My neighbour is a three-legged cat. When first I saw her my reaction was of pity. “Poor cat!” I exclaimed as she loped across the road in her three-legged way. But somehow I knew instinctively that the last thing this cat would want is pity.

She lives in a little park next door. I’ve never been able to ascertain exactly where but every morning, as I leave the house to take my morning run, she materializes out of the park and crosses the street right in front of me, seemingly quite accustomed to having only three legs.

I’ve tried to befriend her. One morning I got up a bit earlier and placed a saucer of milk on the pavement where she crosses. I then stood back and waited. Sure enough, she appeared right on time, looked at me, looked at the milk and then, with her nose in the air, continued on her way, reminding somewhat me of my dear wife, when after some silly tiff, I prematurely, offer her a placatory cup of coffee.

Our dog, a big floppy fellow, the very embodiment of joie de vivre, friend of man and beast, the sort of dog who would invite a burglar to come in for a cup of tea, on their first encounter approached the cat in his joyous way. Far from taking to flight, as most cats would, she turned around and came charging towards him, letting out the most ferocious hissing snarl you could imagine. Our dog, brave animal, just turned and ran for the horizon.

One day a car appeared just as the cat was crossing the street. Instead of hurrying to the other side she stopped in her tracks, arched her back and spat at the vehicle, daring it to drive on. Having made her point, she calmly strolled away, leaving the poor driver shaking his head.

It was pretty obvious now that the cat had never read “How to win friends and influence people”. I always hoped she’d meet some nice tomcat, settle down and have kittens but it didn’t happen.

One evening I did see one of our neighbours’ well fed cats, glossy coat shining, sniffing around the park, seemingly checking out the action. That night I heard a snarling and yowling which would have set even Edgar Allan Poe’s hair on end. The next morning I saw the frustrated Lothario, cowering in the shadows, nursing a bloodied ear.

The cat has a playful side to her to which, one moonlight night, I was witness. Unable to sleep, I had got up and happened to glance out the window. There she was, tiger-like, pouncing on a fallen leaf, tossing it in the air with her sole front paw, letting it go and then launching herself from a crouch to begin the game again.

I had given up hope, though, for a happy-ever-after for her when, one day, something unusual occurred. It was late afternoon. On arriving home from work I saw my friend Juanito, ancient wheelchair creaking, coming down the street, pushed along as always by his wife, Lupita.

Juanito has no legs. Just stumps. He lost them to diabetes. I had met him the couple some years before, outside my business, on one of their alms runs. I was delighted to see them and was just saying hello, when who should appear, as if from nowhere, but the cat! She came directly over to the wheelchair, rubbed against it and looked up at Juanito. Juanito, whose tearful eyes speak permanently of both deep peace and mourning, lit up. He beamed from ear to ear. And the cat purred.

After exchanging pleasantries and chatting a while they went on their way. The cat followed them for a few hundred yards and then sat still in the middle of the street looking after them.

Over the years I had got to know them quite well. They would drop by my business once or twice a month and, after about a year or so, had invited me to their home.

I found their little house on the fringe of town – bare concrete blocks cobwebbed together, topped by a tin roof. A small rickety and disjointed wooden gate scratched a semi-circle in the dust of a yard inhabited by a few scrawny hens and an old friendly mongrel. The front door was open.

Inside was in shadows, a sliver of light finding its way through a small window covered with a plastic bag in lieu of glass. A double bed lay on beams set up on blocks. Juanito was sitting up on the bed, his wheelchair to one side. I saw that the seat was made of wood with a round hole cut in it. A bucket stood underneath. José, helped by Lupita, manoeuvred his way onto the wheel chair. She fussed around him like a mother with her infant.

We sat around a small fire in the middle of the earthen floor, Lupita on an upturned box while I sat on an old log. She heated the corn tortillas on an old comal, ormetal cooking plate, which rested on the stones encircling the fire. She handed me a pottery bowl filled with Sikil P'ak, a paste of ground pumpkin seeds, tomato, habanero chili and onion, blended, I knew, in a stone mortar.

I filled the warm tortilla in the palm of my hand with the Sikil P'ak, using a fork we passed around between us. Without doubt it was one of the meals I have most enjoyed in my life. There was a wealth of beauty in the love and hardship of that little house. No mention was ever made of children. In a country where welfare is limited to an over-extended health system the real safety net for the poor and middle class is family. Nursing homes are for the wealthy and are thin on the ground. The wealthy have servants and can hire any extra help they need.

It was obvious that whatever health Juanito still had was slipping. But as we sat there I could not help but see a profound tiredness in Lupitas’s own lined face, that not even her twinkling and gentle eyes could hide. I just hoped that José would not be the one to be left behind. They had kind neighbours who obviously cared for them. On that first visit I met Doña Dora, who had taken them under her wing, did the shopping for them and together with her husband looked after them in a hundred ways.

A few months later I arrived at my business to find Dora waiting for me. Her face told me everything. “Juanito?” It was more statement than question. “No Señor. It’s Lupita. She died last night. I came as soon as I could.”

The rains came that night. They pounded and pummelled the tin roof which shook and shivered under the onslaught, the murmured Aves of the mourners an almost inaudible backdrop to the mad deluge. I looked around at the ring of dark weather- beaten faces. All eyes were on Lupita. She lay dressed in her Sunday best, the beginning of a smile on her countenance, a reflection of a new and awesome reality that had opened up before her eyes. A reality somehow visible to our hearts. Juanito sat in his wheelchair doubled up in sorrow, shuddering in great heaving sobs. Dora had her arm around him and was whispering soft words as much to herself as to him.

We were cocooned in the reflection of eternity, as though this poor house had become a great domed cathedral steeped in the prayers of centuries. The night lasted forever and yet was too brief. There was no coming and going. Few words were spoken. Coffee taken in silence. The downpour, which had cut us off from the world, seemed to anchor us in a place we did not wish to leave. But with the coming of a dull dawn the hard rain fled across the mountains and left the land a place of weeping leaves.

That afternoon as we stood around the grave, a small knot of mourners still somehow cut off from the world, I felt something brush past me. I looked down. It was the three-legged cat. She made straight for Juanito, in that deliberate way of hers, and rubbed up against his wheelchair. The priest looked up at the sudden movement and smiled. At that moment a solitary ray of sunlight broke through the clouds and shone down on the lonely man and the cat.

The next day I left on a long business trip and, between one thing and another, did not get around to visit Juanito for a few months. It was mid-morning. A kind breeze was blowing in from the sea carrying with it the soft tang of salt. The palm fronds made a soft swishing sound, resting now that the harsh rains were gone, and the sky was a deep, deep blue seen only in these latitudes.

I pushed open the gate and stood still. Juanito was dozing in his wheelchair and, there beside him asleep, stretched out in the sun, was the three-legged cat.