Джеймс Боуэн - The World According to Bob

My greatest fear was that it was a parasite infection. I cast my mind back to my childhood in Australia when I’d seen a couple of cats develop worms. It wasn’t pleasant, and was also contagious. A lot of children in Australia used to contract worms from their cats. It was quite gross actually.

Of course, researching illness on the internet is always the biggest mistake you can make. I’d done it before, but hadn’t heeded the lesson. Sure enough, within about half an hour I’d convinced myself that Bob’s symptoms were consistent with a really serious kind of worm, a hookworm or a tapeworm. Neither is usually a fatal illness, but they can be really nasty, causing severe loss of weight and a deterioration in the coat if untreated.

I knew I had no option but to check his poo the next time he went to the toilet. I didn’t have to wait long. Within about an hour of us settling down at Angel, he started making his tell-tale noises and gestures and I had to take him off to the Green. I braced myself to sneak a quick look before he covered up his business in the soft earth. He didn’t take kindly to my intrusion.

‘Sorry, Bob, but I’ve got to take a peek,’ I said, inspecting his droppings with a twig.

It may sound bizarre, but I was delighted when I saw some tiny, white wiggly creatures in there. It was worms, but only tiny little ones.

‘At least it’s not tapeworm or hookworm,’ I consoled myself for the rest of that day.

Heading home that night I felt a strange, slightly confusing mix of emotions. The responsible cat owner in me was really miffed. I was so careful about his diet, avoiding raw meats and other things that are known to be risky when it comes to worms. I had also been diligent in making sure he was regularly checked for fleas, which can act as hosts for worms. He was also a really clean and healthy cat, and I made sure the flat was in a decent condition for him to live. I felt like it reflected badly on me. I felt like I’d let him down a little bit. On the other hand, however, I was relieved that I now knew what I needed to do.

As luck would have it, I knew the Blue Cross drop-in van was going to be at Islington Green the following day. So I made sure that we headed off early to beat the lengthy queues that always built up before the clinic began.

The staff there knew Bob and I well; we’d been regular visitors over the years. Bob had been micro-chipped there and I’d spent the best part of a year dropping in to slowly pay off the fees I’d incurred for that and other treatments. I’d also had him checked out frequently, including for fleas, ironically.

The vet who was on duty that morning asked me to describe the problem, then took a quick look at Bob and a sample of poo that I’d put in a plastic, pill container I had lying around the house before coming to a predictable conclusion.

‘Yes, he’s got worms I’m afraid, James,’ he said. ‘What’s he been eating lately? Anything out of the ordinary? Been rummaging in the bins or anything like that?’

It was as if a light had gone on in my head. I felt so stupid.

‘Oh, God, yes.’

I’d completely forgotten about the tin can incident. He must have found a piece of old chicken or other meat in there. How could I have failed to see that?

The vet gave me a course of medication and a syringe with which to apply it.

‘How long will it take to clear things up?’ I asked.

‘Should be on the mend within a few days, James,’ he said. ‘Let me know if the symptoms persist.’

Years earlier, when I’d first taken Bob in and had to administer antibiotics to him I’d had to do it by hand, inserting tablets in his mouth and then rubbing his throat to help them on their way down into his stomach. The syringe would, in theory, make that process simpler. But he still had to trust me to insert the contraption down his throat.

Back at the flat that evening, I could tell that he didn’t like the look of it. But it was a measure of how much he trusted me that he immediately let me place the plastic inside his mouth and release the tablet before rubbing his throat. I figured that he must know I wouldn’t do anything to him that wasn’t absolutely necessary.

As the vet had predicted, Bob was back to his normal self within a couple of days. His appetite waned and he was soon eating and going to the toilet normally again.

As I thought about what had happened, I gave myself a ticking off. The responsibility of looking after Bob had been such a positive force in my life. But I needed to live up to that responsibility a little better. He wasn’t a part time job that I could clock into whenever the mood took me.

I felt particularly negligent because it wasn’t the first time Bob had suffered because of his habit of rummaging in bins. A year or so earlier, he’d got quite sick after investigating the inside of the wheelie bins outside the block of flats.

I told myself that I could never let a bin bag lie around like that again. It was stupid of me to have done so in the first place. Even if everything was sealed, Bob was such a resourceful and inquisitive character, he’d find a way in.

Most of all though, I breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t often that he was off colour or ill, but whenever he was, the pessimist in me always jumped to the worst possible conclusions. As daft and over-dramatic as it was, over the past days I’d found myself imagining him dying and me having to carry on life without him. It was a prospect that was too scary to contemplate.

I always said that we were partners, that we needed each other equally. Deep down I believed that wasn’t really true. I felt like I needed him more.

Bob and I have always been a fairly distinctive pair. There aren’t many six foot tall blokes walking around the streets of London with a ginger cat sitting on his shoulders, after all. We certainly turn heads.

For a few months during the summer and autumn of 2009 we made an even more eye-catching sight. Unfortunately, I was in too much pain to enjoy the attention.

The problems had begun the previous year when I’d travelled to Australia to see my mother. My mum and I had always had a difficult relationship and we’d become estranged for the best part of a decade. Apart from a brief visit to London, the last time I’d seen her was when she’d seen me off at the airport as an 18-year-old heading from Australia to ‘make it’ as a musician in London. In the lost decade that followed, we’d barely talked. Time had healed the wounds a little, so, when she offered to pay for me to visit her in Tasmania, it seemed right that I should go.

With Bob’s help I’d just managed to make a massive breakthrough and wean myself off methadone. It had left me feeling weak so I needed the break. Bob had stayed with my friend Belle, at her flat near Hoxton in north London, not too far from Angel.

The long flights to and from Australia had taken their toll on me physically, however. I had known about the risks of spending hours immobile on long haul flights, especially when you are tall, like me, and had done my best to avoid sitting for too long in a cramped seating position. But despite doing my best to walk around the plane as often as possible, I’d come home with a nagging pain in my upper thigh.

At first it had been manageable and I’d dealt with it by taking ordinary, over-the-counter pain killers. Slowly but surely, however, it had grown worse. I had begun experiencing an incredible cramping feeling, as if my blood had stopped flowing and my muscles were seizing up. I know no human feels rigor mortis, but I had a suspicion if we did, this was the sensation. It was as if I had the leg of a zombie.