It was a bright sunny day, the river gleaming, the morning mist burned away by the sun. The farmhouse loomed ahead of him. He noticed that the grounds were no longer manicured, the way they’d been in the glory days when the Delaneys ruled the London underworld and the coffers overflowed. Some of the stonework was crumbling away, the paintwork was peeling. And no scaffolding up, no sign of repairs underway.
He went to the door. That was the same, though the oak had been stained to grey by the passing years. Rufus yanked the chain, and heard the bell ring in the bowels of the place. He waited. Finally, he rang again. There was no movement from within; no dogs barked; no hurrying footsteps approached.
He stepped back, peered up at the bedroom windows. He could see nothing, no movement. He walked around the side of the building. The sun beat down on him, he was sweating lightly. High summer, just like that day long ago.
And… oh God… she was there.
He stopped, dropped his bag and jacket to the ground in shock.
He was hallucinating. He’d wanted so much to see her again that here he was conjuring up a vision of her from his imagination. She was wearing a faded flower-sprigged tea dress, a rough windcheater over the top of it, and Wellington boots. Her hair was blowing straight out in the stiff breeze, a blood-red banner. She was hanging washing out to dry on a rotary clothes-line.
He felt his heart banging hard in his chest, felt his mouth go dry. He stood there and stared.
She was older. There was a frown line between her brows, a cobweb of crow’s feet around those heartbreaking eyes of hers.
He closed his own eyes, opened them again.
She was still there. This was no illusion.
‘Orla?’ he said aloud.
The wind whipped the word away. She didn’t turn, didn’t hear. She pegged out another garment, an old woman’s underwear.
‘Orla?’ he said, louder this time. It wasn’t her, it couldn’t be. This was an illusion. He’d wished it so much that he was seeing it.
She stopped what she was doing, turned her head, stared at him. For a moment her eyes widened in alarm. She looked as if she was going to run indoors.
‘It’s me,’ he said. He let out a bewildered half-laugh. After the hell he’d been through, was this a sign of heaven at last? ‘For the love of Christ, is it you? Is it really?’
‘Rufus?’ she asked.
‘You’re supposed to be dead,’ he said in wonder. He walked towards her in a daze.
Orla was starting to smile. She was so beautiful. It was her, it was his Orla.
Suddenly Rufus was running, and Orla stumbled forward and they fell together in an embrace, Rufus laughing and lifting her off her feet with the joy of it.