James Bowen - A Street Cat Named Bob

I was walking past an alleyway when I saw a flash of a tail. It was black and thin, very different to Bob’s, but I was in such a state my mind was playing tricks and I convinced myself it must be him.

‘Bob,’ I shouted, diving into the dark space, but there was nothing there.

Somewhere in the dark I heard a meowing sound. It didn’t sound like him. After a couple of minutes, I moved on.

By now the traffic had eased off. The night suddenly fell ominously quiet. For the first time I noticed that the stars were out. It wasn’t quite the Australian night sky but it was still impressive. A few weeks ago I’d been staring at the stars in Tasmania. I’d told everyone in Australia that I was coming back to care for Bob. A fine job I’ve done of that , I said, inwardly cursing myself.

For a moment or two I wondered whether my extended stay in Australia had actually been a factor in all this. Had that time apart loosened the ties between me and Bob? Had the fact that I’d been absent for six weeks made him question my commitment to him? When the Rottweiler had attacked, had he decided that he could no longer rely on me to protect him? The thought made me want to scream.

As Belle’s road loomed into view I was still feeling close to tears. What was I going to do without him? I’d never find a companion like Bob again. It was then that it happened. For the first time in years I experienced an overwhelming need for a fix.

I tried to bat it away immediately, but once more my subconscious started fighting a battle of wills. Somewhere inside my head I could feel myself thinking that if I really had lost Bob, I wouldn’t be able to cope, I’d have to anaesthetise myself from the grief I was already feeling.

Belle had, like me, been fighting for years. But I knew her flatmate still dabbled. The closer I got to her street, the more terrifying the thoughts in my head were becoming.

By the time I reached Belle’s house, it was approaching ten o’clock. I had been wandering the streets for a couple of hours. In the distance, the sirens were wailing once more, the cops were on their way to another stabbing or punch-up in a pub. I couldn’t have cared less.

As I walked up the path to the dimly lit front entrance I spotted a shape sitting quietly in the shadows to the side of the building. It was unmistakably the silhouette of a cat, but I’d given up hope by now and just assumed it was another stray, sheltering from the cold. But then I saw his face, that unmistakeable face.

‘Bob.’

He let out a plaintive meow, just like the one in the hallway three years ago, as if to say: ‘Where have you been? I’ve been waiting here for ages.’

I scooped him up and held him close.

‘You are going to be the death of me if you keep running away like that,’ I said, my mind scrambling to work out how he’d got here.

It wasn’t long before it all fell into place. I felt a fool for not thinking of it sooner. He had been to Belle’s flat with me several times, and spent six weeks there when I was away. It made sense that he would have come here. But how on earth had he got here? It must be a mile and a half from our pitch at the Angel. Had he walked all the way? If so, how long had he been here?

None of that mattered now. As I carried on making a fuss of him, he licked my hand, his tongue was as rough as sandpaper. He rubbed his face against mine and curled his tail.

I rang Belle’s doorbell and she invited me in. My mood had been transformed from despair to delirium. I was on top of the world

Belle’s flatmate was also there and said, ‘Want something to celebrate?’ smiling, knowingly.

‘No, I’m fine thanks,’ I said, tugging on Bob as he scratched playfully at my hand, and looking over at Belle. ‘Just a beer would be great.’

Bob didn’t need drugs to get through the night. He just needed his companion: me. And at that moment I decided that was all I needed too. All I needed was Bob. Not just tonight, but for as long as I had the privilege of having him in my life.

As the March sun disappeared and dusk descended over the Angel, London was winding itself up for the evening once more. The traffic was already thick on Islington High Street and the honking of horns was building into a cacophony of noise. The pavements were busy too, with a stream of people flowing in and out of the station concourse. The rush hour was under way and living up to its name as usual. Everyone was in a rush to get somewhere it seemed. Well, not quite everyone.

I was checking that I had enough papers left to cope with the surge of activity I knew was about to arrive when I saw out of the corner of my eye that a group of kids had gathered around us. They were teenagers I guessed, three boys and a couple of girls. They looked South American or maybe Spanish or Portuguese.

There was nothing unusual about this. It wasn’t quite Covent Garden, Leicester Square or Piccadilly Circus, but Islington had its fair share of tourists and Bob was a magnet for them. Barely a day went by without him being surrounded by an excitable group of youths like this.

What was different this evening, however, was the way they were animatedly pointing and talking about him.

‘Ah, si Bob,’ said one teenage girl, talking what I guessed was Spanish.

‘ Si, si. Bob the Beeg Issew Cat,’ said another.

Weird , I thought to myself when I realised what she’d said. How do they know his name is Bob? He doesn’t wear a name tag. And what do they mean by the Big Issue Cat ?

My curiosity soon got the better of me.

‘Sorry, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but how do you know Bob?’ I said, in the hope that one of them spoke decent English. My Spanish was almost non-existent.

Fortunately one of them, a young boy, replied. ‘Oh, we see him on YouTube,’ he smiled. ‘Bob is very popular, yes?’

‘Is he?’ I said. ‘Someone told me he was on YouTube, but I’ve got no idea how many people watch it.’

‘Many people, I think,’ he smiled.

‘Where are you from?’

‘ España , Spain.’

‘So Bob’s popular in Spain?’

‘ Si, si ,’ another one of the boys said when the boy translated back our conversation. ‘ Bob es una estrella en España .’

‘Sorry, what did he say?’ I asked the boy.

‘He says that Bob is a star in Spain.’

I was shocked.

I knew that lots of people had taken photographs of Bob over the years, both while I was busking and now that I was selling the Big Issue . I’d jokingly wondered once whether he should be put forward for the Guinness Book of Records : the world’s most photographed cat.

A couple of people had filmed him too, some with their phones, others with proper video cameras. I started casting my mind back over those that had shot footage of him in recent months. Who could have shot a film that was now on YouTube? There were a couple of obvious candidates, but I made a note to check it out at the first opportunity.

The following morning I headed down to the local library with Bob and booked myself online.

I punched in the search terms: Bob Big Issue Cat. Sure enough, there was a link to YouTube, which I clicked on. To my surprise there was not one, but two films there.

‘Hey Bob, look, he was right. You are a star on YouTube.’

He hadn’t been terribly interested until that point. It wasn’t Channel Four racing, after all. But when I clicked on the first video and saw and heard myself talking he jumped on to the keyboard and popped his face right up against the screen.