The World According to Bob

publicity was soon reaping dividends, if only small ones. I’d agreed to do the interview mainly because I thought it would be good for sales of my magazines. I thought that by raising my profile it might encourage a few more customers to stop and talk to me at Angel tube station. And it did. In the days that followed, more and more people started saying hello to us not only at Angel, but on the bus and on the street.
    One morning I was taking Bob to do his business on Islington Green when a group of schoolchildren appeared in front of us. They could only have been about nine or ten-years-old and were in very smart, blue uniforms.
    ‘Look, it’s Bob,’ one of them, a little boy, said, pointing excitedly.
    It was clear the rest of the class didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.
    ‘Who’s Bob?’ a voice asked.
    ‘That cat there on that man’s shoulders. He’s famous. My mum says he looks like Garfield,’ the boy said.
    I was touched that we were being recognised by young children but I wasn’t quite so sure I was happy about the comparison with the world’s best-known cartoon cat. Garfield was famous for being obese, obsessed with eating, lazy and slightly obnoxious. He also hated any form of exercise or hard work. Bob had always been in fine fettle, ate pretty sensibly and had the friendliest, most laid back attitude of any cat I’d ever come across. And no one could ever call him work-shy.
    There were lots of similar encounters during the days after the piece was published, but the most significant came from someone I’d spoken to once before.
    I’d already been approached one evening by an American lady who said she was a literary agent. Her name was Mary. She told me she lived nearby and had noticed Bob and I outside the tube station many times.
    She’d asked me if I had considered writing a book about my life with Bob. I said I would think about it, but, truth be told, I hadn’t really taken her seriously. How could I? I was a recovering drug addict who was struggling to survive selling The Big Issue . I didn’t write a diary. I didn’t even write texts on my mobile phone. Yes, I loved to read and consumed all the books I could lay my hands on. But, as far as I could see, at least, writing a book was about as realistic as building myself a space rocket or running for Parliament. In other words, it was a complete and utter non-starter.
    Fortunately, she’d persisted and we’d spoken again. She had anticipated my concerns and suggested that I meet a writer who was experienced at helping people tell their stories. She told me he was busy at the time, but that he would be free towards the end of the year and would come and see me. After the Islington Tribune piece she contacted me again to confirm that I was happy to meet him.
    If he thought there was a book in Bob and me, he would spend time with me, getting me to tell my story then helping to shape it up and write it. She would then try and sell it to a publisher. Again, it sounded too far-fetched for words.
    I didn’t hear anything for a while, but then, towards the end of November, I got a call from this writer guy. His name was Garry.
    I agreed to meet him and he took me for a coffee in the Design Centre across the road from my pitch. We had Bob with us, so we had to sit outdoors in the biting cold. Bob was a better judge of character than me, so I made a point of going to the toilet and leaving them alone a couple of times. They got on famously, which I took to be a good omen.
    I could tell he was trying to work out whether my story was suitable for a book and was as open as I felt was possible.
    As far as I was concerned, I really didn’t want to have to go into the dark side of my life. But as we spoke, he said something that struck a chord. He could see that Bob and I were both broken souls. We’d come together when we were both at rock bottom. We’d helped mend each other’s lives.
    ‘That’s the story you have to tell,’ he told me.
    I had never thought of it in those terms. Instinctively, I knew that Bob had been a hugely positive force in my life. I’d even seen me on a video on YouTube saying that he’d saved my life. I guessed that, to some extent, it was true. But I just couldn’t imagine that being a story that would interest anyone.
    Even when I had seen Garry again for another, longer chat, it all seemed a bit of a pipe dream. There were so many ifs and maybes. If Garry and Mary were willing to work with