The World According to Bob

To get to this spot we had to walk down one of the narrower and less well lit streets in the area. As we did so, the world suddenly turned quiet. London could be like that at times. One minute it was full to bursting, the next it was deserted. It was part of the city’s many contradictions.

I was halfway down the street when I felt Bob moving on my shoulder. At first I thought he was simply dying to go to the toilet.

‘Hold on for another second, mate,’ I said. ‘We’re almost there.’

But I soon realised he was repositioning himself and, unusually for him, had turned himself to look backwards rather than forwards.

‘What’s wrong, Bob?’ I said, turning around.

I looked down the street. There was a guy locking up his coffee shop for the evening and that was about it. I thought nothing more of it. The coast seemed clear enough to me.

Bob didn’t seem quite so convinced. Something was definitely bothering him.

I’d barely taken a dozen steps when all of a sudden he made the loudest noise I’d ever heard him make. It was like a primal scream, a piercing wheeeeeow followed by a really loud hissed hsssssssss. At the same time I felt a tug on my rucksack and then an almighty scream, this time from a human.

I swung round to see the bloke who had been staring at us earlier on Neal Street. He was bent over double and was holding his hand. I could see the back of it and saw that there were huge scratches. Blood was gushing from his wounds.

It was obvious what had happened. He had made a lunge for my rucksack. Bob must have dropped himself over my back and lashed out with his claws. He’d dug them deep into this guy’s hands, ripping into the skin. He was still in fighting mood too. Bob was standing on my shoulder, snarling and hissing.

But the guy wasn’t finished. He lunged at me with his fists but I managed to dodge him. It was hard to do much with Bob balanced on my shoulder, but I landed a well-directed kick to the guy’s leg. I was wearing my really heavy Dr. Martens boots so it had the desired effect and he dropped to his knees for a second.

He was soon back on his feet, though. For a moment we just stood there shouting at each other.

‘F***ing cat, look what it’s done to my f***ing hand,’ he said, waving his bleeding arm at me in the gloom.

‘Serves you right, you were going to mug me,’ I said.

‘I’ll f***ing kill it if I see it again,’ he said pointing at Bob. There was another brief standoff while the guy looked around the street. He found a small piece of wood which he waved at me a couple of times. Bob was screeching and hissing at him more animatedly than ever. The guy took one step towards us with the piece of wood then thought better of it and just tossed it to one side. After letting fly with another stream of expletives, he turned on his heels and stumbled off into the gloom, still holding his hand.

On the bus back home, Bob sat on my lap. He was purring steadily and had tucked his head under my arm, as he often did when he — or I — felt vulnerable. I guessed we were both feeling that way after our encounter, but I couldn’t be sure, of course.

That was the joy and frustration of having a cat. ‘Cats are mysterious kind of folk — there is more passing in their minds than we are aware of,’ Sir Walter Scott wrote. Bob was more mysterious than most. In many ways, that was part of his magic, what made him such an extraordinary companion. We had been through so much together, yet he still had the ability to startle and surprise me. He’d done it again this evening.

We’d had our fair share of confrontations over the years, but we’d never been attacked like this. And I’d never seen him react and defend me in that way either. I’d not been switched on to the threat this guy posed at all, but Bob had.

How had he sensed the guy was not to be trusted from the minute he set eyes on him? I could read the signs from a human perspective, but how did he know that? And how had he detected his presence when we were walking away from Neal Street? I’d seen no sign of him anywhere. Had Bob caught a glimpse of him hiding in an alleyway? Had he smelled him?

I didn’t know. I just had to accept that Bob possessed abilities and instincts that were beyond my understanding — and would probably always remain that way.

That was the frustrating part. He was exhilarating company at times, but he was also an enigma. I would never truly know what went on in his feline brain. Yes, we were best friends. We had an almost telepathic bond. Instinctively, we knew what each other were thinking at times. But that understanding didn’t extend to being able to share our deepest thoughts. We couldn’t really tell each other what we felt. As silly as it sounded, I often felt sad about that. And I did so now.