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.