The Canal

He asked his uncle about the canal on Sunday.

His uncle Marcus was thirty-two and the kind of adult who never made you feel foolish for asking things. He was also extremely enthusiastic about fishing in a way that had always slightly baffled Jamie but which he now found he was listening to quite carefully.

"The Millfield canal is decent," his uncle said, over Sunday lunch. "Plenty of roach. Seen some decent bream there in the autumn. Why, are you thinking of coming?"

"Maybe," Jamie said. "I have a friend who fishes."

His uncle looked at him in the way that adults look at you when they have noticed something and decided not to mention it. "Bring your friend," he said. "Any time."

On Monday Jamie told Suki about the canal. He had planned how to bring it up casually and then the moment he sat down he just said it directly, which was not casual but was at least quick.

They were at the library table, a week into what had become a routine without either of them officially deciding it was one. She had stopped eating crackers and started bringing actual lunch, which she said was because the crackers were getting boring and which Jamie thought probably also meant she was planning to stay longer.

"My uncle says roach and bream," he said. "He goes on Saturday mornings sometimes. He said we could come."

Suki set down her sandwich. "You actually asked him."

"I said I would find out," Jamie said. "I found out."

She looked at him for a moment in the particular way she had, steady and direct, as if she was reading something. He had gotten used to it over the past week and had stopped finding it unsettling and started finding it something else, something he did not have a precise word for.

"I do not have any gear here," she said. "It is all in Bristol at my dad's."

"My uncle has extra," Jamie said. "He always has extra. He has an entire shed of extra."

"Your uncle sounds like my dad," Suki said.

"Fishing people are apparently like that," Jamie said.

Suki almost smiled. "Fishing people," she repeated. "Is that what we are?"

"You are," Jamie said. "I am just someone who looked things up."

"That is how fishing people start," she said. She picked her sandwich back up. "Okay. Saturday. But I want to actually fish, not just watch."

"Obviously," Jamie said, as if this had been the plan all along and not something he was only now realising he would need to figure out.

He texted his uncle under the table, one-handed, not looking at the screen. The reply came back in under a minute: I will bring the spare rod. Also well done.

Jamie put his phone away very quickly.

Jamie put his phone away before Suki could see the message.