The Big Meow

He was silent for a few breaths. We were married in ’32, the Silent Man said. Knew each other for a long time before my first wife died. Another silence fell. His face didn’t change, staying still and cool. But the pause felt so spiny with suppressed guilt and anger that Rhiow wouldn’t have dared break it. For a long time we were happy together. Then, though – I got sick –

Another long silence. Rhiow looked away: Urruah, though, gazed steadily at the Silent Man, in quiet support of something Rhiow could tell was very much a tom-ish kind of pain. She took up with a younger guy, Runyon said. They’ve been living in Reno, where they met when Patrice was posted there for national service during the war. It’s been an open secret in town for a while now. Mostly the publicity people have kept quiet about it. The cool look broke: Runyon smiled bitterly. If you’ve still got enough clout in town to get them in trouble, enough friends at the studios who’d be angry on your behalf, the gossip columns and the two big name ladies with their radio shows know better than to foul their own nests by opening their yaps in public.

The smile faded. But when your star starts to fall, when you start losing that clout, all bets are off. And most people here have noticed that I don’t have any new projects going. Some have noticed that I’m closing the last few down. The real estate agent’s been fielding offers for the house, on the quiet. I’m only here for a little while, before going back to New York — He did not say “for the last time”: it was implicit in his tone. So now the gossip columns see that they’ve got a little while left to get some mileage out of me. Now they think I’m game. Well, I’ve got news for them. The game won’t run.

He reached out to his cup and took a long swig, finishing the cold coffee in it. And why should I? What they’re pulling doesn’t really hurt. Neither does what Patrice just pulled, said the Silent Man. He put the cup down again. Love’s a mug’s game anyway.

He leaned back again, stretching out his legs. To Rhiow there was nothing even slightly relaxing about the gesture: the tension underlying it was terrible. Romance is nothing to me any more. Nothing for anybody, most of the time, not really. But me, I gave it up way back when I realized which way the wind blew.

Rhiow glanced over at Hwaith: he glanced back, his eyes still half-closed but shadowed with pity and pain. Urruah, though, stood up, stretched, stepped down from the bookshelf, and lay down on the desk on the other side of the typewriter, in the pool of light from the single lamp.

He stretched out his own hind legs out thoughtfully, giving the Silent Man a dry look. “Staying right there in character,” Urruah said. “Just what you’d expect in one of your stories from some guy with a glass in front of him in the middle of the night.”

His tone was wry. The Silent Man looked at Urruah and let out a breath, a short one, as if considering and then holding back some other response. No glass for me, he said after a moment. I don’t drink. It always made me sick, even before my present – physical problems. Now I’ve got all these pills, too, and the doctors told me not to be tempted to mix them. I listen to my doctors…like I have a choice.

He turned his coffee cup around on the desk. …Not many choices left to me now, he said. I’m making my last few. Don’t need romance. Sex wouldn’t be high on the list, either: there’s too much to do before I go. But your priorities have to be different. He gave Urruah back a look at least as wry as Urruah’s had been. You’ve got the looks of a brisk young tom about town. Got all the necessary equipment. Urruah’s whiskers went forward, an appreciative response: Rhiow restrained herself from any comment, verbal or nonverbal. Your whole life’s in front of you. And you – He looked over at Rhiow. You’re his doll?

“This is getting a little personal, isn’t it?” Rhiow said.

The Silent Man grinned at her: the expression was a bit brittle, but genuine enough. You started it, Blackie, he said. So you’re not his dame, then. Got a boyfriend somewhere else.

Rhiow commanded herself not to bristle. The Silent Man’s eyes glinted a little. Enjoyment? But not of her discomfiture. There was something else going on. This was what he did, in his life: he looked into the fine detail of the lives of the beings around him, and exposed them to view. What he was doing was healthy, his way of fighting the Lone One, even in these depths of pain… though it still made Rhiow twitch.

“Not at present,” Rhiow said. “In your words, I’m missing some of the ‘necessary equipment.’ With us, you need one for the other. It’s – “ She shrugged her tail. “Just a physical thing.”

The Silent Man turned the coffee cup around a few more times, stared past it. So you don’t do love, then.