James Bowen - A Street Cat Named Bob

I picked up Bob, giving him a stroke on the back of the neck.

‘Well done, mate,’ I said. ‘That was what I call a good evening’s work.’

I decided that I didn’t need to wander around the pubs. Besides, I knew Bob was hungry – as was I. We needed to head home.

I walked back towards Tottenham Court Road and the bus stop with Bob once more positioned on my shoulder. I wasn’t rude to anyone, but I decided not to engage with absolutely everyone who stopped and smiled at us. I couldn’t. There were too many of them. I wanted to get home this side of midnight.

‘We’ll have something nice to eat tonight, Bob,’ I said as we settled on to the bus for the trip back up to Tottenham. Again, he pinned his nose up against the window watching the bright lights and the traffic.

I got off the bus near a really nice Indian restaurant on Tottenham High Road. I’d walked past it many times, savouring the lengthy menu, but never had enough spare money to be able to afford anything. I’d always had to make do with something from a cheaper place nearer to the block of flats.

I went in and ordered a chicken tikka masala with lemon rice, a peshwari naan and a sag paneer. The waiters threw me a few, funny looks when they saw Bob on a lead beside me. So I said I’d pop back in twenty minutes and headed off with Bob to a supermarket across the road.

With the money we’d made I treated Bob to a nice pouch of posh cat food, a couple of packs of his favourite nibbles and some ‘cat milk’. I also treated myself to a couple of nice tins of lager.

‘Let’s push the boat out, Bob,’ I said to him. ‘It’s been a day to remember.’

After picking up our dinner, I almost ran home, I was so overwhelmed by the tempting smells coming out from the brown paper carrier bag from the upmarket curry house. When we got inside Bob and I both wolfed down our food as if there was no tomorrow. I hadn’t eaten so well in months – well, maybe years. I’m pretty sure he hadn’t either.

We then curled up for a couple of hours, me watching television and him snuggled up in his favourite spot under the radiator. We both slept like logs that night.

The next morning I was woken by a sudden, loud, crashing sound. It took me a moment to get my bearings, but when I did so I immediately guessed what it was. The metallic, clanging noise had come from the kitchen. That probably meant that once again Bob was trying to open the cupboards where I kept his food and had knocked something over.

I squinted at the clock. It was mid-morning. After the excitement of the previous night I had given myself a lie in, but Bob had obviously decided he couldn’t wait any longer. This was his way of saying: ‘Get up, I want my breakfast.’

I hauled myself out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen. The small, tin saucepan I used to boil milk was lying on the floor.

As soon as he saw me Bob slid his way purposefully towards his bowl.

‘OK, mate, I get the picture,’ I said, unlocking the cupboards and reaching for a sachet of his favourite chicken dish. I spooned a couple of portions into the bowl and watched him devour it in seconds. He then gulped down the water in his bowl, licked his face and paws clean and trotted off into the living room, where, looking very satisfied with himself, he took his favourite position under the radiator.

If only all our lives were that simple , I thought to myself.

I’d considered not going to work, but then thought better of it. We may have had a lucky break last night, but that money wouldn’t keep us going for long. The electricity and gas bills were due soon. Given the cold weather we’d had in recent months, they weren’t going to make for pleasant reading. It had also begun to dawn on me that I had a new responsibility in my life. I had an extra mouth to feed – a rather hungry and manipulative one.

So after wolfing down some breakfast of my own, I started getting my stuff together.

I wasn’t sure whether Bob would want to come out busking with me again today. Yesterday might have been a one-off; he might simply have been satisfying his curiosity about where I went when I left home most days. But I put some snacks in the bag for him just in case he did decide to follow me again.

It was early afternoon as I headed off. It was obvious what I was doing; I had my rucksack and guitar lashed across my back. If he didn’t want to go out of the flat with me, which was rare, he generally let me know by slinking off behind the sofa. For a moment I thought that was what he was going to do today. When I took the chain off the front door, he headed in that direction. But then as I was about to shut the door behind me he bolted towards me and followed me out into the corridor and towards the staircase.

When we got to the ground floor and out into the open air he scurried off into the bushes to do his business. Afterwards, rather than heading to me, he trotted off towards the area where the bins were kept.

The bins were becoming more and more of a fascination for him. Goodness knows what he was finding – and eating – in there. I thought that this might be the only reason he’d wanted to come down with me. I wasn’t too happy about him rooting around in the rubbish so went to check what was there. You never knew when the local bin men would come. Fortunately, there must have been a collection earlier that morning because there was no stray rubbish around. There were slim pickings, Bob wasn’t going to have much joy. Reassured, I decided to head off without him. I knew he’d get back inside the building somehow, especially now that a lot of the neighbours knew him. One or two had started making a real fuss of him whenever they saw him. One lady who lived on the floor below me always gave him a treat.

He would probably be waiting on the landing for me when I got home that evening.

Fair enough , I thought as I set off for Tottenham High Road. Bob had done me a huge favour the previous day. I wasn’t going to exploit our relationship by demanding he come along with me every day. He was my companion, not my employee!

The skies were grey and there was a hint of rain in the air. If it was like this in central London it was going to be a waste of time. Busking on a rainy day was never a good idea. Instead of feeling sympathy for you, people simply rushed by that bit quicker. If it was bucketing down in the centre of town, I told myself, I’d simply turn around and head back home. I would rather spend the day hanging out with Bob. I wanted to use the money we’d made the previous night to get him a decent lead and collar.

I was about two hundred yards or so down the road when I sensed something behind me. I turned round and saw a familiar figure, padding along the pavement.

‘Ah, changed our mind have we,’ I said, as he approached me.

Bob tilted his head ever so slightly to one side and gave me one of those pitying looks, as if to say: ‘well, why else would I be standing here?’

I still had the shoestring lead in my pocket. I put it on and we started walking down the road together.

The streets of Tottenham are very different to those of Covent Garden, but just like the day before people immediately began staring at us. And just like the day before, one or two looked at me disapprovingly. They clearly thought I was off my rocker, leading a ginger tom around on a piece of string.

‘If this is going to become a regular thing I really am going to have to get you a proper lead,’ I said quietly to Bob, suddenly feeling a bit self-conscious.