Alice shivered. The rain had found its way inside her collar.
“Come along,” said Heather. “No, don’t carry your rod like that, Alice. You’ll either spear someone or get it caught in a bush.”
Jeremy waded off into the loch, and Alice watched him go until he was swallowed up in the mist. Lady Jane’s petulant voice sounded over the water, “Can’t you row a little harder?” Poor Charlie.
Alice waded along the shallows after Heather. “Just here, I think,” said Heather. “Try casting here.”
Wet and miserable, Alice jerked her rod back and caught the bush behind her. “No, like this,” said Heather patiently, after she had extricated Alice’s hook. She took Alice’s arm in a firm grasp and cast the fly so neatly that it landed on the water without a ripple. “Good,” murmured Heather. “Now again. And again.”
Alice’s arm began to ache. She cursed and stumbled and slipped on the slippery boulders in the water beneath her feet. “I’ll try a little bit further on,” said Heather placidly. “You’re doing just grand. Remember to stop the rod at the twelve o’clock position. The loch’s quite shallow for a good bit, so if you move slowly out from the shore, you might get a bite and then you don’t have the risk of getting your hook caught in the bushes.”
Why don’t I just say I’ll never learn how to fish and I don’t care, thought Alice wretchedly. Jeremy’s not interested in me. I don’t belong here. But somehow she found herself wading slowly out into the loch, casting as she went.
Then the line went taut.
Alice’s heart leapt into her mouth.
It was probably a rock or a bit of weed. She began to reel in, feeling with growing excitement the tugs and shivers on the line. A trout leapt in the air at the end of the line and dived.
“Help!” screamed Alice, red with excitement. Would Heather never come? What if she lost it? She could not bear to lose it. Seized with a fever almost as old as the hills around her, Alice reeled in her line.
“That’s it,” said Heather quietly, appearing suddenly at Alice’s side. “Get your net ready.”.
“Net. Yes, net,” said Alice, scrabbling wildly about and dropping her rod in the water. Heather bent down and seized the rod.
“Get the net ready,” said Heather again. Alice wanted to snatch the rod back but was afraid of losing the fish. Forward it came, turning and glistening in the water. Alice scooped the net under it and lifted it up, watching the fish with a mixture of exultation and pity.
“Quite a big one,” said Heather. “Three pounds, I should think. It’ll make a good breakfast.” She led the way to the shore after removing the hook from the trout’s mouth.
“Can’t you kill it?” asked Alice, looking at the panting, struggling fish. “Oh yes,” said Heather, slowly picking up a rock. All her movements were slow and sure. “We’ll just put it out of its misery.”
How abhorrent the idea of killing things seemed in London, thought Alice, and how natural it seemed in this savage landscape. Heather slid the trout into a plastic bag. “Put that in your fishing bag,” she said to Alice. “It’s about time for lunch. I think I hear the others returning.”
Alice was the only one who had caught anything and received lavish praise from everyone but Lady Jane and Charlie Baxter. The child looked exhausted, and Heather was fussing over him, helping him into the front seat of the car and pouring him hot tea.
“You’re a marvel, Alice,” said Jeremy. “Did you really catch that brute all by yourself?”
“Yes, did you really?” asked Lady Jane.
Alice hesitated only for a moment. Heather was a little bit away, hopefully out of earshot. “Yes,” said Alice loudly. “Yes, I did.”
“I’d better keep close to you this afternoon,” grinned Jeremy. “Seems you have all the luck.”
Alice’s pleasure was a little dimmed by, first, the lie she had told, which she was now sure Heather had overheard, and, second, by the fact that Jeremy and Daphne were to share a cozy lunch in his car while she herself was relegated to the back of the Cartwrights’ estate car.
Lunch tasted rather nasty. Great slabs of paté, cold and heavy, and dry yellow cake and boiled eggs. But the fishing fever had Alice in its grip, and she could hardly wait to try her luck again. Somehow, Alice felt, if she managed to catch another fish all on her own then the lie would be forgiven by the gods above. For the first few moments after they climbed from the cars again, it looked as if the day’s fishing might have to be cancelled. A wind had risen and was driving great buffets of rain into their faces.
“It said on the forecast this morning it might dry up later,” yelled John above the noise of the rising wind. “I say we ought to give it another half-hour.”
Everyone agreed, since no one wanted to return home without a fish. If Alice could catch one, then anyone could, was the general opinion.
“I’m all right now,” Charlie said, after Heather had towelled his curls dry. “It was that woman. Row here. Row there. And then she said…she said…never mind.”
“Slide along behind the wheel, Charlie,” said Heather firmly. “I really think you ought to tell me what Lady Jane said to upset you.”
But Charlie would only shake his drying curls and look stubborn.
Heather was determined to have a word with her husband about Lady Jane as soon as possible. But the roar of an engine told her that John was already setting out with the major for the upper beats of the river.
“Would you like me to run you back to the hotel?” she asked the boy.
He shook his head. “As long as I can fish alone,” he said. “I’ll wait with the rest and see if the weather lifts.”
Alice was oblivious to the slashing rain as she waded out into the loch again with Jeremy at her side, deaf to the sounds of altercation from the shore as Heather told Lady Jane firmly that she was to leave Charlie alone and drive to the upper beats to join the major, the Roths, and John.
“Brrrr, it’s cold,” said Jeremy. “Where did you catch your trout?”
“Just here,” said Alice. “I’ll show you.” She cast wildly and heard the fly plop in the water behind her, then clumsily whipped the line forward. “I’m tired,” she said defiantly, “and my arm aches. That’s why I can’t do it right.”
“Look, it’s like this,” said Jeremy. “Keep your legs apart – ” Alice blushed “ – with the left foot slightly forward. Bring the rod smartly up towards your shoulder using the forearm and hold your upper arms close to your body. When you make the back flick, the line should stream out straight behind, and when you feel a tug at the top of the line, you’ll know the back cast is completed, and then bring it into the forward cast.”
Alice’s line cracked like a lion tamer’s whip. “Are you sure you caught that fish yourself?” laughed Jeremy.
“Of course I did,” said Alice with the steady, outraged gaze of the liar.
“I’ll try further down,” said Jeremy, beginning to wade away. “I wonder if Daphne’s had any luck.”
Damn Daphne, thought Alice savagely. All her elation had fled, leaving her alone in the middle of a howling wilderness of wind and rain.
She simply had to get Jeremy back.
Remembering everything she had been taught, she balanced herself on the slippery pebbles under the water and cast carefully and neatly towards Jeremy’s retreating back.
“Caught ‘im,” thought Alice. Aloud, she called, “Sorry, Jeremy darling. I’m afraid I’ve hooked you.” Now, in the romances that Alice read, Jeremy should have said something like, “You caught me a long time ago,” and men walked slowly towards her and taken her in his powerful arms.
What he did say in fact was, “Silly bitch. There’s the whole loch to fish from. Come here and help me get this hook out.”