They were four-room stone houses that jutted out at the back to give space for a kitchen, and above the kitchen a small extra room with a bathroom next to it. Mrs. Bagot’s husband, Martin, slept alone in their small extra room, and she had been standing at the window there looking out at the garden when she had the idea of putting a few flowers in his room to brighten it up. Seen from his window, the garden was a deep oblong filled with shadows, light, flowers, grass, the ivy, the vine, and the laburnum tree that stood over to the right by the trellised wall. The sun made dark shadows but seemed to concentrate all its light in the half naked, yellow circle of grass where the big pot of geraniums had stood until recently, near the corner where she had made the rock garden. The grass at that corner was cut back into a crescent to conform with the shape of the rock garden and to give it more space. Mrs. Bagot had worked very hard to get the crescent right. The yellow circle where the pot of geraniums had stood was so close to the edge of the crescent that it seemed to be revolving on it — an exercise in geometry, or in balance.

A few feet below the window of Martin’s room, Rupert, the big orange cat, lay sleeping on the slanted, corrugated-tin roof of the shed where she kept her gardening things, empty flowerpots, and the shears and the rake and so on, and the dustbin. Rupert lay on his side, sleeping peacefully. He looked very soft. His front right paw covered his eye and nose. His back paws were crossed and his tail lay neatly alongside them. The corrugated roof was uncomfortable to lie on, but Rupert was so fat that he flowed into it and may even have imagined he was lying on a flat surface. Mrs. Bagot let the curtain fall into place and turned back into the room, which seemed dull and small after the brightness and life and space outside. The room was so dull it reminded her of Mrs. Finn’s gray concrete yard, and it was at that moment she decided to run down and find a few flowers to put on Martin’s desk.