If Walls Could Talk

“If walls could talk” Is a phrase I have heard time and again.

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I stand still. Stoic and proud. A witness to a race of beautifully depraved creatures. I am pockmarked from years of forgotten furniture. To the centre left there is a sizeable dent. An armoire from the seventeenth century, brought over from France to create a sense of undeserved familiarity for the Baron’s new wife.

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Along my right, I sport a deep groove. The young master of the eighteenth century fancied himself a pirate. Jumping from the high-backed bench that had been my right-hand man of the time and scoring his cutlass down me as I played the supporting role of ‘ships sail’. Many of my battle wounds have been covered and uncovered over the long years. The eighties were a trying time of avocado green, that took the following renovators an eternity to release me from.

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I have been the impressive foundations of a stately home. Downgraded in my later years to “affordable housing”. I watched on as my sister walls were annexed and segregated. Affixed with ‘mail slots’ and demoted from grand foyer to lowly entrance. I suppose the name most appropriate now is ‘rubble’.

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I stand derelict and destroyed. One of my final tenants decided to sample his wares. He fell asleep as it cooked away, setting the building ablaze. The foundations around me were raised to ashes. I myself linger on. But these are stories one can read and infer. What I could tell you with words!

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At present I stand alone. Weathered and broken. I do believe my time is up. I have housed the elite and the impoverished. I have heard laughter, sobs, shrieks and solemnity. In my dying breath, I wish to impart to you dear reader, some of the dastardly and delicious tales that I have witnessed over my eons! I will retell them in order, so that you get the full picture of my demise…

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What is the French Word for Scandal?

As I said before, the seventeenth century saw me home to the Baron and his young new bride. He had a wife previous that had borne him a son and heir with her dying breath. But this union was true love. He, hopelessly in love with her beauty. She, unendingly devoted to his wealth. I am unsure as to whether the young miss spoke any English. But I am certain the Barron spoke no French. Their endearing, yet brief, conversation ran through a French servant girl that I assume came with the armoire. The barron saw himself preoccupied with talks of civil unrest. He was called to the capital so frequently that he purchased an “impressive townhouse” I heard a footman remark of it. There he stayed, for the most part.

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Our young madamoiselle grew bored quickly. She would often sit before me on a plush, high-backed chair. Attempting to learn the intricate art of needle-point. The poor girl was hopeless and I’m assuming she was aware of this fact. Spending most of her time observing the servants to distract from her task. she became keenly away of a gardener that worked outside of the picture window opposite me. I will boast that I sported the best view in the house. Sweeping lawns with a Great Lake beyond lay before me. Truly beautiful. After several weeks of her secret watching, the Baroness became emboldened.

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I was deserted as the young miss began to enjoy a new past-time. Pruning the roses outside of my picture window. Always with an eye to the lawn and always in her best dresses. The handsome gardener was smitten at the attentions of the French lady, so high above his station. Out of my window, to the right there is a small tool shed. Unimportant and just to the edge of my view. The pair would strike up a conversation, I’m not aware that the gardener knew anymore French than the Baron. But, the Baroness seemed to have a lot more patience for this man’s fumbling attempts. They would take the short stroll to the tool shed. Under the guise I'm presuming, of procuring a tool or two. Those shears must have always been returned to the most hard to reach area. It took the pair a good forty-five minutes to retrieve them each time!

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Alas, the curtain’s closed on this budding friendship in the most explosive fashion. The Baron returned quite unexpectedly. The grand carriage pulled up neatly, almost obscuring my view of the events to unfold. The man of the house exited the carriage, regal as a king. He surveyed his surroundings with renewed vigour, just in time to see the dutiful gardener helping the Baroness from the tool shed. The lady was oblivious to her peril, noticing her petticoat was askew. Well, those shears earned a new role that day, I don’t mind telling you! The Barron flew into a blind rage, beating the green thumbed fellow to the lake and back! All the while the servants looked on from my window in appalled shock. All except the young, smirking translator. Soon to become Baroness III.

Little Boy’s Should Not Run With Knives!

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Through the eighteenth century I was home to a plethora of colourful characters. None more memorable than the Count, I do believe. According to some officers floating through, England along-side the Dutch were at war with Europe. The young Count, now Leftenant, had recently returned from ‘basic’ at his Officer and Cadet school. His Mother could be heard telling anyone who stopped long enough to hear that, “My boy is on the fast-track to becoming Captain!” She often said this with a wine glass in hand and a slur on her lips. But I did tend to agree, her Son would return laden with badges shining upon his puffed-out chest and a mean look in his eye. The Count had followed his mother’s footsteps down inebriation road. Where Mother grew loud and boastful once libated. The Son turned silent and watchful. There was a servant boy that received most of the Count’s attentions. Where one would disappear down a dark corridor, the latter would soon follow.

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It was late one evening. The old Countess had been at an elegant dinner on a neighbouring property. The elite did enjoy advertising their wealth to one another, I had boasted many a reputable soiree myself. Returning, three sheets to the wind, weaving up the entrance steps with the aid of a silent footman. She acknowledged him no more than one would a walking stick. Once relieved of his expensive burden the footman swept away, hastily closing the foyer door behind him with a heaving slam.

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As the Countess’ blurred gaze grew accustomed to the dim room, she took me in, in all my gory glory. I had been splattered and splashed, sprayed with crimson. It ran down my front to lay in a viscous pool before me. In silent horror, the Countess followed the smeared streaks down the dark corridor, out of sight. But not, out of hearing. A loud shriek pierced the still night. Mother had, I presumed, found son. You see, several hours before, the young Count had hunted the servant boy through my halls. For the last time it seemed. The servant, in a moment of insanity, had grown bold. First insulting, then entreating with the Count to leave him be. When the Count did nothing but stare dispassionately, the young man moved to turn away. Quicker than one could sense, the first lines of blood coloured my front. The Count had, to everyone’s great surprise, been concealing a straight razor. Once satisfied with his masterpiece, the Count took a limp foot in hand and began dragging the servant boy down that same dark corridor that the Mother had just journeyed. To what end I dare to guess.

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Flying back to my foyer, sobered by the ghastly events, Mother was grabbed by Son. “Help me. I’m sick! I’m supposed to be a Captain, he pushed me to it. Help me!” And so, Mother helped Son. A grave was dug in the rose bush before me and the poor servant boy has shared my beautiful view ever since. The Mother drank herself into an early grave a few years later, but not before seeing her precious boy promoted to Captain.

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The moral to take away from this tale in my opinion, is to not let little boys playing pirate, run with real knives!

Gatsby Goes Broke!

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I won't bore you with the events of the nineteenth century, the biggest scandal of the time, if you could call it that. Was the widowed lady of the house choosing to live out the remainder of her years with her 'best-friend'. read into that tidbit what you will!

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The twentieth century was not my finest moment. My greatest regret in life, if you can call my stationary existence life. Sure, I have lived many lives through my infinite years! But my greatest regret is my lack of artistic input. The eighties, oh the eighties! Those were the absolute worst. As I have previously told you, avocado green was all the rage. I think I preferred the blood-spattered look I briefly experimented with in the seventeenth century! Other than my offensive colouring. I, like the rest of the foundations around me, had seen better days. We had fallen into disrepair. I don’t know what title you would give our most recent inhabitant. A descendant of the Captain, and the Baron before him! Yet this man didn’t seem to do anything. Most of the servants had long since fled, a skeleton crew of staff hurried around in a half-hearted attempt to keep the dust and damp at bay, mould had crept up to spackle my surface. Barely discernible from the dreadful paint job. He moved from one room to another like a ghost, always in the same paisley robe. Haunting the halls with his melancholic stagnancy. This was of course through the week. The weekend nights, he came alive. Still no work was carried out, no repairs. But a staff would enter in the daylight hours to dress the walls as best they could. Voluvant were laid out before me next to a champagne tower on an offensive piece of furniture I hesitate to call a console table. Truly it was horrendous, ornamented but by no means antique and gaudily dripping in copious amounts of fake gold. The day a young man split the cheap thing in two, whilst in a coke induced haze is a fond memory, I shall take it with me to the end.

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Our night starts as most weekends did. He would play eclectic -read bad- music, extremely loud and they would come. Dregs at first, then an overflow. One solid drug fueled party from Friday evening to Sunday morning. People slept were they dropped, one man chose his perch curled into my corner. Hugging a pineapple, hedgehogged with cheese. This night would not end like the others. Burning out from a blaze to a flicker. Seeing people slip giant sunglasses over red, puffy eyes, limping their barefoot, shoulder-pad clad selves over the sprawling lawn outside my picture window. The poor servant boy and his roses had played toilet to many an inebriated man, far too desperate to find one of the twenty-seven lavatories that the house boasted. No, our night in question ended with a bang, literally.

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In the drug and alcohol induced haze, the party goers that had taken themselves upstairs for whatever reason had spilled onto the balcony above me. I could hear them through the ceiling almost as clearly as I could hear Depeche mode in front of me. Through my picture window, quite abruptly, a body flew down at incredible speed. A man clad only in tight white briefs, had apparently fallen from the balcony onto a partiers Rover 800, shattering the windscreen and his spine by all accounts. The ensuing lawsuits and tabloid heat bankrupt our eternal host. He was forced to sell his ancestral home, along with any of its long time inhabitants that would fetch a fair price. Au revoir, French armoire!

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The Dealer, The Addict, and The Sudden Narcoleptic.

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We move to the twenty-first century now. Whilst you might agree that my downgrade to simple entryway/ mailroom may not be my worst look, considering my lurid history. It is certainly a fall from grace, even my beautiful picture window has been besmirched. Affixed with bars that packs of children attempt to scale daily. One of the little boys, bigger than the others, reminds me of a certain pirate I once knew. I do wonder every now and again about illegitimate offspring, possibly raised in a certain townhouse?

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The children threatening my beautiful view are the least of my concern. At least this one has a title of sorts, Dealer. It proceeds him through the halls in hushed calls. He swaggers with the confidence of a king. The foundations and what is left of my acreage may be owned by ‘the council’ that is supposed to be in charge of upkeep. But I know a man of the house when I see one. This man calls the shots, his servants wait on him, hand and foot.

This owner is just as flawed as the rest of the ghosts that haunt my halls. The man is not, it seemed happy to just deal his poisons, he has also chosen to imbibe. A deadly combination if you ask me, and you should. I have a wealth of knowledge from first hand accounts! The tenants it seemed are aware of two persons within the one man. You have the Dealer, and the Addict. The Dealer is a force to be reckoned with. He walks with confidence, king of his castle and sure in his rule. The Addict is a little less sure. A lot more unpredictable. Storming the halls with bangs from his fists, shouting nonsense until he tires. Everyone fears the Addict, when if fact there was a secret third person that should hold their terror. The Narcoleptic.

The dealer set the scene, turning his Kings suite into a lab of sorts to… ‘refine his product’ we shall say. The protagonist enters the scene shortly after, of course it is only sensible to sample your wares. To ensure your customers are receiving the best product. But you see, the protagonist left the door open for the antagonist to follow him through.

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“Sleep.” The antagonist whispers. “You have been so very hard at work, that sticky grey couch looks like the perfect spot to rest your eyes.” The protagonist of course, is an idiot. He follows the Narcoleptic's whispers blindly and without thought. the open flame that is part of the ‘refining process’ is a hairs breath to close to the curtains (an original feature). They spark like a tinder box and the rest, as they say, is history. I have the full story as the officers assigned to the case were kind enough to discuss it in the remains of my once grand foyer. My picture window is long gone. Though I am not long for this world, I pride myself in the fact that I have outlived an adulteress, a murderer, a lush, a drug dealer and one truly appalling console table!

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So, there you have it. I think you can agree, most should count themselves very lucky indeed. That us walls can in fact, not talk.