Джеймс Боуэн - The World According to Bob

Bob and I were happily whiling away an afternoon on Neal Street when a young guy pitched up with an amplifier and a microphone. He was dressed in skater boy clothes and was wearing a baseball cap and Nike trainers. I spotted him setting up and waited for an instrument to appear, but there wasn’t one. All he had was a microphone.

I ignored him and got back to playing my own music.

I wasn’t able to shut him out of my mind for long though. Within minutes I heard an ear-splitting, repetitive noise booming out. The young guy was strutting around with his mic against his lips, ‘beat boxing’. I’m a fan of most forms of music but this really wasn’t my cup of tea. As far as I was concerned it wasn’t remotely musical, it was just noise.

Bob shared my opinion, it was obvious. Maybe because he’d spent so long listening to me play acoustic guitar, he seemed to like that kind of music. He had also got used to slightly heavier rock. He made his opinion of this ‘music’ plain immediately. I looked down at him and saw him casting his eyes down the street with what I can only describe as complete disdain spread across his face.

There were times when I was led by Bob and this was one of them.

He stood up, tilted his head at me and let me know in no uncertain terms that we should move. I gathered my stuff and moved about 70 yards down the street where I began playing again. I could still hear the din from the young kid down the street, but at least I could hear myself think.

It was a false dawn.

The noise this kid was making was so loud that others must have complained because within half an hour or so a police van arrived. I watched from a distance as a couple of officers got out and approached him. I saw the boy waving his arms around in protest, but it didn’t get him anywhere. A couple of minutes after the police’s arrival I saw him disconnect his mike and start to pack up.

You could almost hear the sighs of relief that must have been breathed in the offices, cafés and restaurants.

‘Thank goodness that’s over, eh Bob?’ I said.

My joy was short-lived. The police officers saw Bob and me sitting on the pavement and came over to talk to us.

‘You’re not licensed to play here, mate,’ one of them said.

I could have argued the toss and said we had a right to be there, which we kind of did. But I decided not to push it. Easing myself back into life in Covent Garden was difficult enough without aggravating the police. Choose your battles, James, I told myself, rather wisely, as it turned out.

It was just after midday on Neal Street and the crowds of tourists and shoppers were beginning to thicken. Bob and I had come out a little earlier today, partly because it was the first decent weather in a week but partly because we needed to get away by late afternoon so that I could get back home for a doctor’s appointment.

I had developed a really bad chest problem and I’d had a week or so of sleepless nights coughing and wheezing. I had to get something done about it. I was getting really strung out by the lack of sleep.

I’d barely got myself set up and started playing when I saw a lady in a ribbed blue jumper and trousers walking purposefully towards me. I could tell she was not a tourist. As she drew close, I saw that her jumper had epaulettes and badges and had a familiar logo on it. She was from the RSPCA.

In ordinary circumstances, I was a big fan and supporter of the RSPCA. They do a great job in preventing animal cruelty and promoting animal welfare in general and had been a huge help to me in the past. When I’d first found Bob injured in the hallway of my block of flats I’d taken him to a nearby drop-in clinic. As well as giving me a prescription for the medicine Bob would need to heal his wounds, the vet there had passed on lots of sound and sensible advice on how to treat and care for him.

That now seemed like a very distant memory. Today, I got the distinct impression that their presence wasn’t going to be good news.

‘Hello, James, how are you today?’ the lady said, producing a card with her ID on it. It showed that she was an Inspector.

I was a bit thrown by the fact that she knew my name.

‘Fine, thanks. What’s the problem?’

‘I’ve been asked to come and see you because I’m afraid we have had complaints that you are mistreating your cat, Bob isn’t it?’ she said.

‘What?! Mistreating him? How?’

I was horrified. My head was spinning. Who had complained? And what had they said I was doing to Bob? I felt physically sick for a moment, but knew I had to keep my wits about me in case this got serious.

‘I’m sure they are unfounded allegations. I was actually watching you for a little while before I came over and I can see that you treat Bob well,’ she said, giving him a little tickle under the chin. ‘But I do need to have a chat with you and then examine him to make sure there’s nothing wrong if that’s OK.’

‘Be my guest,’ I said, knowing that I didn’t really have a choice.

She dropped her rucksack to the floor, got out a notebook and a couple of instruments and kneeled down to start examining Bob.

He didn’t always take kindly to people poking and prodding him. He had reacted to a couple of vets over the years and had snarled and scratched at one nurse who had handled him a bit roughly once. So I was a bit concerned about how he’d react to this latest stranger, especially if he picked up on my nervousness. That was all I needed, I thought to myself.

It wasn’t the first time people had accused me of mistreating him, of course. I’d heard all sorts of accusations levelled against me. The complaints generally fell into three categories. The first was that I was exploiting and ‘using’ him for my own benefit. My answer to that argument was always the same. As someone once said, a cat will be your friend, but it will never be your slave. A cat is never, ever going to do something it doesn’t want to do. And it is never going to be with someone it doesn’t want to be with, no matter what that person does to it. Bob was a very strong character, with a free will of his own. He wouldn’t have hung around if he didn’t trust and like me. And it was his choice whether he wanted to come out with me each day.

There were still days when he didn’t fancy taking to the streets. They were rare, to be honest. He genuinely enjoyed being out and about, meeting people and being fussed over. But when he hid away or refused to follow me out the door I always respected his decision. There would always be those who wouldn’t believe that, of course, but it was the truth.

The second common accusation was that I was mistreating him by having him on a lead. If I’d had a pound for every time I’d heard someone say ‘oh, you shouldn’t have him on a leash, he’s a cat not a dog’ I’d have been a very rich man. I’d explained the reasoning so many times I was bored at hearing myself say the words. On both occasions he’d run off, at Piccadilly Circus and in Islington, he’d been really relieved and clingy when I’d found him. I’d sworn never to let it happen again. But, again, I could keep saying it until I was blue in the face as far as some people were concerned. For them it was an open and shut case: I was some kind of animal abusing monster.

The third, and most upsetting allegation that had been made against me was that I was drugging Bob. I’d only heard that a couple of times, thankfully. But it cut me to the quick both times. Given what I’d been through in the past ten years and the battle I’d fought to kick my heroin habit, I found that the most hurtful insult of all. I found it really, really offensive.