The World According to Bob

The slate tiles were slippery from the rain earlier in the morning, so keeping a grip wasn’t easy, especially given the fact I was in agony with my leg. Somehow, however, I managed to scamper across the rooftops to where Bob was sitting. I was within a few feet of him when I realised that I was on a wasted mission.

Bob suddenly picked himself up and scuttled his way back across the rooftops, nonchalantly passing me. When I tried to grab at him, he just growled at me and made a sudden spurt towards Belle’s open window. Again, he shot me a disdainful look. He was soon disappearing back indoors.

I, of course, had a long way to go. It took me a few minutes to scramble back across the slippery slates. To my complete embarrassment, a couple of faces appeared in the windows. The looks on their faces spoke volumes. They were a mix of shock, mild pity and hilarity.

Moments after I got back into the safety of the flat, I heard the front door closing and saw Belle standing in the hallway with a small bag of groceries.

She burst out laughing.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ she said.

‘On the bloody roof trying to rescue Bob,’ I said.

‘Oh he goes out there all the time,’ she said with a dismissive wave of a hand. ‘He even goes down into the yard sometimes. He always comes back up.’

‘I really wish you’d told me that sooner,’ I said, shuffling off to my temporary bedroom to finally put on some clothes.

It wasn’t long before he’d turned the tables, however. Soon after that, it was Belle who was cursing his playful ways.

As I’d discovered the hard way, Bob loved exploring the back of Belle’s block of flats and took full advantage of the fact that he was on the first rather than the fifth floor.

In some ways it was a healthy thing. Bob loved going out there to do his business in the mornings and evenings. But, of course, this also allowed him to exercise his other natural instincts.

I knew that it was part of his DNA to hunt. No matter how much people might think they are cute little fluffballs, cats are also predators — seriously effective predators at that. As we settled into life at Belle’s flat, he began to bring us presents.  One day we were sitting in the front room when he arrived with a small mouse dangling from his mouth. He’d placed it carefully at my feet, as if he was offering me a gift.

I’d chastised him about it.

‘Bob, you will make yourself sick again if you eat that,’ I said.

Realistically I knew there was nothing I could do, apart from keeping him under house arrest, which I didn’t want to do. And I wasn’t going to resort to putting a bell on him, at this stage, at least.

Predictably, this meant that he became a little bolder in his behaviour.

One morning, I was lying on my bed, reading, when I heard the most almighty scream. It was Belle.

‘Oh, my God, oh my God.’

I jumped up and ran into the living room where she was doing some ironing. There, sitting on top of a pile of freshly-pressed shirts and bed sheets, was a little brown frog.

‘James, James, pick it up, get rid of it. Please,’ she said, calming down slightly.

I noticed Bob standing in the doorway taking all this in. There was a strange expression on his face, what I could only call mischievousness. It was as if he knew exactly what had happened.

I got hold of the little frog and cupped it in my hands. I then walked the long way round via the front door to the area at the back of the building with Bob following me every step of the way.

I went back inside, started to read my book and forgot all about it. But then, about an hour or so later, I heard another scream, accompanied by the sound of something hitting a wall. This time it was coming from the hallway.

‘What is it now?’ I said, heading towards the kerfuffle.

Belle was standing at one end of the corridor with her hands on her head and a horrified expression on her face. She pointed down the corridor at a pair of slippers that she’d clearly thrown down the hallway.

‘It’s inside my slipper now,’ she said.

‘What’s inside your slipper?’ I said, puzzled.

‘The frog.’

I had to suppress a laugh. But, again, I retrieved the frog and took it out to the garden. Again Bob marched behind me, trying to look like it was a pure coincidence that this frog had now appeared inside the flat twice in the space of an hour or so.

‘Stay there, mate,’ I said, sensing that I had to make sure I disposed of the frog properly this time.

He looked at me disapprovingly then turned and slinked off back into the house as if to say, ‘you’re really no fun at all!’

As comfortable as we were at Belle’s, after a while I began to realise that it wasn’t ideal, in particular for my relationship with Bob.