We are on the top floor of a brownstone that FG has bought and an interior designer is around to measure curtains on the front wall. The thing is, there is only the front wall. And apart from half of an adjacent wall the remaining sides are just bare rooftop sky, exposed to the elements.
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The designer pulls down the old heavy curtains, garish checkered colors, revealing ugly white peeling walls, two windows unmatched, one small, one larger.
I offer that the new curtains be plain and stretch the length of the wall.
“That would cost three times as much,” says the designer.
Siobhan and a second designer stand to one side. They are thinking about it.
“I’d get another person, but the curtain fitter says graphic designers only,” says Siobhan.
“How many designers does to take to screw in a light bulb?” I think to myself. I’ll have to look up the answer later.
The walls sway in the wind.
We were in a similar house in previous dreams.
In one dream Siobhan and I bought the house, and it was a student house. Nice South Kensington property but a bit shabby with its two white columns needing a lick of paint. We spilled out of the front door, onto the steps then hid behind the jersey barriers on the other side of the road while waiting for a cab. It was to get away from the students who had occupied all the floors except for a tiny space off to the side, on the mezzanine. And that room too had peeled walls and a broken lock.
On FG’s rooftop, the side wall that leads into another room is lower than the front wall, and it starts swaying even more, like a sheet in the wind.
FG, Siobhan and I step into that adjacent room. We look at the wall from the other side then, in unison, we all step back. And the wall collapses in a heap.
“I’m sure it is covered by insurance,” I remark.
Photo of Benjamin Britten’s (shabby!) house by Spudgun67 via Wikimedia Commons!
