sally gave me a strange look. I remember her exact words. She said, ‘Alfred, the director means right away. He means now.’

  I stood up and apologised to Ray, telling him I would be back in a few minutes. I walked along the corridor to David’s office feeling a little angry. Ours is a consensual department. We are scientists rather than managers. Hierarchies mean little to us, being treated as human beings means everything. David has, on the whole, got the hang of this and although he is a career civil servant he has fitted in quite well. He has certainly been here long enough to know I do not like being bullied or pressurised.

  When I entered David’s office I forced myself to smile and keep any sign of annoyance out of my voice. I said something like, ‘What’s the emergency?’

  I think it is important to remind David that he is a manager and that I am a scientist. Without scientists, there would be no need for managers.

  As usual David’s desk was absolutely clear of paper. A flat-screen computer monitor and keyboard sat on it, otherwise it was several square feet of matt black metal, relieved only by two sheets of paper. He lifted one of them, without inviting me to sit down, as he usually does. He waved it in front of me. I could not see what it was. Then he told me it was my P45. He put it down on the desk and waited for me to say something. At first I did not take in his words, then my heart started hammering. I replied that I did not understand.

  David looked at me without smiling. He said, ‘I know you live somewhat in an ivory tower, Alfred, but even you must be aware what a P45 is? You need it for the Inland Revenue and social security people when your employment is terminated by your employer—in this case, us.’

  I stared at him. David put down the first piece of paper and picked up the second. He explained that it was a letter, drafted in my name, to Fitzharris & Price. It was a request for a meeting to discuss the Yemen salmon project in the near future. The tone of the letter was apologetic and wheedling, explaining my delay in replying was due to pressure of work and expressing my hope that the opportunity to work together was still there. After I finished reading it I found I was trembling, but whether with annoyance or alarm, I was not sure.

  David picked up the P45 again and took back the letter to Fitzharris & Price. He held them up in front of me and explained in a neutral tone of voice, ‘Dr Jones, you can leave the office with your P45 or you can take away this letter and sign it and get it sent by messenger round to Fitzharris & Price. Personally, I am wholly indifferent which you choose to do, but I believe Fitzharris & Price has been told you are the man to talk to, otherwise I have to say I would not have given you the luxury of this choice.’

  I looked around me for a chair. I saw one on my left and asked if I could sit down.

  David looked at his watch and told me he had an appointment with the minister in half an hour. He said, ‘The minister will be asking me for a progress report on this project. What am I going to be able to tell him?’

  I swallowed several times. My legs were trembling. I pulled the chair across, sat in it and said, ‘David, this is wholly unreasonable—’

  He interrupted me. ‘Which piece of paper are you going to leave this office with?’

  I could not speak. This Nazi behaviour shocked me to the core. I pointed to the letter to Fitzharris & Price.

  ‘Then sign it now.’

  ‘May I have a moment to read it?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’

  For a moment I almost lost control. I wanted to crumple the letter up and fling it in David Sugden’s face, but instead I found myself reaching inside my jacket for my fountain pen, and then I pulled the hateful rectangle of paper towards me and signed it.

  David immediately took it from me and told me he would send it by messenger himself. He said he had cancelled all my diary appointments by email for the next month. I had one priority, and one priority only, if I wanted to keep my job. I had to meet Harriet Chetwode-Talbot, persuade her that the National Centre for Fisheries Excellence was the only organisation that had any chance of coming up with a proposal for her salmon project, and I had to persuade her that I was the right man for that job.


  I nodded. David stood up. He looked for a moment as if he was going to say something by way of apology or explanation. Then he checked his watch again and said, ‘I mustn’t keep the minister waiting.’

  I left without saying anything further, I hope with some dignity.

  Now, as I record these unpleasant events, I reflect that it would have been nice if Mary had been at home tonight. Sometimes one wants to talk things over with one’s partner. Mary doesn’t like long phone calls. She says phone calls are for information. The trouble is, she isn’t often at home to have the conversations that she doesn’t feel we should have on the phone. But I’m so proud of the way she is getting on.

  I hope she will be proud of me when I tell her of the dignified way I stood up to David Sugden’s bully-boy tactics.

  §

  15 June

  I am writing this in the office.

  Mary comes home tonight. I find I have been missing her. There is nothing to eat in the entire house. I must remember to call in at Marks & Spencer on the way home. I will buy some ready-to-eat meals. I must remember to get a new pair of pyjamas, as the elastic has gone in my present (Tesco) pair. I have kept a note of the mean time between failure (MTBF) of various things like socks—hole in the heel; pyjamas—elastic cord failure. I am afraid that I can detect a clear downward trend, almost a planned obsolescence, in some of these products. I am hoping Marks & Spencer will be more reliable.

  No bowel movement this morning. A sure sign of stress. I did go for a run, however, and burned off some of the anger that has been churning inside me like bile.

  This morning I received a phone call. Sally buzzed through to me and said there was a Harriet Someone on the line from Fitzharris & Price, and would I take the call? For a moment, glorious rebellion: I so nearly said, ‘No, tell her I’m busy.’ But instead I told Sally to put the call through—a girl’s voice with what I would call a cut-glass accent asked if she was speaking to Dr Jones.

  She was very polite. She apologised for disturbing me, told me she understood I had been very busy with some major projects and said she would not have disturbed me at present except that her client was being very pressing. Then she asked if I recalled her original letter about introducing salmon to the Yemen?

  I made an assenting sound at the back of my throat. I did not trust myself to speak. She took this to mean yes and asked when we could meet. For a moment I was tempted to shout, ‘Never!’ but instead I found myself agreeing to go and visit her at her office in St James’s Street the following morning.

  ‘Will your client be there?’ I asked.

  ‘No, he is in the Yemen. But he is anxious to meet you on one of his future trips over here. That is, if you agree to take this any further after our meeting tomorrow.’ We agreed on a time to meet at her office in St James’s Street.

  Later

  Mary has just come home. She arrived at Heathrow this morning about seven and went straight to her office, and of course she has overdone it. She looked at the Marks & Spencer Italian Selection I had purchased and said, ‘I’m sorry, Alfred, I’ve just got no appetite.’

  Naturally I didn’t want to bore her with my problems when she was so exhausted. However, she revived over a glass of wine and talked for a while about US banking regulations. Most interesting. She has gone to bed now, and so will I in a moment.

  It would have been nice if we could have talked a bit about my problems at work, but I must not be self-centred.

  §

  16 June

  My meeting at Fitzharris & Price was not quite what I expected.

  I cannot help but feel resentful towards these people who have disturbed the relative tranquillity of my life with their absurd ideas. My intention was to be damning without being rude, discouraging without being negative. I still feel, as I write this, that their proposal is so stupid that it will soon wither and die.

  When I arrived at the F&P offices I found an elegant reception area, with an elegant receptionist commanding it from behind a large partners’ desk. Opposite the desk were a pair of comfortable-looking leather sofas and a low glass table with Country Life and The Field laid out on it. Before I could sample any of these luxuries Ms Harriet Chetwode-Talbot came out to meet me.

  She thanked me for sparing the time to come and see her. She was courteous, elegant, tall and slender. She appeared to me to be dressed as if she was about to go out to lunch at a smart restaurant rather than for a day’s hard work in the office. Mary always says it is demeaning for working women to dress themselves up like that. She herself is a strong believer in sensible, practical working clothes which do not accentuate the wearer’s femininity.

  We went into Ms Chetwode-Talbot’s office, which looked out over St James’s Street. The windows were double-glazed and the room was quiet and full of light. Instead of going behind her desk she guided me to two armchairs facing each other across a low mahogany table on which were set out a white china coffee pot and two cups on a tray. We sat down, and she pulled the tray towards her and poured out two cups of coffee. Then she said, and I remember her exact words, ‘I expect you think we are all absolute idiots.’

  This was unexpected. I began to trot out some long-winded comments about the unusual nature of the project, how it was outside the mainstream of the centre’s work, and how I felt a degree of concern that we might all waste quite a lot of time and achieve nothing.

  She listened patiently and then said, ‘Please call me Harriet. My surname is such a mouthful it really is too much to ask anyone to use it.’

  I blushed. Perhaps Chetwode-Talbot has metamorphosed in pronunciation in the way Cholmondely has become Chumly, or Delwes Dales—one of those trick pronunciations invented by the English to confuse one other.

  Then she suggested it might help if I understood some of the background.

  I nodded; I needed to know who or what I was dealing with. Harriet—I don’t think it is appropriate for us to be on Christian-name terms, but it is quicker to write just her first name in this diary—began to explain. I crossed my legs and clasped my hands over my knees and generally tried to assume the expression my tutor at university used to adopt when I had put in a particularly bad piece of work which he was about to tear to shreds.

  Harriet gave me a faint smile and explained that I had probably gathered by now that Fitzharris & Price were chartered surveyors and property consultants, not fisheries scientists.

  I told her I appreciated the point.

  She bowed her head in acknowledgement and explained that for many years the business of her office had been acquiring agricultural or sporting estates in the UK on behalf of overseas clients—in particular, Middle Eastern buyers. Fitzharris had discovered quite quickly that its clients didn’t just want it to buy the estates but also manage them in their absence.

  That had led Fitzharris into providing technical expertise on a whole range of subjects, such as land agents’ services and help with recruiting estate employees through to advice on farming practice, sporting lets, obtaining planning permission for building new country houses, and so on.

  Of course, Harriet told me, most of their clients are very wealthy, and are fond of often quite ambitious projects to improve the properties they buy. Then she said, ‘We have one such client who has been with us for a number of years. His wealth derives in part from oil, but if there is such a thing as a typical oil sheikh, he is not it. He is a most unusual, visionary man.’

  Harriet paused to refill our cups with fresh coffee, and I found myself reluctantly admitting to myself that however foolish the project was, there was nothing foolish about this woman.

  She added, ‘I am not going to attempt to describe what my client’s motivation is. I think it is important you try and understand it, if you decide to help us, but it is for him alone to tell you about that part.’ She continued, ‘He is a man we hold in great respect in this firm. He is an excellent steward and landlord of the properties he has bought in this country, an employer everyone would
want to work for, but people like working for him because of his personal qualities and not because he is enormously wealthy. Moreover, he is an Anglophile, which is perhaps less usual in the Yemen than in some other parts of the region, and his prominence in his own country means he is viewed as a key potential ally in Yemeni councils by the Foreign Office here.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said.

  ‘Indeed, Dr Jones. I think you are aware there is a political dimension to all of this.’ She did not attempt to call me Alfred. ‘I know you will have had some pressure brought to bear on you from within government. Believe me, it was not of our doing and I very much regret it. We would rather you took on this job, impossible as it may seem at the moment, of your own free will, or else not at all. And that will certainly be the view of our client.’

  ‘Ah,’ I repeated, and then when she appeared to have stopped speaking, ‘Well. You were speaking about introducing salmon into the Yemen.’

  ‘And salmon fishing. I believe it is intended to be fly-fishing only, no spinning.’

  ‘No spinning,’ I repeated.

  ‘Are you a salmon fisherman, Dr Jones?’ asked Harriet. For some reason I blushed again, as if I was about to admit to something covert and slightly sinister. Perhaps I was.

  ‘As a matter of fact, I am very keen. Perhaps not as unusual amongst us fisheries people as you might think. Of course I nearly always put back any fish I catch. Yes, I enjoy it very much.’

  ‘Where do you fish?’

  ‘Here and there. I like to try different rivers. I’ve fished the Wye, the Eden and the Tyne in England; the Tay and the Dee and a few smaller Scottish rivers. I don’t get much time for it nowadays.’

  ‘Well, if you take this project on I’m sure my client will ask you to fish with him at his place in Scotland.’ Then she added with a smile, ‘And perhaps one day you’ll fish on the Wadi Aleyn, in the Yemen.’