She smiled and thought, ‘Gattino’. Even if he was dead, he was there in that splayed, ecstatic leap. ‘This idea was no doubt an illusion, a self-deception. But that dog was not. That dog was real. And so was Gattino.’43 Whether Gattino was still present in the world does not matter much. It is the fact that Gattino existed and what he did that are important. Mary’s attachment to the cat was unlike any she had with human beings.
