by James Bowen
One or two had quizzical, slightly confused looks on their faces, which was understandable, I guess. It must have looked slightly incongruous, a tall, long-haired bloke walking along with a large, ginger tom on his shoulders. Not something you see every day - even on the streets of London.
Most people, however, were reacting more warmly. The moment they saw Bob their faces would break into broad smiles. It wasn’t long before people were stopping us.
‘Ah, look at you two,’ said one well-dressed, middle-aged lady laden down with shopping bags. ‘He’s gorgeous. Can I stroke him?’
‘Of course,’ I said, thinking it would be a one-off event.
She plonked down her bags and placed her face right up to his.
‘What a lovely fellow you are, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘He is a boy, isn’t he?’
‘He is,’ I said.
‘Isn’t he good to sit there on your shoulders like that? Don’t see that very often. He must really trust you.’
I’d barely said goodbye to the lady when we were approached by two young girls. They’d seen the lady making a fuss of Bob so I guess they thought they could do the same. They turned out to be Swedish teenagers on holiday.
‘What is his name? Can we take his picture?’ they said, snapping away with their cameras the instant I nodded.
‘His name’s Bob,’ I said.
‘Ah, Bob. Cool.’
We chatted for a minute or two. One of them had a cat herself and produced a picture of it for me. I had to politely excuse myself after a couple of minutes, otherwise they would have spent hours drooling over him.
We carried on towards the bottom of Neal Street in the direction of Long Acre. But the going was slow. No sooner had the latest admirer gone away than the same thing was happening again - and again. I’d barely go three feet without being stopped by someone who wanted to stroke or talk to Bob.
The novelty soon wore off. At this rate I wasn’t going to get anywhere, I began to realise. It normally took me not much more than ten minutes to get from my normal bus stop to my pitch at Covent Garden. But it had already taken me twice that because everyone had seemed to want to stop and talk to Bob. It was a bit ridiculous.
By the time we got to Covent Garden it was almost an hour after I normally got set up.
Thanks a lot, Bob, you’ve probably cost me a few quid in lost earnings, I heard myself saying in my head, half-jokingly.
It was a serious issue though. If he was going to slow me down this much every day, I really couldn’t let him follow me on to the bus again, I thought. It wasn’t long before I was thinking a bit differently.
By this point, I’d been busking around Covent Garden for about a year and a half. I generally started at about two or three in the afternoon and carried on until around eight in the evening. It was the best time to capture tourists and people finishing off their shopping or on the way home from work. At the weekends I would go earlier and do lunchtimes. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday I’d carry on until quite late, trying to take advantage of the extra numbers of Londoners that hung around at the end of the working week.
I’d learned to be flexible in finding an audience. My main pitch was on a patch of pavement directly outside Covent Garden tube station on James Street. I’d work that until about 6.30p.m., when the main evening rush hour was at its peak. Then for the last couple of hours I’d walk around all the pubs in Covent Garden where people were standing outside smoking and drinking. In the summer months this could be quite productive as office workers unwound after their day’s work with a pint and a fag in the evening sunshine.
It could be a bit risky at times. Some people took exception to me approaching them and could be rude and even abusive at times. ‘Piss off you scrounger’; ‘Get yourself a proper job you lazy f******.’ That kind of stuff. But that came with the territory. I was used to it. There were plenty of people who were happy to hear me play a song then slip me a quid.
Busking at James Street was a bit of a gamble as well. Technically speaking, I wasn’t supposed to be there.
The Covent Garden area is divided up very specifically into areas when it comes to street people. It’s regulated by officials from the local council, an officious bunch that we referred to as Covent Guardians.
My pitch should have been on the eastern side of Covent Garden, near the Royal Opera House and Bow Street. That’s where the musicians were supposed to operate, according to the Covent Guardians. The other side of the piazza, the western side, was where the street performers were supposed to ply their trade. The jugglers and entertainers generally pitched themselves under the balcony of the Punch and Judy pub where they usually found a rowdy audience willing to watch them.
James Street, where I had begun playing, was meant to be the domain of the human statues. There were a few of them around, one guy dressed as Charlie Chaplin used to do quite well but only worked now and again. But it was normally clear so I had taken advantage and made it my own little patch. I knew there was always the risk of getting moved along by the Covent Guardians but I took my chances and it usually paid off. The volume of people coming out of the tube station there was huge. If only one in a thousand of them made a ‘drop’ then I could do OK.
It was just after 3p.m. when I got to my pitch - finally. Just as we turned into James Street we were stopped for the umpteenth time, on this occasion by an obviously gay guy on his way home from the gym, judging by the sweaty kit he was wearing.
He made a complete fuss of Bob and even asked me - I think jokingly - whether he could buy him off me.
‘No, mate, he’s not for sale,’ I said politely, just in case he was serious. Walking away from the guy I just looked at Bob and shook my head. ‘Only in London, mate, only in London.’
Arriving at the pitch, I firstly checked to make sure the coast was clear. There was no sign of the Covent Guardians. There were also a couple of people who worked at the tube station who sometimes gave me some hassle because they knew I wasn’t supposed to be there. But they didn’t seem to be around either. So I put Bob down on the pavement near the wall, unzipped my guitar case, took off my jacket and got ready to tune up.
Ordinarily it would take me a good ten minutes to get tuned, start playing and get people to pay me some attention.
Today though a couple of people slowed down in front of me and lobbed small denomination coins into my guitar case even before I’d played a note. Generous of them, I thought.
It was as I fiddled around, tuning my guitar, that the penny eventually dropped!
My back was turned to the crowd when I again heard the distinctive clinking of one coin hitting another. Behind me I heard a male voice. ‘Nice cat, mate,’ he said.
I turned and saw an ordinary-looking guy in his mid-twenties giving me a thumbs up sign and walking off with a smile on his face.
I was taken aback. Bob had curled himself up in a comfortable ball in the middle of the empty guitar case. I knew he was a charmer. But this was something else.
I’d taught myself to play the guitar when I was a teenager living back in Australia. People would show me things and then I’d work my way through them on my own. I got my first guitar when I was fifteen or sixteen. It was quite late to start playing, I suppose. I bought an old electric guitar from a Cash Converters in Melbourne. I’d always played on my friends’ acoustic guitars, but I fancied an electric one. I loved Jimi Hendrix, I thought he was fantastic and wanted to play like him.
The set I’d put together for my busking featured some of the things that I’d enjoyed playing for years. Kurt Cobain had always been a bit of a hero of mine, so there was some Nirvana in there. But I also played some Bob Dylan and a fair bit by Johnny Cash. One of the most popular things I played was ‘Hurt’, originally by Nine Inch Nails but then covered by Johnny Cash. It was easier to play that version because it was an acoustic piece. I also played ‘The Man In Black’ by Johnny Cash. That was a good busking song - and it was kind of appropriate too. I generally wore
black. The most popular song in my set was ‘Wonderwall’ by Oasis. That always worked best, especially outside the pubs when I wandered around later in the evenings.
I played pretty much the same stuff over and over every day. It was what people liked. That’s what the tourists wanted to hear. I would usually start with a song like ‘About A Girl’ by Nirvana just to get the fingers going. That’s what I did today, as Bob sat in front of me, watching the crowds walk out of the tube station.
I’d barely been playing for more than a few minutes when a group of kids stopped. They were obviously from Brazil and were all wearing Brazilian football shirts and speaking what I recognised as Portuguese. One of them, a young girl, bent down and began stroking Bob.
‘Ah, gato bonita,’ she said.
‘She is saying you have a beautiful cat,’ one of the boys said, helpfully translating her Portuguese.
They were just kids on a trip to London, but they were fascinated. Almost immediately other people were stopping to see what the fuss was about. About half a dozen of the Brazilian kids and other passers-by began fishing around in their pockets and started raining coins into the bag.
‘Looks like you may not be such a bad companion after all, Bob. I’ll invite you out for the day more often,’ I smiled at him.
I’d not planned on bringing him along with me so I didn’t have much to give him. There was a half-empty packet of his favourite cat treats in my rucksack so I gave him one of them every now and again. Like me, he’d have to wait until later to get a decent meal.
As the late afternoon turned into the early evening and the crowds thickened with people heading home from work or out into the West End for the evening, more and more people were slowing down and looking at Bob. There was clearly something about him that fascinated people.
As darkness was beginning to descend, one middle-aged lady stopped for a chat.
‘How long have you had him?’ she asked, bending down to stroke Bob.
‘Oh, only a few weeks,’ I said. ‘We sort of found each other.’
‘Found each other? Sounds interesting.’
At first I was a bit suspicious. I wondered whether she was some kind of animal welfare person and might tell me that I had no right to keep him or something. But she turned out simply to be a real cat lover.
She smiled as I explained the story of how we’d met and how I’d spent a fortnight nursing him back to health.
‘I had a ginger tom very much like this one a few years ago,’ she said, looking a bit emotional. For a moment I thought she was going to burst into tears. ‘You are lucky to have found him. They are just the best companions, they are so quiet and docile. You’ve found yourself a real friend there,’ she said.
‘I think you are right,’ I smiled.
She placed a fiver into the guitar case before leaving.
He was definitely a lady puller, I realised. I estimated that something like 70 per cent of the people who had stopped so far had been females.
After just over an hour, I had as much as what I’d normally make in a good day, just over twenty-five pounds.
This is brilliant, I thought to myself.
But something inside me was saying that I shouldn’t call it quits, that I should carry on for tonight.
The truth was I was still torn about Bob. Despite the gut feeling I had that this cat and I were somehow destined to be together, a large part of me still figured that he’d eventually go off and make his own way. It was only logical. He’d wandered into my life and he was going to wander back out again at some point. This couldn’t carry on. So as the passers-by continued to slow down and make a fuss of him, I figured I might as well make the most of it. Make hay while the sun shines and all that.
‘If he wants to come out and have fun with me, that’s great,’ I said to myself. ‘And I’m making a bit of cash as well, then that’s great too.’
Except that it was more than just a bit of cash by now.
I had been used to making around twenty pounds a day, which was enough to get me through a few days and to cover all the expenses of running my flat. But that night, by the time I finished up at around 8p.m., it was clear that I’d made a lot more than that.
After packing up my guitar, it took me all of five minutes to count out all the coins that had piled up. There were what looked like hundreds of coins of all denominations as well as a few notes scattered amongst them.
When I finally totted it all up, I shook my head quietly. I had made the princely sum of £63.77. To most of the people walking around Covent Garden that might not have seemed like a lot of money. But it was to me.
I transferred all the coins into my rucksack and hauled it on to my shoulders. It was rattling like a giant piggy bank. It also weighed a ton! But I was ecstatic. That was the most I’d ever made in a day’s work on the streets, three times what I’d make on a normal day.
I picked up Bob, giving him a stroke on the back of the neck.
‘Well done, mate,’ I said. ‘That was what I call a good evening’s work.’
I decided that I didn’t need to wander around the pubs. Besides, I knew Bob was hungry – as was I. We needed to head home.
I walked back towards Tottenham Court Road and the bus stop with Bob once more positioned on my shoulder. I wasn’t rude to anyone, but I decided not to engage with absolutely everyone who stopped and smiled at us. I couldn’t. There were too many of them. I wanted to get home this side of midnight.
‘We’ll have something nice to eat tonight, Bob,’ I said as we settled on to the bus for the trip back up to Tottenham. Again, he pinned his nose up against the window watching the bright lights and the traffic.
I got off the bus near a really nice Indian restaurant on Tottenham High Road. I’d walked past it many times, savouring the lengthy menu, but never had enough spare money to be able to afford anything. I’d always had to make do with something from a cheaper place nearer to the block of flats.
I went in and ordered a chicken tikka masala with lemon rice, a peshwari naan and a sag paneer. The waiters threw me a few, funny looks when they saw Bob on a lead beside me. So I said I’d pop back in twenty minutes and headed off with Bob to a supermarket across the road.
With the money we’d made I treated Bob to a nice pouch of posh cat food, a couple of packs of his favourite nibbles and some ‘cat milk’. I also treated myself to a couple of nice tins of lager.
‘Let’s push the boat out, Bob,’ I said to him. ‘It’s been a day to remember.’
After picking up our dinner, I almost ran home, I was so overwhelmed by the tempting smells coming out from the brown paper carrier bag from the upmarket curry house. When we got inside Bob and I both wolfed down our food as if there was no tomorrow. I hadn’t eaten so well in months - well, maybe years. I’m pretty sure he hadn’t either.
We then curled up for a couple of hours, me watching television and him snuggled up in his favourite spot under the radiator. We both slept like logs that night.
Chapter 6
One Man and His Cat
The next morning I was woken by a sudden, loud, crashing sound. It took me a moment to get my bearings, but when I did so I immediately guessed what it was. The metallic, clanging noise had come from the kitchen. That probably meant that once again Bob was trying to open the cupboards where I kept his food and had knocked something over.
I squinted at the clock. It was mid-morning. After the excitement of the previous night I had given myself a lie in, but Bob had obviously decided he couldn’t wait any longer. This was his way of saying: ‘Get up, I want my breakfast.’
I hauled myself out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen. The small, tin saucepan I used to boil milk was lying on the floor.
As soon as he saw me Bob slid his way purposefully towards his bowl.
‘OK, mate, I get the picture,’ I said, unlocking the cupboards and reaching for a sachet of his favourite chicken dish. I spooned a couple of portions into the bowl and watched him devour
it in seconds. He then gulped down the water in his bowl, licked his face and paws clean and trotted off into the living room, where, looking very satisfied with himself, he took his favourite position under the radiator.
If only all our lives were that simple, I thought to myself.
I’d considered not going to work, but then thought better of it. We may have had a lucky break last night, but that money wouldn’t keep us going for long. The electricity and gas bills were due soon. Given the cold weather we’d had in recent months, they weren’t going to make for pleasant reading. It had also begun to dawn on me that I had a new responsibility in my life. I had an extra mouth to feed - a rather hungry and manipulative one.
So after wolfing down some breakfast of my own, I started getting my stuff together.
I wasn’t sure whether Bob would want to come out busking with me again today. Yesterday might have been a one-off; he might simply have been satisfying his curiosity about where I went when I left home most days. But I put some snacks in the bag for him just in case he did decide to follow me again.
It was early afternoon as I headed off. It was obvious what I was doing; I had my rucksack and guitar lashed across my back. If he didn’t want to go out of the flat with me, which was rare, he generally let me know by slinking off behind the sofa. For a moment I thought that was what he was going to do today. When I took the chain off the front door, he headed in that direction. But then as I was about to shut the door behind me he bolted towards me and followed me out into the corridor and towards the staircase.
When we got to the ground floor and out into the open air he scurried off into the bushes to do his business. Afterwards, rather than heading to me, he trotted off towards the area where the bins were kept.
The bins were becoming more and more of a fascination for him. Goodness knows what he was finding - and eating - in there. I thought that this might be the only reason he’d wanted to come down with me. I wasn’t too happy about him rooting around in the rubbish so went to check what was there. You never knew when the local bin men would come. Fortunately, there must have been a collection earlier that morning because there was no stray rubbish around. There were slim pickings, Bob wasn’t going to have much joy. Reassured, I decided to head off without him. I knew he’d get back inside the building somehow, especially now that a lot of the neighbours knew him. One or two had started making a real fuss of him whenever they saw him. One lady who lived on the floor below me always gave him a treat.