The World According to Bob

He was right, of course. This money would ease the stress on me for a few months, but not much longer. I had debts to clear and my flat was badly in need of some refurbishing. I knew I had to be realistic which meant that I had to keep my job with The Big Issue going. We talked about this for a little while, but he then went off into a lecture on the relative merits of various investments and savings schemes. At that point, I did what I had so often done when my parents spoke to me. I tuned out completely.

Chapter 12. The Joy of Bob

Being with Bob has been such an education. I’d not had many mentors in my life and had spurned the few well-meaning people who had tried to guide and advise me. I always knew better than them, or so I imagined.

It is a bizarre thing to admit, but with Bob it has been different. He has taught me as much, if not more, than any human I’ve come across. Since being in his company I’ve learned important lessons about everything from responsibility and friendship to selflessness. He has even given me an insight into a subject I thought I’d never really understand — parenthood.

I doubted whether I would ever have children. I wasn’t sure whether I’d be up to the job and, truth be told, the opportunity hadn’t really presented itself. I’d had a couple of girlfriends over the years, including Belle, to whom I was still really close and thought the world of. But starting a family hadn’t ever been on the horizon. As Belle once succinctly put it, I was too busy behaving like a child myself most of the time.

Caring for Bob has, however, given me a glimpse into what it must be like to be a father. In particular, it has made me realise that parenthood is all about anxiety. Whether it is fretting over his health, watching out for him when we are out on the streets, or simply making sure he is warm and well fed, life with Bob often feels like one worry after another.

It actually chimes with something that my father had said to me after I’d been missing in London for a year or so. It had been at the height of my addiction and both he and my mother had been beside themselves with concern about me.

‘You have no idea how much a parent worries about his or her child,’ he had shouted at me, furious at what he called my selfishness in not being in touch with them.

It hadn’t meant much at all to me then. Since being with Bob I have begun to appreciate what hell I must have put my parents through. I wish I could turn back the clock and save them all that grief.

That is the bad news. The good news is that, in amongst the anxiety and worry, ‘parenthood’ brings with it a lot of laughter too. That is another thing Bob has taught me. For far too long I’d found it hard to find much joy in life. He has taught me how to be happy again. Even the slightest, silliest moments we share together can bring an instant smile to my face.

One Saturday lunchtime, for instance, I answered a knock on the door and found the guy from the flat across the hallway standing there.

‘Hi, just thought I’d let you know that your cat is out here.’

‘Sorry, erm, no. Must be someone else’s. Mine’s in here,’ I said, turning around to scout around the living room.

‘Bob. Where are you?’

There was no sign of him.

‘No, I’m pretty sure this is him out here. Ginger isn’t he?’ the guy said.

I stepped out into the hallway to discover Bob sitting around the corner, perfectly still on top of a cupboard on the landing with his head pressed against the window, looking down on the street below.

‘He’s been there a while. I noticed him earlier,’ the guy said, heading for the lift.

‘Oh. Thanks,’ I said.

Bob just looked at me as if I was the world’s biggest party pooper. The expression on his face seemed to say: ‘Come on up here and take a look at this view with me, it’s really interesting.’

‘Bob, how the heck have you got there?’ I said, reaching up to collect him.

Belle was visiting and was in the kitchen rustling up a sandwich.

‘Did you let Bob out?’ I asked her back inside the flat.

‘No,’ she said, looking up from the worktop.

‘I can’t work out how he got out into the hallway and hid himself up on top of the cupboard.’

‘Ah, hold on,’ Belle said, a light coming on somewhere inside her head. ‘I popped downstairs about an hour ago to put some rubbish out. You were in the bathroom. I shut the door behind me but he must have slid out without me noticing and then hidden away somewhere when I came back up. He’s so damned clever. I’d love to know what’s going on in his mind sometimes.’

I couldn’t help laughing out loud. It was a subject I’d speculated on quite a lot over the years. I’d often found myself imagining the thought processes Bob went through. I knew it was a pointless exercise and I was only projecting human behaviour onto an animal. Anthropomorphising I think they call it. But I couldn’t resist it.

It wasn’t hard, for instance, to work out why he’d been so happy finding his new vantage point out in the hallway today.