He opened the door and stood for a moment speechless, staring about him as if he was dreaming.
The room was full of sunlight and for a moment nothing seemed to have changed from the way he remembered it since he was a child. Then he realised that the curtains were very faded but had been patched and mended skilfully.
The sofas also had mellowed and the softness of their colour reminded him of the bricks of the house itself. Their covers too had been repaired.
The furniture shone and there were flowers everywhere – roses, honey-suckle, blue delphiniums, and even lilies, such as had always been grown in the greenhouses for the altar of the small grey Church his mother had attended on Sundays.
‘It’s incredible! Unbelievable!’ he said to himself.
He had thought he would find a ruin, not t
