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The cat wallpaper room had a balcony with its wooden balustrade rotting away and barely sturdy enough to step out onto. It looked out over the gardens which were surprisingly better kept. A marble tiled patio overlooking lush green grass.

The house spiraled. It was an interconnected space with unrelated styles, bits stuck onto bits. The monks’ corridor with its offshoot rooms for guests (the rooms were probably the most liveable in) led down to the side entrance which opened onto a small area between the door and a high grey fence. The fence shielded the property from a bare road that sloped into town.

We nearly bought the house even though it was clearly a fixer-upper. In a previous dream we did buy it, I think, but in this dream we’d rented it before buying the place next door.

Now the renovators were fixing it, so when they knocked on our door we naturally wanted to know how the renovations were going.

They’d already painted the top floor bedrooms, they said, in muted dark colours, a different colour for each room, and the plaster was no longer crumbling.

The cat room was now a soft dark blue hue. It was empty, same as it was when we lived there. They had painted the other rooms in softer, darker primary colors as well.

How about the monks’ corridor? I asked, but Siobhan wanted to ask something else so the renovators replied to her. They ignored my question until I asked it again.

The renovators wanted to know where the house connected to ours. I did not know that it did, until I thought back. Perhaps down by the end of the monks’ corridor, where a wide circular drain came up between the two houses. It led from their side entrance onto our side of the fence.

I asked again about the monks’ corridor.

We slept in the adjacent rooms there, when we were renting it, but they hadn’t got to that yet.

The corridor was one of the better preserved parts of the house, they replied.

Photo by Love Art Nouveau via Flickr.