Seven Answers XXIV: A House

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It was a house which existed in my life but also haunted my dreams in exaggerated form.  It was to me a magic house.  The house was owned by my great-grandmother.  It was large, Victorian and situated on the Thames.  To me it was huge and never-ending.  I remember the entrance hall with its marble floor and grand piano.  A door on the left went off to the living room and a door opposite opened onto a large dining room.  There were further doors but I don't remember where they went.  I don't even remember going upstairs although I'm sure I must have.  Upstairs was real only in my recurring dream where it was composed of magical rooms.  In one room was a horse and carriage which continually changed colour.  But as I went through the rooms in my dream I was always searching for a small room at the top of the house, a bedroom decorated in blues, a room which I knew I had been to and to which I desperately wanted to return, so I searched and searched, but couldn't ever find it.

As a child I loved the garden.  Of particular interest to me was the old air-raid shelter which was prominent beneath a grassy mound.  A solid door covered the entrance but the door had fallen a little leaving a sliver of darkness into the void beneath.  I was mesmerised and intrigued.  Many years later, as an adult, my cousin told me how he had had a similar feeling about the air-raid shelter and that he had actually gone inside.  I was jealous.