If walls could talk

"If walls could speak." I've heard it said many times, especially about older places. Just because some walls are new, however, doesn't mean they'd have nothing to say. I was partly rebuilt. My structure is both old and new due to some recent building work. Apparently old walls see more interesting moments, listened to centuries of arguments, conversations, secrets being exchanged, families growing and shrinking. Depends on the room you're a wall of.

In my case it's an office. I speak as the wall that faces the door way. I see all the clients, witness the meetings, the disputes, the documents being signed, parties being planned. I have a column of new bricks. A bit like having a skin graft or wearing a new outfit, it's all still the same. Just some fresh additions.

Mounted upon me is a portrait. The master of the house and founder of Tower's Paint, the family business (The height of taste), a framed advert reads on the wall opposite me.

James Tower formulated the fast-drying emulsion back in 1969. The popularity grew rapidly. From the dusty wooden shelves of the village garden center to three of the nation's biggest hardware chains within the space of three years. The money made itself. The numbers grew as quickly the shade varieties. From the safest options of Brilliant White, Vanilla and Frosty Pink to the interior demands of every decade that followed; Electric Blue, Avocado, Burnt Peach and Tower's best-selling Chilled Lemon of the 80's, enabling the Tower's to up-size to a Georgian manor of which I am a part.

Walls are important. Without walls, there is nothing to paint, nowhere to mount works of art, framed certificates, portraits, sconces or paste decorative paper onto.

I am the most important wall of the house. And two weeks ago, I became even more important and needed than ever before.

Romilda Gordon came to Tower's Paint as a secretary. James was a handsome, single business owner with an expanding wallet and alluringly large side burns. Romilda was a girl with ideas. Not to mention long, centre-parted hair, freckles and spectacles as round as saucers that enhanced her eyes. Blue eyes, James had noticed when she sat down for her interview.

"Atlantic." James said with a smile.

"Pardon?" Romilda grinned.

James offered her a Woodbine from a tin on the coffee table. "Atlantic," he repeated. "Your eyes just gave me an idea for a paint shade. That's what I'd like to call it."

Romilda blushed. "Blue paint is a market all of its own," she replied, watching James's face light up, already impressed. "You should make it a collection of blue shades, not just one."

James shrugged, reclaiming his nonchalance. "Your idea, of course, not mine." Romilda said, and handed him her CSE results along with a cover letter.

Three months later, on a warm, grey Friday in October 1976, the freckled young secretary became Romilda Tower and Tower's Paint pioneered the timeless campaign of paint shade collections.

James loved his wife's ideas. His shareholders did, not to mention their customers.

Tower's Paint was across Europe by 1998 with talk of America jumping aboard before the arrival of the millennium.

Their three sons grew up, the youngest of whom, Marty, spent two stints in London's Priory Clinic before being found on his twenty-eighth birthday in a Manila hostel, needle in his arm, eyes lifeless. Jack was the eldest and had a wife, sons of his own and countless girlfriends. His appeal barely existent despite years of botox, whitened teeth and a string of personal trainers. George, middle baby, remained at home, stifled by vulnerability under the protective watch of his mother.

Romilda became the engine of Tower's Paint. The ideas person, the marketing person, the accountant, chief negotiator and even the tea-girl. Every employee knew her well. Her warmth and loyalty hovered around her like a perfume. The business was strong thanks to her.

James, however, found whisky. His need for patriarchy whittled away his decency and paternal devotion. He vanished for days on end in a blur of club lights, beer flavoured kisses and taxi rides. He'd come staggering home, vomit down his suit and lipstick on his neck while Romilda and the boys ate breakfast, their days just beginning.

James was dangerous. By 2011, money disappeared rapidly with the roll of a dice, into the elastic waistband of thongs and with the toss of a cocktail shaker. James became a bored husband who slept late, swallowed beta blockers and barely saw the wife he'd hired to simply do his accounts. Who now felt like his boss and soul provider.

It was in this office, now ruled by Romilda, that James burst in one sunny morning in May. His eyes sleepless, bloodshot. His old body synthetically stimulated yet all partied out. He was bellowing at her. He knocked expensive ornaments over and kicked the armchairs. Romilda was up on her feet, trying to placate her disorderly husband as he swore, cried and blamed her for Marty's demise.

She tried to speak to him but his angry hands found her throat. Her body began to grow limp, one of her high heels came off. Her hand searched frantically around her for something. Eventually, she reached into her breast pocket and lifted out the Mont Blanc James had given her for their 30th wedding anniversary and sunk it into his neck.

Two weeks later, James was presumed missing.

With his body safely stored, I am now the most important wall in the house and for this very reason; it is just as well that walls do not speak.