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thoughts as I played. I didn’t want to think about him in the operating theatre. He had probably lived his life on the street and could well have had all sorts of other things wrong. I’d heard stories of cats and dogs going into vets’ surgeries for the most minor procedures and never coming out again. I struggled to keep my darkest thoughts at bay. It didn’t help that there were big black clouds glowering over me.
    Time passed very, very slowly. Eventually, however, the clock reached 4.15p.m. and I began packing up. I almost ran the last few hundred yards to the clinic.
    The nurse I’d seen earlier was at the reception desk talking to a colleague and greeted me with a warm smile.
    ‘How is he? Did it all go all right?’ I asked, still breathing heavily.
    ‘He’s fine, absolutely fine. Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Get your breath back and I’ll take you through.’
    It was weird, I hadn’t felt this concerned about someone - or something - for years.
    I went into the surgical area and saw Bob lying in a nice warm cage.
    ‘Hello, Bob mate, how you doing?’ I said.
    He was still very dopey and drowsy so didn’t recognise me for a while, but when he did he sat upright and started clawing at the doors of the cage as if to say: ‘Let me outta here.’
    The nurse got me to sign a discharge notice and then gave Bob a good once over to make sure he was fit to leave.
    She was really lovely and very helpful, which made a pleasant change after the previous experience I’d had at the vets’. She showed me where the incisions had been made. ‘It will stay swollen and sore around there for a couple of days, but that’s normal,’ she said. ‘Just check every now and again to make sure there’s no discharge or anything like that. If you notice that then give us a ring or bring him back in so we can check him out. I’m sure he’ll be fine.’
    ‘How long will he be groggy?’ I asked her.
    ‘Could be a couple of days before he’s back to his normal bright-eyed and bushy-tailed self,’ she said. ‘It varies a lot, some cats bounce back immediately. With others it kind of knocks the stuffing out of them for a couple of days. But they are normally as right as rain within forty-eight hours.
    ‘He probably won’t want to eat much the day after but his appetite will return fairly soon. But if he stays very sleepy and lethargic give us a ring or bring him in for a check-up. It’s very rare but cats sometimes get infections from the operation,’ she said.
    I’d brought the recycling box along with me again, and was just about to pick Bob up to pick him up when she told me to wait.
    ‘Hang on,’ she said. ‘I think we can do better than that.’
    She went away for a couple of minutes and then produced a lovely, sky-blue carrying case.
    ‘Oh, that’s not mine,’ I said.
    ‘Oh, don’t worry, it’s OK. We’ve got loads of spares, you can have this one. Just drop it back in when you’re next passing.’
    ‘Really?’
    I had no idea how it had got there. Maybe someone had left it behind. Or maybe someone had brought their cat in and returned to discover that it would not be needed any more. I didn’t want to dwell on it too much.
    It was obvious that the op had taken a lot out of Bob. In the carrier on the way home, he just lay there half asleep. The moment we got into the flat he slowly padded over to his favourite spot by the radiator and lay down. He slept there all night.
    I took the day off work the next day to make sure he was OK. The advice from the vet was that he should be supervised for twenty-four to forty-eight hours after the operation to make sure there weren’t any side effects. I was to particularly look out for continuing drowsiness, which wasn’t a good sign. It was approaching the end of the week so I knew I’d need some money. But I could never have forgiven myself if something had gone wrong, so I stayed in the flat on twenty-four-hour Bob watch.
    Fortunately, he was absolutely