Джеймс Боуэн - The World According to Bob

‘How did it look?’ I asked her, fishing for a clue.

‘Fine, but we will send a full report to your doctor. Should be there in a few days.’

I took some solace from her reassurance, but was still a bundle of nerves for the next 72 hours.

I went along to see the doctor with a real sense of foreboding.

I have a tendency to think the worst so I was braced to hear something terrible. I was slightly taken aback when the doctor looked at the notes attached to his copy of the X-ray images and said: ‘Your lungs are completely clear, Mr Bowen.’

‘Really?’ I said.

‘Yes. There’s not a single black spot, which is frankly remarkable given that you tell me you’ve been smoking since you were 13.’

‘In fact,’ he continued, ‘I would go so far as to say that you seem to have super healthy lungs,’ he added.

‘So why am I coughing my guts up all the time?’ I asked, confused.

‘I suspect you’ve got an infection of some kind. Nothing has shown up in the tests we’ve done. But I think your lungs are simply trying to expel all the rubbish that they are accumulating there. So let’s try and treat the infection,’ he said, prescribing me some heavy duty antibiotics.

‘That’s it? Antibiotics,’ I said, relieved but slightly shocked to discover it was that simple.

‘Well, let’s see if they work,’ he said. ‘If not we will have to explore things a bit more.’

I was sceptical. It couldn’t be that simple, I told myself. But it was. Within days my chest was feeling much better and the coughing was easing off.

My agent, Mary, had been worried about my health. She’d been anxious that the publicity and the signings that would soon be coming up might be too much for me. She had my best interests at heart, I knew that.

‘You seem a lot better,’ she told me when we met for a chat about the publication of the book which was now just weeks away.

But it was when I got another opinion that I really knew I was in the clear.

I was lying on the bed reading a comic book. Out of nowhere, Bob appeared and jumped up. He slid up to me in the same way he had done over the previous few weeks, placing himself on my chest and purring quietly away. After a moment or two, he put his ear to my chest, doing his feline stethoscope act. He lay there for a moment, listening intently. And then, as quickly as he’d arrived, he’d gone. He just picked himself up and hopped off the bed in the direction of his favourite radiator. I couldn’t help smiling.

‘Thanks, Doctor Bob,’ I said.

They say that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. The month had barely begun but the weather was already living up to its reputation. There were days when the wind blowing down the alleyways of Soho and the West End made such a raw, rasping noise it could almost have been a lion’s roar. Some days I struggled to feel the tips of my fingers as I played my guitar. Fortunately, Bob was a little better insulated than me.

Even now with spring around the corner, he was still sporting his rather luxurious winter coat. His midriff was also still carrying some of the extra weight he’d put on over Christmas. The cold hardly seemed to bother him at all.

Bob and I missed Angel, but if I was honest, we were enjoying life more in Covent Garden.

We’d become a double act and seemed somehow more at home amongst the jugglers and fire-eaters, human statues and other street performers that roamed the Piazza and surrounding streets. It was a competitive place, of course, so, as we settled back into daily life in central London, we polished up our act.

Sometimes I would play my guitar while sitting cross-legged on the pavement with him. He’d always loved that and would drape himself across the body of my guitar, just like he’d done during our early days together, years earlier. We shook hands and he’d stand on his hind legs to collect treats. We also had a new party piece.

It had been born back at the flat one day while he had been playing with Belle. As usual, he was tossing his shabby old scraggedy mouse around. Belle wanted to take it off him so that she could give it a decent wash.

‘God knows what germs it’s collecting, Bob,’ I heard her telling him. ‘It needs a good scrubbing.’

He was reluctant to surrender his precious plaything. He always was. So she offered him a treat. Choosing between the two was a real dilemma and he dithered for a second before going for the treat. He released the mouse from his jaws long enough to receive the little snack — and for Belle to whisk the toy from under his nose.

‘Well done, Bob,’ she said afterwards.

‘Give me five,’ she said, putting her hand in the air like an American footballer or basketball player, inviting his team-mates to celebrate a score.

I was sitting there and saw him raise his paw to give her an acknowledegment. ‘That was cool,’ I laughed. ‘Bet you can’t get him to do it again.’

‘Bet I can,’ Belle said, before proceeding to do exactly that.

Since then he’d come to associate it with receiving a treat. On Neal Street it had pulled in all sorts of admirers, including some rather famous ones.

It was around 4pm on a Saturday afternoon and a couple of little girls had stopped to admire Bob. They were about nine or ten years old and were accompanied by a small group of adults, including a couple of big, burly bouncer-like guys in dark glasses. To judge by the way they were anxiously surveying the scene while the girls stroked Bob they must have been security minders.

‘Daddy, look at this,’ one of the girls said excitedly.

‘Oh yeah. That’s a cool cat,’ a voice said.

I froze to the spot. I recognised the voice immediately.

‘It can’t be,’ I said. But it was.

I turned round and standing behind me was the unmistakeable figure of Sir Paul McCartney.

I wouldn’t have expected one of the greatest figures in popular music of all time to engage with a lowly street performer. He was, after all, in a slightly different league to me when it came to knocking out a tune. But he seemed charming.

I had my early edition of the book alongside me on the floor and saw it catch his eye. I also had a wad of flyers advertising the first book signing the publishers had organised. It was now just three days away.

The event was going to mark the beginning — and probably the end — of my career as a published author. I was feeling apprehensive about it already and had been frantically handing the flyers out to anyone who showed an interest, in the hope that I’d at least avoid the embarrassment of sitting in an empty bookshop the following week. I felt sure if I fished around in the bins of Covent Garden I’d find most of them there.

Inside my head a little voice was saying oh, go on, give him one .

‘Erm, I’ve written a book about me and Bob,’ motioning to my ginger companion sitting at my feet. ‘I’m having a signing next week if you want to come along,’ I said, handing him the flyer.

To my amazement he took it.

‘I’ll take a look,’ he said.

By now a sizable crowd had begun to form around us and his minders were getting a bit twitchy. People were flashing away with their cameras. For once it wasn’t Bob they were snapping.

‘We’d better move along kids,’ the lady with him said. By now I’d worked out who she was. It was Sir Paul’s new wife, Nancy Shevell, who he’d married the previous autumn. She seemed really cool.

‘Take care man and keep it going,’ Sir Paul said as he hooked his arm into hers and rushed off with his entourage.