Another country house at another country park. At the end of a long lake is a round pavilion, lined inside with trompe l’oeil all the way up to the skylight. The room has doors scattered around the edges, tiny doorways leading to tiny circular stairs, each step even at the widest point only big enough for the children’s feet to fit fully on. M says, Can we go everywhere? Can we explore? Can we adventure wherever we like?
The stairs go up and down - the first one we try brings us out into the large basement, with a huge doorway leading back outside. We race around the front and try another. Heading up this narrow stair I’m suddenly aware of the closeness of the walls, and there is a heartbeat of panic before I can see them opening up into a small room, with a small window, glittered with shiny-winged flies. Back down again.
Another staircase, down, and alarm bells are firing up in my amygdalae, and we come out into a doorless basement this time, fully underground, with only a slit of a window at the top of one wall to reveal where we are. Other children are coming down now, ones I can’t just trample past, so I have to wait, my heart in my fingertips and my earlobes, the thick brick walls gently pouring into my lungs, my glands filling up with the weight of trapped blood. When the staircase is clear again I leap up, blind, to the sunlight and stand in clear space, door mere steps away.
A Peacock butterfly has died on top of the display describing the hunting parties hosted here in another lifetime, and I can’t help momentarily rolling my eyes. Dude. It’s not that bad.