I don't really know how the drinking started. It just seemed that one bad day at the office turned into another, and before I knew it I was spending my afternoons in the cold gloom of the North Star's saloon bar.

Avis gave up saving my evening meal after about day three, and then, to quote an oft repeated saying, 'she went to stay with her sister'.

Early every evening I would bid goodnight to my new friends with alcohol fuelled bonhomie, and stagger, in false happiness, along the towpath in the general direction of my now lonely home.

It was on an evening such as any other, that I spotted it; there in the water a few metres from the bank was a shining, twinkling necklace. Looking around in my drunken haze, I was disappointed to see a fisherman on the bank ahead of me. I couldn't just wade in and retrieve the gems whilst he watched could I, that would make me look stupid.
Funny isn't, the way the brain works in such situations. Wishing the angler a carefully enunciated, "good evening," I wobbled on my way.

I just couldn't get that necklace out of my mind: it would make a wonderful peace-offering to Avis, she loved silver jewellery. From that evening onwards I took to walking the towpath on the more sober morning journeys to my place of work, and yes, there it was still wavering and shimmering beneath the oily water of the canal - no one else had seen it, my luck was holding. But it couldn't remain there, undiscovered forever.

It was on another tipsy walk home that the idea came to me, if I were to kit myself out as an angler, it wouldn't look strange if I were discovered up to my knees in the canal; and it would be dark anyway. What a fantastic idea.

After checking daily that the necklace was still undiscovered, I spent the following Saturday hunting around town purchasing authentic angler's clothing and of course, a rod and line. The man in one specialist shop said that I should have waders and not wellington boots as I might have to go deeper if my catch proved hard to land - foolishly I agreed and handed over enough cash to stock a deep-sea trawler. The fishing pole - apparently rods are old hat now - was made of the same carbon fibre as used in Formula One racing cars. I should have bought the racing car, it would have been cheaper! Still, I told myself, the look on Avis's face when I welcomed her back into the family home with the necklace, would be worth it. To complete the ensemble I obtained a super waterproof, super windproof, double-insulated fishing jacket. That was it, now all I had to do was set myself up on the canal bank that evening and the necklace was mine, oh heaven. My fellow travellers on the number ninety-three bus home must have thought me more than a bit strange as I beamed happily from beneath my extensive pile of odd-shaped purchases.

It was getting dark as I walked confidently to my chosen place on the canal. I noticed as I sat on my new fishing box, that the one undamaged street lamp on the bank was directly above me - that was a piece of luck, I'd never noticed that before.
"Anybody fishing here?" I asked the adjacent angler buried deep within the hood of his super waterproof, super windproof, double insulated fishing jacket.

"No," he grunted, "Bert'll be along in a while."

"I'll just give it a while then," I replied cheerily.

"Please yourself."

I was glad that my companion was not of a chatty nature as I battled with the tangle of fishing line in my efforts to appear the complete angler. I had it all planned out: I would sit for a short time with pole in hand, then I would give a quiet curse, drop the pole into the water, and then, whilst wading to retrieve it, scoop the necklace into my super waterproof pocket. I could then terminate my evening swearing prolifically and stomp off angrily in the direction of the North Star to warm up with a few drams of Scotland's finest before heading home to study my catch, tidy the house and make plans to invite Avis home.

As I sat, the chill creeping on, in the darkening evening, hoping that my near neighbour hadn't realised that my shopping expedition had not included the purchase of bait, I carefully went through the next step of my plan in my mind.

"Oh, dam it." My fishing pole hit the water with an almighty splash. "Why do they make these things so bloody long?" I asked of nobody in particular.

"Could be your pole's not made for canal fishing," came the reply out of the darkness. "You're disturbing the fish with all your antics," he complained.

"Sorry," I whispered as I inched myself bodily into the canal, the water slowly rising up my very expensive waders. Luckily the shine of the necklace was just discernible in the dark water; I reached down for it. Leaning forward I felt my fingers close around its metal chain. Trying to keep the splashing to a minimum, I scooped it up and, with a bit of fumbling, managed to drop it into one of the jacket pockets.

"Hey, your float's dragging your pole across my line. Grab it before it wrecks my gear. Where the hell did you learn to fish? That float's big enough to keep an elephant afloat!"

"Sorry," says I again, causing even more turbulence as I hoisted myself up the bank.

Settled on the bank at last, I reached my now numb fingers into the pocket to covertly inspect my haul. It felt lighter than I had expected; huddled up with my back to my disgruntled neighbour I held the loop up in the dismal light.

"Oh, you've caught one of those, have you," said a voice over my shoulder. "There's plenty of them in the canal. It's those bloody kids, they drink all those energy drinks to keep awake all night and loop all the tin ring-pulls together. I've told the little buggers not to chuck 'em in the canal, there's a bin over there."

"Evening, Bert," said my neighbour to the newcomer. "I think it's all he will catch tonight - it's been a right bloody circus."

Leaving my tackle where it lay, I strode off to the North Star to drown my sorrows in the perfectly-dry gloom of its saloon bar.

[THE END]

© scrapyardsummer 2017