The World According to Bob

had soon worked out there was something wrong and started changing his behaviour accordingly. In the morning, for instance, rather than greeting me with his usual repertoire of sounds, nudges and pleading looks, he had started looking at me with an inquisitive and slightly pitying expression. It was as if he was saying ‘feeling any better today?’
    It was the same story as we headed to work. Often Bob would walk alongside me rather than taking up his usual position on my shoulders. He obviously preferred travelling on the upper deck, as I put it, but he would trot along beside me as much as he possibly could. I think he could see I was in pain.
    When he felt that I had been soldiering on for too long he would actually try to make me stop and sit down. He would cut across my path, trying to steer me in the direction of a bench or wall where I could take a break. I took the view that it was better to finish my journey rather than stopping every few steps so, for a while, it developed into a bit of a battle of wills.
    It must have been quite entertaining when locals in Tottenham saw us picking our way down the road near my flats. Whenever he heard me complain about the pain Bob would stop and give me a look that suggested I should take a breather or sit down. I’d look back at him and say, ‘No, Bob, I need to keep moving.’ If I hadn’t been in so much agony, I’d probably have found it quite amusing myself. We probably resembled a bickering old married couple.
    After a while, however, it became pretty clear that I couldn’t carry on like this. Often I’d arrive home from work exhausted, only to discover that the lift was out of order again. The walk to the fifth floor was absolutely excruciating and could take an eternity. So I had begun staying with Belle.
    There were all sorts of advantages to this. To begin with her flat was on the first floor rather than the fifth floor which saved me a lot of aggravation. Getting to work from there was also a less painful process with a bus stop only yards away.
    It helped a little, but the pain continued to grow gradually worse. My dread of putting my foot on the floor had now become so great that one morning I decided to make myself a crutch. With Bob in tow, I’d headed into the pretty little park near Belle’s flat and found a branch from a fallen tree that fitted perfectly under my arm, allowing me to keep the weight off my painful leg when I walked. It only took me a day or so to get the hang of it.
    I got a lot of very strange looks, understandably. With my long hair and shaggy beard, I must have looked like some kind of modern-day Merlin or Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings . As if that wasn’t odd enough, the sight of a ginger cat sitting on my shoulder must have conjured up images of wizards walking around with their ‘familiars’. The truth was that I didn’t really care what it looked like at that point. Anything that eased the pain was a Godsend.
    Getting anywhere on foot had become a real ordeal. I was taking a few steps and then keeling over and sitting on the nearest brick wall. I’d tried using the bike to get around but that was an utter impossibility. The moment I applied any pressure to the pedal with my right leg I was in agony. The Bobmobile was in the hallway back in Tottenham, gathering dust.
    There was no question that Bob understood that there was something seriously wrong with me and at times I felt like he was losing patience. Some mornings, as he watched me struggling to get my trousers on ready to go to work, he would give me a withering look as if to say: ‘why are you doing this to yourself? Why don’t you stay in bed?’ The answer to that, of course, was that I had no option. We were skint, as usual.
    My daily routine became a real chore. We’d get off the bus at Islington Green and head to the little park there so that Bob could do his business. From there, I’d hobble over to the The Big Issue co-ordinator’s spot, which was just outside Starbucks coffee shop. I’d then cross the main road and head to the tube station, and our pitch.
    Having to stand there for five or six hours a day wasn’t feasible. I would have passed out. Fortunately, one of the florists outside the tube station saw the state I was in one day and came over to me holding a couple of buckets that he used to hold flowers.
    ‘There you go, sit on that. And get Bob to sit on the other one,’ he had said, giving me an encouraging pat on the back.
    I