Their flat was described as a garden flat when they came to see it, which was the only occasion on which they were asked to come into the garden, into which they were later told they had no right of entry. They were not even allowed to attempt to grow things in tubs in their black area, for reasons vague but peremptory, put forward by their landlady, an octogenarian Mrs Irving, who inhabited the three floors above them in a rank civet fug amongst unnumbered cats, and who kept the garden as bright and wholesome and well ordered as her living-room was sparse and decomposing.
