by James Bowen
We set ourselves up near the shop selling the parkas. A few passers-by stopped to say hello to Bob and take a picture. He had always been photogenic. I’d soon accumulated a few coins but it was clear this was going to be a poor day.
For a moment my mind drifted back to the time, during my very early days with Bob, when a guy had casually dropped £200 into my hands. It had come completely out of the blue. The guy hadn’t even looked wealthy. He was in a leather jacket and jeans. He’d just rolled out a few notes and dropped them into the top pocket of my jacket with a cursory ‘There you go, man.’ I’d assumed it was a couple of fivers, but it turned out to be four £50 notes. I’d been completely shocked and had looked for the guy, but he’d disappeared into the crowds. My guess is that he was some kind of musician or maybe an actor. Perhaps I should have recognised him, but I hadn’t.
‘Oh, for a £200 drop today, eh, Bob?’ I said.
A boy could dream.
The wind had a habit of whipping its way down Neal Street and by late afternoon it was clear Bob had had enough of sitting in the cold.
‘Come on, mate, let’s call it quits for the day,’ I said.
We were in the process of packing up when I heard a voice.
‘James, wait. Wait.’
Running towards us was a middle-aged lady, Jane, who had been supporting us for years. She was a little breathless.
‘Oh, I’ve been looking for you two everywhere. I’m so glad I’ve found you.’
She handed me a smart-looking bag. It took me a while to work out what it was. Inside was a bright red hat with a bell on top and a small red jacket with white trimming.
‘Oh wow, it’s a Santa Paws outfit for Bob,’ I said.
‘I saw it in a shop the other day and couldn’t resist.’
Belle had made Bob an outfit similar to this a few years ago. She’d rustled it up herself on a sewing machine, but it was long lost. This new one was really good quality; Jane must have spent a lot of money on it.
I felt awful. Part of me was grateful that someone had taken the trouble to get such a thoughtful present. But another part of me was wondering how precisely this was going to help me heat my flat and feed Bob and I through the Christmas holidays.
She stayed and chatted to us for a while then gave me a Christmas card.
‘If you need anything let me know,’ she said. ‘My phone number’s inside the card.’
I was too embarrassed to tell her that I hadn’t topped up my battered old mobile phone in a fortnight and was highly unlikely to do so again for a while.
As Jane headed off back towards Covent Garden I opened the card. To my delight I found £10 inside the Christmas card. I immediately, felt guilty for thinking such ungrateful thoughts earlier. I felt like heading back to Covent Garden and looking for Jane to say thank you, but I knew she’d be long gone.
We headed back to Tottenham Court Road via Seven Dials. There was no mistaking the fact that Christmas was almost upon us. I watched a line of families filing into the theatre on the corner, some with little babies in their arms. It took me back to my only experience of a pantomime at Christmas.
A school choir was singing on another corner, a small crowd of parents and friends encouraging them as they performed in the bitterly cold evening. I recognised the melody of the carol they were singing immediately; it was ‘Good King Wenceslas’.
I couldn’t help shaking my head at the irony. The words told the story of a kindly old king helping a ‘poor man’ he took pity on as he was ‘gath’ring winter’s fuel’.
‘Hmm, that sounds familiar, Bob,’ I said, ruffling Bob’s head and moving on towards Tottenham Court Road.
In some ways the words of the carol should have been reassuring. I wasn’t the first, nor would I be the last person to find themselves struggling at Christmas. But I found it hard to find solace.
On the bus I totted up what I had earned today. Including Jane’s generous last-minute gift I had just over £25. It was enough to get my electricity back on and allow me to buy some milk, bread and a few other bits and pieces in the local corner shop, but no more. The gas – and my first warm shower in a week – would have to wait until another day. I’d survived on cold ones until now. Another one wouldn’t kill me.
I limped home feeling deflated, frustrated and a little alarmed at what the next week or so had in store for us. That long-term target of £150 seemed a distant prospect. I feared that I was going to spend my Christmas on tenterhooks, dashing back and forth to the corner shop to heat up the flat whenever I managed to earn a few quid.
The temperature seemed to be dropping on a daily basis. As the wind cut through us, I felt Bob wrapping himself tighter and tighter around my neck so that his head was almost buried in the collar of my coat.
‘Sorry, Bob, but I think you are going to have to get used to this. It’s going to be a long, cold Christmas,’ I said as we arrived back in the still chilly flat.
We spent the evening on the sofa together, keeping each other warm under not just one but two blankets.
Chapter 4
Miracle on Upper Street
Bob’s intelligence never ceases to amaze me, not least when it comes to devising ways to wake me up in the morning.
I can be a heavy sleeper; there are times when a bomb could go off around me and I wouldn’t stir. So Bob has become the master of finding ingenious ways to rouse me from my slumbers.
One of his techniques involves putting his front paws on the mattress so that he is looking directly into my eyes and making loud waaauuwahhh noises as he looks up at me. I can’t prove this for certain, but I’m pretty sure that on a couple of occasions he used another method in which he threw his favourite toy, a scraggedy mouse, on to my pillow. I’d woken up to find it an inch or so from my nose. There was no other explanation for it being there.
Today, however, he had resorted to yet another method and had slid alongside me, placing his head next to mine where he had begun purring loudly in my ear. I must have been in a pretty deep sleep, because when I began to come out of it I found it hard to work out what the sound was. It was so intense that for one bizarre moment I thought there was a workman with a pneumatic drill in the hallway outside. It made me sit bolt upright in my bed.
I could never be cross with him for doing this. How could I? The fact that his handsome face was the first thing I saw each morning was a blessing. Even if, like today, it was wearing an expression that said, Come on, lazy bones. I should have had my breakfast half an hour ago.
After topping up the electric the previous night, I had awarded myself a much-appreciated lie in. It was such a relief not to wake up instinctively around 9 a.m. and lie there waiting in silence for the meter to decide my fate.
It was well past 10 a.m. when I finally got up. As I slid out of bed the cold was a shock to the system. It must have been well below zero. As I walked into the living room, I half expected to see icicles forming on the ceiling. I stood shivering in the kitchen while I made Bob his breakfast and boiled the kettle for a reviving cup of tea. I was still determined to go out again today. Yesterday had been tough, but I simply didn’t have the option of letting it get me down.
I flicked the television on and immediately wished I hadn’t. A news bulletin was giving out a weather forecast. It wasn’t good news. The map was covered in snowflake symbols; there was more snow on the way.
‘Brilliant,’ I sighed to myself. ‘Just what I needed.’
Unfortunately I knew there was no alternative. I had to get out there again, even if only for a few hours.
As usual, I gave Bob the option of staying at home. He’d exercised his right to stay in the flat a couple of times in the past weeks, which was fine. There was no question that I did better when he was around. Without him I became another invisible street-person. But I’d always understood that I wasn’t his master. No human ‘owned’ a cat. He was free to do as he pleased so when he remained lying by the radiator or more recently on the sofa, I respecte
d his wishes and left him alone. Today, however, he headed for the door as soon as he saw me gathering my guitar and rucksack together.
‘OK, mate, going to be a cold one again today, apparently,’ I said.
I grabbed the Santa Paws outfit and helped him into it. It looked really cute, I had to admit, and it had the advantage of providing him with an extra layer, which made it doubly effective. I also packed one of his thickest scarves for good measure.
The sky was the colour of charcoal and there was a sub-zero wind blowing straight at us as we walked down the still icy street towards the bus stop.
The bus was pretty empty so we managed to get our favourite spot, at the front of the upper deck. Bob loves sitting there, watching the world go by. I was more concerned with the weather and kept looking up at the scarily dark skies. I was no meteorologist, but it was pretty obvious that the weather was worsening and that something nasty was on its way. I’d been hoping that the snow would arrive later in the day, preferably that night, but I had a feeling it was a lot closer than that. My instincts were soon proven right.
We were halfway through our journey and approaching the Essex Road railway station when the first flakes of snow appeared. The transformation was amazing to behold. Suddenly the world looked like the inside of one of those Christmas ornaments filled with desiccated coconut that you shake to create a snowstorm. One moment I could see clearly out of the upper-deck window. The next the glass was a sheet of off-white snow and I couldn’t see a thing.
It didn’t take long for the traffic to grind to a halt and within minutes the bus had stopped. Through the side window I could see that cars were sliding all over the road and it soon became apparent there had been an accident ahead. The bus driver made an apologetic announcement that we would have to wait for the accident to be sorted out.
I took an executive decision.
‘Come on, Bob, we’ll walk the last bit.’
In anticipation of the snow, I had packed a plastic bag with a hole for his head. I’d done something similar before, when the first snows had arrived a month or so ago, where I’d improvised a plastic bag I’d bought in a newsagent. It had worked pretty well so I’d got into the habit of carrying a supermarket plastic bag with me at all times, just in case. I slipped him into this latest makeshift poncho and got off the bus.
It would normally have been a twenty-minute walk or so to Angel, but the snow was so heavy it was going to take double that I reckoned. We’d need to stop a couple of times just to get some warmth. There were a couple of places I knew where, unlike most other, they were happy for me to come in with Bob.
That was the plan in any case. It didn’t take long for it to unravel.
The snow was still falling heavily and was settling on top of the hard, impacted stuff that had been there for the past week or so. This was making it really difficult to walk on again, especially as Bob was restless to get down all the time. He loved walking in the snow and was eager to have a run around.
‘No, Bob, stay there, mate,’ I said a couple of times, placing a hand on his back to hold him in position.
He wasn’t very happy about it, but he got the message.
I’d just done this again when I was distracted by some kids having a snowball fight. They were innocent enough but I just didn’t want them to throw one at me with Bob on my shoulder. It proved my undoing.
I was so focussed on where the kids were aiming their snowballs that I didn’t look where I was about to step. There was a section of black ice ahead of me. The moment my boot hit it my legs went from underneath me.
‘Whooooah.’
‘Eeeeeew.’
We both shouted.
Fortunately, Bob, being a cat, was able to self-right himself and landed safely on his feet. I wasn’t so lucky. I landed badly on my backside and it really hurt.
I lay on the snow in agony for what felt like a couple of minutes, groaning. Bob was instantly at my side. At first he looked at me as if weighing up the situation.
‘What have you done now?’ his expression seemed to be saying.
But he soon worked out that I was in genuine pain. He began sniffing around me and putting his paw on my leg, as if knowing it was in pain, which it was.
As I took stock of what had happened I realised that I had actually been lucky. Fortunately I had my guitar and rucksack on my back and they had protected my head as it snapped back. If they hadn’t been there I might have been in real trouble. I could have knocked myself out – or even worse.
That was the good news. The bad news was that the guitar hit the ground really hard.
I had a sinking feeling immediately.
I got myself up and headed into the doorway of an office building where I dropped to my knees and opened the guitar case. It confirmed my worst fears. The guitar went back to the days when I was in the band Hyper Fury in around 2002. I had bought it from a Spanish guy I knew called Picha for £50. It was a black, steel-string acoustic Kimbara with red edging. It was already fairly battered and bruised. During my time busking it had taken knocks and dents on the buses and on the Tube as people bashed into it. I’d even had to tape it up a few times. The damage this time, however, looked more serious than anything that had happened before. Because of the way I had fallen, the bottom of the guitar had taken the full force of the impact and the front panel had loosened.
It was now totally unplayable.
I felt sick. I was in a desperate situation and my guitar was one of the two things that could get me out of it. Now it was broken! What the hell was I going to do? What was life going to throw at me next?
Bob had always been incredibly well tuned to my moods and immediately picked up on the fact I was distressed. As I sat in the doorway, he hopped on to my lap and stuck his head into the space under my chin, rubbing my neck and purring gently. It was as if he was saying, ‘Don’t worry, mate, we will be OK. He had an amazing knack for making me feel better. I sat there for a few minutes, trying to gather my thoughts – and my strength.
‘OK, you’re right, mate. I’m still standing. Let’s get going,’ I said after a while.
I had no option. I had to press on.
Thankfully the snow eased a little bit for the next few minutes and I was able to hobble along to Angel. My mood didn’t improve much when we arrived at our pitch. After taking Bob’s poncho off, I set myself up. I looked through my pockets. I pulled out my Oyster travel card and saw that it had also been damaged in the fall. It was bent in half and almost broken. There was no way it would be accepted at Tube stations or on buses in that state. It was another setback.
One of the first people I saw was a guy who often stopped for a chat, Paul. He bought a Big Issue then gave me a fiver. He was with another guy, a big, thickset brute of a man with a shaved head and a tattoo on his neck.
He immediately started having a go at Paul.
‘What did you do that for?’ he said.
‘What?’ Paul said.
‘Why did you give him a bloody fiver? Look at him, he’s only gonna go and blow it all on smack or crack or some other crap.’
‘No he’s not,’ he said. ‘He’s just trying to get his life back together. Give the guy a break.’
For a moment I thought they were going to come to blows. Reluctantly, I readied myself to intervene. Fortunately, a community police officer was hovering again and made his presence felt. They soon moved along.
The two continued their argument down the road, both of them shouting and waving their arms as they went. It made me sad, but it didn’t surprise me. It summed up the attitude I’d faced ever since I’d started working on the streets. Some people were willing to give me the benefit of the doubt and try to help. Others weren’t. It was as simple as that.
By now it was mid-afternoon. The long bus journey and my accident had wasted a lot of time. I knew we couldn’t stay for long. It was simply too cold. Fortunately Bob’s new Santa Paws outfit had immediately drawn attention.
‘Oh look, t
hat’s so cuuuuute,’ one American tourist said, setting the trend for the next couple of hours. I must have heard that phrase fifty times by the end of the afternoon. People simply couldn’t resist stopping and taking a photograph. To my delight, most of them bought magazines. It cheered me up a little.
By late afternoon, as the number of people passing through the station began to build, business was really flourishing. I’d already had to run over to the Big Issue co-ordinator’s stand and top up my supply of magazines. I’d had a good feeling about the way things were going and reinvested most of my money. It was a gamble, but I felt it was one worth taking.
Bob had always had an uncanny knack of knowing when I really needed him to turn on the charm and he seemed to sense it today. We had a few tricks that we did which seemed to please the crowds. I would use treats to get him to stand on his hind legs. He would sometimes grab my arms so that I lifted him off the ground in this position. This afternoon he seemed to be initiating all the play. It was as if he had sensed our opportunity and was saying, Come on, mate, let’s make hay while the sun shines. Not that the sun was shining, of course. The weather was still grim although, thankfully, the snow had abated now.
I knew we were doing well but I also remembered the golden rules of being on the street. I was sure to put all the money I’d made inside a purse which I’d put deep inside my coat. I couldn’t be too careful. I’d been the victim of pickpockets and threatening thugs here before. I simply couldn’t afford to have that happen again today. It would have been too much to bear.
The day had already been an eventful one. It had begun disastrously but had begun to improve a little. It was about to get a lot, lot better, however.
It was around 4.30 p.m., just after dark at this time of year, that something interesting began to happen. We hadn’t spent much time here outside the Tube station for almost a fortnight now. When we had made an appearance, we’d either been driven away by the weather or the seemingly ever-present chuggers who made life so difficult for us. Today, however, there was no sign of any of them. It felt great to have the place to ourselves again, especially as people seemed so genuinely pleased to see us.