“Paradise, you say! It’s a narrow paradise you have here, woman.” Anstruther was looking down its length, which was circumscribed by tile-topped walls.

“Narrow but long, and enough for the likes of Andy and me, master. We have what we require, and do not covet more.”

Anstruther gave his short bark of laughter. “Why not covet more, woman? You’d live better with more.”

“We should not live better by coveting more, merely more discontentedly, sir.”

She proceeded to show her visitors the garden. The enclosing walls became concealed behind climbers and vines.

Their way led with seeming randomness among flowering bushes and little shady arbours under blossom trees. The paths were narrow, so that they brushed by red and green peppers, a manioc patch and clumps of lavender and rosemary, which gave off pleasant scents as they were touched. Vegetables grew higgledy-piggledy with other plants. The hubbub of the streets was subdued by a murmur that came from bees blundering among flowers and the twitter of birds overhead.

The woman’s commentary was sporadic. “I can’t abide seeing bare earth. This bit of ground here I planted with comfrey as a child, and you see how it’s flourished ever since. It’s good for the purity of the blood.”

Anstruther flicked away a bee that flew too near his face. “All this must cost you something in fertiliser, woman.”

She smiled up at him. “No, no, senor. We’re too poor for that kind of unwise outlay. Human water and human waste products are all the fertilising we require in our little property.”

“You’re not on proper drainage? Are you on the Ambient?”

“What’s that, the Ambient?”

“Universal electronic communication system. You’ve never heard of it? The American bio-electronic net?”