A Gift From Bob

by James Bowen

  I began with the most obvious song, ‘Jingle Bells’. It was really easy to play and had a jaunty rhythm to it when played on the guitar. Also, everybody knew it. I also played ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus’ and a speeded-up, almost punky version of ‘White Christmas’, which people seemed to like.

  Standing there singing for hours on end can get very boring so I also began to improvise.

  Bob was there in his cute Santa Paws outfit so when I was singing ‘Jingle Bells’, for instance, I made up lines like ‘The bell on Bob’s hat rings’ and ‘Over the fields Bob goes’ and ‘Bobbing all the way, on a one-horse open sleigh.’

  I didn’t know if people even got it. How were they to know his name was Bob? But I didn’t worry about it too much. I wanted to have fun and entertain people in the process. It was Christmas and I was really getting in the spirit by now.

  Not everyone shared that spirit, of course. There were a few drunks around, inevitably.

  Every now and again a gang of blokes or an office party would tumble out of the big pubs on James Street in high spirits.

  Some appreciated my music. After I’d been there for an hour or so, a group of men and women in office clothes came out after what must have been a very long lunch and started jigging away to ‘Jingle Bells’. When it got to the chorus, they all linked arms as if doing the hokey cokey and started singing along.

  Not one of them dropped a penny into my guitar case, but that was to be expected really. They were having a party. Why spoil it with depressing thoughts about other people?

  Unfortunately, there were one or two people who felt the need to have a go at me. It was the usual stuff, the same sorts of insults I’d been hearing for years: ‘Get a proper job you lazy so-and-so’; ‘Your cat could sing better than you’; ‘Get a haircut, you bloody hippy’. It wasn’t very creative. After all these years I wish I could say it washed over me like water off a duck’s back, but I couldn’t. It always hurt. People had absolutely no idea what my life was like or how I had come to be here. Even worse they weren’t interested in knowing.

  Fortunately there were enough decent souls around to compensate. After a couple of hours I’d accumulated about £20. I’d already had to run the gauntlet of a few of the local ‘Covent Guardians’ who policed the Piazza and the surrounding area to make sure the people performing there had the correct licences. One had moved me on but I’d gone around the corner and waited for a little while before returning. I knew my luck wouldn’t hold for much longer, however, so I decided to cut my losses and head off.

  On the way back down Neal Street I remembered that I had a couple of Christmas cards still in my rucksack.

  I hadn’t forgotten the pledge I’d made a couple of days ago. We walked past a lovely old Italian cafe and sandwich shop near where I used to busk before I started concentrating on selling The Big Issue. It was run by a nice family, one of whom, a middle-aged lady, used to slip me the odd free cheese roll. I stuck my head in to see if she was still there. To my delight she was.

  She didn’t know what to say when I produced a card and handed it over.

  ‘Sorry about this, it’s about two years too late, but Merry Christmas,’ I said. ‘And thanks for being so kind to me.’

  Her face broke into a broad smile when she opened the card.

  ‘Yes, I remember you,’ she said. ‘Haven’t seen you two for a while. How are you doing?’

  ‘All right,’ I said, gesturing at Bob. ‘Thanks to this little fellow.’

  I decided to head back to Angel. I wanted to buy Belle a Christmas present and was keen to check out the shops there. I preferred them to those in Covent Garden. They were quieter – and a lot cheaper too.

  The light was already fading fast, dragging the temperature down with it. It felt like there was yet more snow in the air. On the Tube journey back Bob had begun making the telltale gestures that told me he wanted to go to the toilet again. So when we got to Angel I walked over to the small park at Islington Green.

  The place was deserted, which was hardly surprising given that even the park benches were still layered with snow. As I stood there smoking a quick cigarette, the sound of the wind whistling eerily through the barren branches of the trees was so strong it even drowned out the drone of the ever-present traffic. I could have been standing in the middle of the countryside, not the heart of London.

  Bob usually relished the chance to root around in the bushes here, sniffing for mice or birds but, just as in Soho, he wasn’t interested in hanging around today. Within a couple of minutes of disappearing into the overgrowth, he had reappeared ready to jump back on my shoulder.

  I crossed the road and took a turn down Camden Passage, the narrow lane that leads back to the Tube station. It would be a little more sheltered there, I figured. The alleyway was surprisingly busy, presumably with last-minute shoppers and partygoers visiting its trendy cafes, restaurants, art and antique shops. I wouldn’t ordinarily bother looking in any of them, but about halfway along the passage there was a little side alley where there were a few flea-market-like stores. It was a long shot, but I wanted to see if there was anything I could get for Belle.

  The prices on most of the objects were ridiculous. I could never have afforded any of them. But then I saw a shop with large trays displaying jewellery. To my surprise, the prices weren’t too scary. A lot of the items were £10 or under.

  ‘Shall we take a look, Bob?’ I said.

  The shopkeeper was very friendly and didn’t object to Bob being in his store, in fact he seemed pleased to see him.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir. What a handsome fellow you have there.’

  I couldn’t remember the last time someone had called me sir. Or the last time a shopkeeper had been quite so welcoming. I usually felt their eyes burning into me. I could almost see the thoughts forming in their mind. ‘Who is this scruffy character? What’s he up to, he must be planning to steal something?’

  Encouraged by this I spent a few minutes rummaging through the tray of rings, necklaces and earrings.

  One item jumped out at me. They were metallic, sculpture-like earrings. I reckoned I knew Belle’s taste pretty well so I was sure she’d like them.

  There wasn’t a price tag on them, which worried me. My feeling was always that if I had to ask for a price it meant that I couldn’t afford it. But I decided to risk it.

  ‘How much for these?’ I said, pointing.

  I was pleasantly surprised by the answer.

  ‘Oh, they’re eighteen pounds.’

  It was still a lot of money, for me at least, and it must have shown.

  ‘But go on, I’ll let you have them for less. What shall we say? Fifteen?’

  ‘Done,’ I said with a smile that must have told him he’d made my day.

  The shopkeeper even put them in a nice little box and a smart, stiff white paper gift bag.

  ‘Merry Christmas to you both,’ he said as we left.

  ‘And the same to you.’

  I felt quite pleased with myself. Belle was such a good friend to me yet I hadn’t ever bought her a proper present. In fact, I hadn’t really bought anyone a meaningful present before, so strange had my Christmases been. It was a sign of how my attitude was slowly changing. My inner Scrooge was definitely on the wane, I laughed to myself as I left the shop clutching my purchase.

  ‘Better earn some money to pay for this,’ I said to Bob, half joking.

  My supply of Big Issue magazines was almost all gone so, with Bob on my shoulder, I crossed Islington High Street and headed for the spot on the pavement where the co-ordinators were usually based.

  There was no sign of the trolley where they stored the magazines. Instead around ten vendors in red bibs were standing there, stamping their feet, drawing on cigarettes and sipping from cans of beer and cola.

  ‘So what’s the story?’ I asked one of them, gesturing at the spot where the trolley normally stood.

  ‘Christmas Eve tomorrow, so they’ve finished today. Lucky
sods,’ he said.

  ‘So where do we get papers from if we need them?’ I said.

  ‘Covent Garden,’ another of the vendors said.

  ‘That’s annoying, I’ve just come from there,’ I said.

  ‘Or go all the way to Head Office in bloody Vauxhall,’ added a third vendor.

  This wasn’t great news, particularly for those who only worked in this part of London. I tended to visit Covent Garden in any case and I knew the co-ordinator there so was not overly worried. That might not be so easy for the others. I felt sorry for them.

  One of them looked pretty crestfallen. I could tell that he was relying on it to get through the next few days. I knew what a tightrope act it was. I hoped he wouldn’t fall.

  Another vendor, Vince, a guy I knew in passing, appeared. I had seen him working occasionally at the far end of Upper Street, not far from Highbury Corner. He had always struck me as a larger-than-life character.

  ‘What’s this, the office Christmas party?’

  One or two of the vendors laughed, others just looked at him blankly. They clearly didn’t get the joke.

  ‘Well if no one’s got any papers to sell, why don’t we go for a drink? ’Tis the season to be jolly and all that,’ Vince said.

  A few of the guys shook their heads. I suspected one or two of them might have been recovering alcoholics and didn’t want to get involved for obvious reasons. Others probably didn’t have too much money. I knew the feeling. I could understand why they weren’t exactly in the mood to be ‘jolly’.

  I thought it was a good idea, however. We were no different to all the other groups of co-workers getting together in London as we spoke. Covent Garden had been full of them, as I’d seen. Whether they were bankers in the City or street cleaners in Camden, they were marking the end of the working year and the beginning of the Christmas holiday together. Why shouldn’t we?

  I could only see one problem.

  ‘They won’t let a bunch of scruffy Big Issue sellers into a pub. Especially as I’ve got this fellow with me,’ I said.

  ‘No, you’re right. But I’ve got an idea,’ Vince said with a wink.

  A few vendors melted away, but the rest of us crossed Upper Street and followed Vince to a small, private park off Camden Passage. Its gates were always open; I’d popped in there with Bob a couple of times. There was a pub nearby.

  We organised a whip round, with everyone putting a fiver in.

  ‘So who’s the most likely to get served?’ Vince said.

  We nominated a guy called Gavin. I had no idea about his background, but he had a posh voice and a decent haircut. He took off his tabard and headed into the pub with another vendor in tow.

  They soon appeared with a tray full of pints of beer.

  ‘Here you go, guys,’ Gavin announced.

  ‘Cheers,’ Vince said. ‘Happy Christmas to us all.’

  It was cold and there was a lot of foot-stamping to keep warm. I let Bob wander off to explore the overgrowth. The snow had been cleared away so there was more to explore than across the road in the park on Islington Green.

  Conversation was slow to begin with, mainly about our day-to-day experiences selling the magazine.

  A couple of guys were complaining about the quality of the content, something I’d noticed myself.

  ‘There’s a lot of rubbish in there at the moment. It’s no wonder people aren’t buying it so much,’ one said. There were lots of nods to that.

  There were a few awkward silences as we all stood around sipping at our, by now, ice-cold beers. They were, I knew, a little bit wary of me because Bob and I had begun to get a little bit of attention. There were a couple of videos about us on the internet and they’d all seen an article about us in the local newspaper, the Islington Tribune. I’d had a few dirty looks and heard some jealous mutterings from other vendors afterwards. A couple of vendors had also seen me when I’d had my first meeting with the writer who was going to help me with the book. We’d sat outside shivering as I explained the story of how Bob and I had met. The sight of me sitting with a guy with a notebook had drawn a few glances. I knew that it was all pie in the sky really. The odds on me becoming an author were on a par with those on Bob becoming Mayor of London. In other words, zero. But they weren’t to know that. As far as they were concerned, I was some kind of ‘celebrity’.

  Inevitably, it came up at one point.

  ‘It’s all right for you two,’ one guy said when we were talking about how hard it had been to sell magazines during the past week or two of Arctic weather. ‘You are famous now.’

  I recognised him. He was an elderly guy, whom I’d seen selling the magazine on Camden Passage a couple of times.

  ‘Doesn’t pay the gas bill though,’ I smiled. ‘Trust me, I’m in the same boat as the rest of you.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ he said. We chatted for a while. He didn’t go into the details of his life story; few Big Issue vendors ever do. Our stories were often variations on the same themes: addiction, broken homes, bad childhoods, the usual sad stuff. He told me that he was living in a shelter at the moment. The only problem was that it had a limit on the number of nights he could stay there and he was fast approaching that number.

  ‘So where are you going to spend Christmas then?’ I asked him.

  He just shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

  I knew how that felt. I’d been in that position myself years earlier when I’d been a ‘rough sleeper’ moving from one night shelter to another or sleeping on pavements around central London. It made me realise how fortunate I was to have my little flat. It wasn’t much but it was certainly more than this guy had. For a moment I thought about offering him a space on my floor, but I soon realised that was a non-starter. Belle was coming over for part of the Christmas holiday. There was no room at the inn. Our conversation was interrupted by another voice.

  ‘Anyone got a spare cigarette?’ asked the youngest of the vendors, a blond guy I’d seen around a few times. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five or twenty-six.

  I’d been a bit wary of him when I’d seen him. He looked like he was too young and not streetwise enough to sell the magazine. But he seemed pleasant enough today. As it happened I had a couple of cigarettes left in my packet.

  ‘Here you go,’ I said.

  ‘Cheers, James,’ he said.

  I was surprised. I didn’t even think he knew my name. We got chatting and he asked me about Bob and how we’d got together. I’d told the story a million times already, but was happy to do so again.

  ‘I had a ginger cat when I was a kid. Called him Fozzie, after Fozzie Bear in the Muppets,’ he said.

  Bob was normally wary of other vendors but he let the guy stroke him.

  ‘He’s cool.’

  ‘Anyone for another?’ Vince said after a while.

  ‘One more, then I’ve got to head home,’ I said.

  Gavin went back into the pub and repeated the same trick again.

  As everyone loosened up a bit we started to enjoy ourselves. Vince turned out to be something of a comedian and did great impressions of some of the Big Issue’s outreach workers. There was a lot of laughter. I felt pleased. I’d had more than my fair share of trouble with other vendors; I’d been given suspensions for ‘floating’, or selling the magazine away from official pitches, after being reported by a couple of them and I’d also had people try to muscle their way on to my pitches both at Covent Garden and here at Angel in the past. Pitches at Tube stations had traditionally been regarded as a waste of time because people are always in such a hurry there but, with Bob’s help, I’d made them both a success. A couple of vendors had fancied their chances of cashing in on that success, mistakenly, as it turned out.

  So I had given most of them a wide berth during the past year. I felt uneasy in their company; I guess I didn’t trust them. A couple of hours in their company today had made me re-evaluate them. They were no different to me, really.
They were no better or worse as human beings. Deep down they were just as proud, paranoid and vulnerable as me, I felt sure. They just wanted to survive. They just wanted to get through Christmas with a roof over their head and some food in their stomachs. It was an object lesson really. You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

  I was the first to leave. Vince tried to persuade me to stay but I wanted to get home with Bob before the weather turned again, as it was predicted to do. It was also really cold and I could tell Bob was ready to head home to the warmth of the flat. We hopped on the bus. I put my guitar up on the rack and my rucksack beside me. I then put the bag with Belle’s present under my feet, so that it would be safe.

  It had been another long and eventful day. I felt exhausted and, with the additional help of the two pints and the warmth of the bus’s heater which was blowing on my legs, I’d had no problem in nodding off to sleep. I only woke up as we were approaching our bus stop back in Tottenham. It may well have been Bob who gave me a nudge. He had an in-built mechanism for knowing when we were almost home and had done so on more than one occasion before when I’d dropped off at the end of a hard day.

  Realising where I was, I reacted on autopilot. I hit the red ‘stop’ button, quickly grabbed my guitar and rucksack, scooped Bob up on to my shoulders and ran off the bus. It was dark and the icy pavements were still tricky to negotiate. It was only when I was approaching home that it hit me.

  ‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘Belle’s present.’

  I was furious with myself. I also felt like a complete idiot. How could I have been so stupid? Why hadn’t I spotted that I didn’t have the bag on me? After all the good things that had happened in the last forty-eight hours, it took the wind out of my sails a little. It wasn’t the first time I’d lost a bag on the bus or Tube. I had a habit of misplacing things. But that didn’t make it any easier. This was different, this was something special. Back home that night, I slept fitfully.