On it the cat started from sleep, its fur high. Ben did not rummage in the fridge: he hated the cold taste of food just taken out of it, and, too, he did not want to use the old woman's food. He squatted on the bed, ignoring the cat, and looked out. He was waiting for a pigeon to come to the balcony. They often did. The cat turned its head to watch too. A yard apart, not looking at each other, they were united in waiting for whatever might come. The door to the balcony was not locked. Ben set it ajar. It bisected the tiny balcony. Then neither Ben nor the cat moved. At last a pigeon came, but to the wrong part, safe behind the door, and then, soon after, another, to the part where . Ben had leaped out, and the bird was in his hand. He was tearing off feathers when he heard the cat's sound, which it always made when a bird was out there, or on the railing, a rusty, hungry noise. Ben ripped some flesh off the bird and flung it down. The cat crept out and ate. The blood was dripping from their mouths. Then there were only feathers blowing about, and some blood stains. The cat went back in. So did Ben. It was not enough, those few mouthfuls of flesh, but it was something, his stomach was appeased. He saw the cat's eyes closing: it was trusting him enough to sleep. Ben curled up on the bed beside the cat, and when Mrs Biggs came in, towards evening, the two creatures were sleeping side by side on her bed.

She took it all in, some feathers clinging to the blood clots on the balcony, the stale smell of blood, that there were only a few inches between Ben's back and the cat's. She wasn't well. She felt bad. Her heart hurt. And she was tired: at the end of a long wait at the doctor's, among grumbling people, she had been given some pills. But what had she been expecting? — she scolded herself — a cure? She set packages down on the table, untied a scarf from her head, drank water from the tap, and then stood for a while looking down at her old big bed — at the cat, at Ben. She lay down along its edge, and watched the shadows come on the ceiling, and then it was dark. Ben slept his noisy, unhappy sleep. The cat was as neat and quiet as — a cat. The old woman dozed off, feeling her heart beat painfully in her side. She woke because Ben was awake, and pressing his back against her.