A Street Cat Named Bob

It was impossible to see anything through the constant wall of people that was moving towards me, but as I finally got to the bottom of the steps inside the concourse, things began to thin out a little bit. It was still heaving with people, but at least I could now stop and take a look around. I got down on my haunches and looked around at floor level. One or two people gave me strange looks but that didn’t concern me.

‘Bob, Bob, where are you, mate?’ I shouted at one point, immediately realising how futile that was with all the noise in there.

I had to make a guess and head in one direction. Should I go towards the barriers that led to the escalators and down to the trains or move towards the various other exits? Which way would Bob go? My hunch was that he wouldn’t go down the tube. We’d never been down there together and I had a feeling the moving escalators would frighten him.

So I moved towards the exits for the other side of Piccadilly Circus.

After a moment or two, I got a glimpse of something, just the faintest flash of ginger on one of the staircases. I then saw a lead trailing after it.

‘Bob, Bob,’ I shouted again, squeezing myself through the crowds once more as I headed in that direction.

I was now within thirty feet of him but I might as well have been a mile away, the crowds were so thick. There were streams of people coming down the staircase.

‘Stop him, step on his lead,’ I shouted out, catching another glimpse of ginger in the evening light above me.

But no one was taking any notice. No was paying any attention.

Within moments the lead had disappeared and there was no sign of Bob. He must have reached the exit, which led to the bottom of Regent Street and run off from there.

By now a million thoughts were flashing through my head, none of them good ones. What if he had run out into the road at Piccadilly Circus? What if someone had seen him and picked him up? As I barged my way up the stairs and reached street level again I was in a real state.

Truth be told, I could have burst into tears, I was so convinced that I’d never see him again.

I knew it wasn’t my fault, but I felt awful. Why the hell hadn’t I fixed his lead to my rucksack or on to my belt so that he couldn’t run any further than the length of his lead? Why hadn’t I spotted his panic when the Ripley’s guy had first appeared and moved somewhere else? I felt sick.

Again I had to make a choice. Which way would he have headed on hitting the streets? He could have turned left towards Piccadilly or even headed into the giant Tower Records store there. Again I trusted my instincts and guessed that he would have basically headed straight on – down the wider pavements of Regent Street.

Still in a complete panic, I began making my way down the street in the hope that someone had seen him.

I knew I must have been looking absolutely crazed because people were looking at me askance. Some were even moving out of my way, as if I was some deranged gunman on the rampage.

Fortunately, not everyone reacted that way.

After about thirty yards, I asked a young girl who was walking down the road with a bag from the Apple store at the Oxford Street end of Regent Street. She’d obviously walked all the way down the street, so I asked her if she’d seen a cat.

‘Oh yeah,’ she said. ‘I saw a cat weaving along the street. Ginger. Had a lead hanging behind it. One bloke tried to stamp on the lead and catch it but the cat was too quick for him.’

My immediate reaction was joy. I could have kissed her. I just knew it was Bob. But that quickly gave way to paranoia. Who was that bloke who’d tried to catch him? What was he planning to do with him? Would that have frightened Bob even more? Was he now cowering somewhere where I’d never find him?

With all these new thoughts bouncing around in my head, I carried on down Regent Street, sticking my head into every shop I passed. Most of the shop assistants looked horrified to see this long-haired figure standing in their doorways and took a step back. Others just flashed me blank expressions and slow shakes of the head. I could see what they were thinking. They thought I was some piece of dirt that had just blown in off the street.

After about half a dozen shops, my mood began to swing again, this time back towards resignation. I had no idea how long it was since Bob had run off. Time had seemed to slow down. It was as if it was all happening in slow motion. I was close to giving up.

A couple of hundred yards down Regent Street, there was a side street ahead leading back down to Piccadilly. From there he could have headed in any one of a dozen directions: into Mayfair or even across the road down to St James’s and Haymarket. If he’d gone that far then I knew he was lost.

I was about to give up and head down the side street, when I stuck my head into a ladies’ clothes shop. There were a couple of shop assistants there looking a bit perplexed and looking towards the back of the shop.