‘He is, you should put him on the staff, like that cat in Japan who is a stationmaster. He even wears a hat,’ I said.
‘I’m not sure we’ve got any vacancies,’ she giggled.
‘Well, you should at least give him an ID card or something,’ I joked.
She looked at me with a thoughtful look on her face and went away. I thought nothing more about it.
A couple of weeks later Bob and I were sitting outside the station one evening when Vanika appeared again. She had a big grin on her face. I was immediately suspicious.
‘What’s up?’ I said.
‘Nothing, I just wanted to give Bob this,’ she smiled. She then produced a laminated travel card with Bob’s photograph on it.
‘That’s fantastic,’ I said.
‘I got the picture off the Internet,’ she said to my slight amazement. What the hell was Bob doing on the Internet?
‘So what does it actually mean?’ I said.
‘It means that he can travel as a passenger for free on the underground,’ she laughed.
‘I thought that cats went free anyway?’ I smiled.
‘Well, it actually means we are all very fond of him. We think of him as part of the family.’
It took a lot of willpower to stop myself from bursting into tears.
Chapter 20
The Longest Night
The spring of 2009 should have been on its way, but the evenings remained dark and dismal. By the time I finished selling the Big Issue at Angel around seven o’clock most evenings, dusk was already descending and the streetlights were blazing into life, as were the pavements.
After being quiet during the early months of the year when there were fewer tourists around, the Angel had suddenly come alive. The early evening rush hour was as busy as I’d ever seen it with what seemed like hundreds of thousands of people pouring in and out of the tube station.
Maybe it was the well-heeled crowds. The change had attracted other people to the area as well – unfortunately.
Living on the streets of London gives you really well-developed radar when it comes to sussing out people whom you want to avoid at all costs. It was around 6.30 or 7p.m., during the busiest part of the day for me, when a guy who had set off that radar a few times loomed into view.
I’d seen him once or twice before, luckily from a distance. He was a really rough-looking character. I know I wasn’t exactly the most well-groomed guy on the streets of London, but this guy was really scraggy. He looked like he was sleeping rough. His skin was all red and blotchy and his clothes were smeared in dirt. What really stuck out about him, however, was his dog, a giant Rottweiler. It was black with brown markings and from the moment I first saw it I could tell immediately that it was aggressive. The sight of them walking around together reminded me of an old drawing of Bill Sikes and his dog Bull’s Eye in Oliver Twist. You could tell they were never far away from trouble.
The dog was with him this evening as he arrived near the tube station entrance and sat down to talk to some other shifty-looking characters, who had been sitting there drinking lager for an hour or more. I didn’t like the look of them at all.
Almost immediately I could see that the Rottweiler had spotted Bob and was straining at the lead, dying to come and have a go at him. The guy seemed to have the big dog under control, but it was by no means certain that it would stay that way. He seemed more interested in talking to these other guys – and getting stuck into their lager.
As it happened, I was in the process of packing up for the evening in any case. The gang’s arrival only cemented that decision in my mind. I had a bad feeling about them – and the dog. I wanted to get myself and Bob as far away from them as possible.
I began gathering up my Big Issues and placing my other bits and pieces in my rucksack. All of a sudden I heard this really loud, piercing bark. What happened next seemed like it was in slow motion, a bad action scene from a bad action movie.
I turned round to see a flash of black and brown heading towards me and Bob. The guy had obviously not tethered the lead correctly. The Rottweiler was on the loose. My first instinctive reaction was to protect Bob, so I just jumped in front of the dog. Before I knew it he’d run into me, bowling me over. As I fell I managed to wrap my arms around the dog and we ended up on the floor, wrestling. I was shouting and swearing, trying to get a good grip on its head so that it couldn’t bite me, but the dog was simply too strong.
Rottweilers are powerful dogs and I have no doubt that if the fight had gone on a few seconds longer, I’d have come off second best. God only knows what sorts of wounds it would have inflicted. Fortunately I was suddenly aware of another voice shouting and I felt the power of the dog waning as it was pulled in another direction.
‘Come here, you f*****,’ the owner was shouting, pulling as hard as he could on the lead. He then walloped the dog across the head with something blunt. I don’t know what it was but the sound was sickening. In different circumstances I’d have been worried for the dog’s welfare, but my main priority was Bob. He must have been terrified by what had just happened. I turned to check on him but found the spot where he’d been sitting empty. I spun around 360 degrees to see if someone had perhaps picked him up to protect him but there was no sign of him. He’d disappeared.
Suddenly, I realised what I’d done. I had a pile of Big Issues a short distance away from our pitch, under a bench. Bob’s lead didn’t extend that far, so, in my anxiety to get away from the Rottweiler and his owner, I had unclipped the lead from my belt. It had only been for a second or two while I gathered everything together, but that had been long enough. That was my big mistake. The Rottweiler must have been watching it all, and Bob, and must have spotted this. That’s why he’d broken free and charged at us at that precise moment.
I was immediately thrown into a blind panic.
A few people had gathered around to ask me if I was OK.
‘I’m fine. Anyone seen Bob?’ I said, even though I wasn’t actually fine. I’d hurt myself when the Rottweiler had knocked me over and I had cuts to my hands where he’d bitten me. At that moment a regular customer of mine appeared, a middle-aged lady who often gave Bob treats. She had clearly seen the commotion and came over.
‘I just saw Bob, running off in the direction of Camden Passage,’ she said. ‘I tried to grab his lead but he was too quick.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, as I just grabbed my rucksack and ran, my chest pounding.
My mind immediately flashed back to the time he’d run off in Piccadilly Circus. For some reason though, this felt like a more serious situation. Back then he had basically been spooked by a man in a funny outfit. This time he’d been in real physical danger. If I hadn’t intervened the Rottweiler would almost certainly have attacked him. Who knows what impact the sight of the charging dog had had on him? Perhaps it was a reminder of something he’d seen in his past? I had no idea what he must be feeling, although I guessed he was as frightened and distressed as me.
I ran straight towards Camden Passage, dodging the early evening crowds milling around the pubs, bars and restaurants.
‘Bob, Bob,’ I kept calling, drawing looks from passers-by. ‘Anyone seen a ginger tom running this way with his lead trailing after him?’ I asked a group of people standing outside the main pub in the passage.
They all just shrugged their shoulders.
I had hoped that, just as he had done that time back in Piccadilly Circus, Bob would find refuge in a shop. But by now most of them were shuttered up for the evening. It was only the bars, restaurants and cafés that were open. As I made my way down the narrow lane and asked around, I was greeted by nothing but shakes of the head. If he’d gone beyond Camden Passage heading north, then he would have ended up on Essex Road, the main road leading to Dalston and beyond. He’d walked part of that route before but never at night or on his own.