The Wall in Her Favour

The Wall in Her Favour

“Sarah, why do you have to get involved in this conversation?” Matthew didn’t even turn to look at me. He stood by the window, a glass of wine in his hand, broad-shouldered and just as confident as ever, his voice low and almost gentle which, somehow, made it worse. “Andrew asked me, you see? Me. Dont bombard him with your ideas.”

Andrew Mitchell, our guest and Matthews new business partner in some logistics venture, stared down at his plate. I could see the discomfort in the way he shifted slightly in his chair, taking up his fork although it was clear he wasnt about to eat.

“I only mentioned that there are so many empty buildings in the city centre,” I replied evenly.

“Sarah.” Finally, Matthew turned, and in his eyes was that look Id learned to spot after twenty-seven years not anger but something more insidious: condescension. “Youve fed everyone, the table looks wonderful, really. Why dont you go and bring out dessert, please?”

At the table, four others sat. Andrews wife, Laura, shot me a quick glance was it sympathy I saw? Or perhaps I only imagined it. Without a word, I stood and collected a few plates, heading to the kitchen.

There I lingered for a minute by the sink, watching autumn rain trickle down the dark window, blurring the lights of the neighbouring homes in golden patches. I was fifty-two. Behind me the conversation buzzed, Matthew laughed, glasses clinked. I took the cake Id baked that morning from the fridge and carried it back in.

This was how my life went.

Our house was in a good area of a large city, where wed spent our entire married lives. Matthew had it built when the business started booming, some fifteen years ago. Big, two-storey, with a garage and a garden Id cultivated myself, since Matthew had no time and the gardener wed hired put everything in the wrong place. The house was beautiful. Guests always commented: Sarah, your home such taste. And Id smile and thank them, because the taste really was mine: every curtain, every shelf, every currant bush by the fence.

Yet, officially, the house was Matthews.

Id never worked in the proper sense of the word, not like he had. After wed met at university, I taught technical drawing at the local college for a few years. Then Daniel was born, the business began growing, we had to move, host people, attend events; I quit my job. Matthew used to say, Whats the point in that measly pay? Ill provide. And he did. Generously, never stingy, but if I needed money for something of my own, Id either have to ask or squirrel away savings from the household budget.

My jewellery-making started by accident about ten years ago, when I was stuck at our cottage for a rainy weekend and found a box of old beads Id forgotten about. By evening, Id made a necklace that turned out unexpectedly well. Then another, and another. Friends started requesting pieces, then offering to buy them. I bought tools and began working with gemstones and silver fixings. It was mine, you know? My space.

Matthew reacted to it much as he did to my tomato plants a hobby, good for me, kept me occupied.

“Those little baubles of yours,” hed sometimes say if I showed him a new piece, “but its not serious, Sarah. Where are you going to sell them, at the Sunday market?”

I never replied. What was there to say?

Daniel grew up, moved to London, married there, settled down. We saw each other on holidays. Hed call on Sundays, ask after my health; Id ask after work. Fine. We loved each other, but our lives had grown separate.

But I had no life of my own.

I had a big, beautiful home, a husband, dinner guests twice a week, charity luncheons Matthew attended for the sake of networking, me always by his side in the right dress and the right smile. I was his human business card. Respectable businessman, a good family, elegant wife, a hostess who knew how to receive. That, too, was a job just one you didnt get paid for, nor thanked for.

The letter arrived in February. A nondescript envelope from a solicitor on Builders Lane, a name I didnt know. I opened it at the kitchen table while Matthew was still in bed.

My mothers cousin, Aunt Edith Clarke, whom Id met maybe three times in life, the last at a funeral twenty years ago, had died in December. She had no children, and left me a building. Not a flat, not a patch of land a building: an old industrial unit in the city centre, a two-storey brick from the 1950s, three hundred and forty square metres. Abandoned long ago.

I read the letter through three times.

Then I called the solicitor.

Yes, Mrs. Bennett, thats correct, he confirmed. Edith left the property solely to you. The land it sits on is included too. She had it put in her name back in the nineties all above board.

Land in the city centre? I repeated.

Yes, a small plot but well situated.

I thanked him, hung up, and sat for a long time holding the letter.

I didnt mention it to Matthew. Im not even sure why. Well, really, I do know because I could already anticipate how itd go: hed visit, take a look, say it ought to be knocked down or sold, that he knew the right person for the job, and the whole thing would snowball, and once again, Id be there, smiling politely while decisions were made for me.

The first time, I went there alone, saying I was visiting a friend.

The building lay on a back street behind the old theatre, in a part of the city where Victorian townhouses mingled with 1950s council buildings and modern glass offices. The cobbled lane was quiet, trees just beginning to show buds.

It looked a dour place: peeling plaster, boarded-up ground floor windows, rusty gates. But the walls were solid. I walked around twice, touched the brick here and there, eyed the roof it held. I entered through the unlocked side door.

High ceilings. Big windows with shards of glass remaining. Upstairs, wooden beams some rotten, most still sound. The floor was old tiles, hidden beneath dust. It smelt of damp, of timber, of the past.

I stood in the middle, gazing at the patched-up ceiling through which I could see the sky.

A strange feeling crept in. Not fear or regret something like the rightness you get when you walk into a place and simply know: yes, this is mine.

The solicitor was a pleasant man in his mid-forties. It took all of two weeks to complete the paperwork. I took the documents home and slipped them into a file I kept in the spare room where I worked on my jewellery a room Matthew never entered.

My friend Jane, who Id known since school, was an estate agent. I called her and told her everything.

“Are you serious?” Janes voice faltered with disbelief.

Very.

“Sarah, thats a gold mine. Centre of town, land thats real money. You do realise?”

“I do. But I dont want to sell.”

“What then?”

I hesitated before answering.

“Jane, do you remember those art exhibitions we used to go to when we were young? The old Art House on Kings Road?”

“I do, yes.”

“Something like that. A space for people for exhibitions, for work, for learning. An art centre, as they call it now.”

Jane fell silent for longer.

“Itll take serious money, Sarah. Renovations, utilities, all thats expensive.”

“I know.”

“Have you got it?”

“Not yet. I will.”

She stopped questioning. Jane always knew when to listen and when to hold her tongue one of the many reasons I cherished her.

I went looking for the money as best I could: jewellery. Over the years, Id built up a collection. Pieces I thought were my best handmade silver pendants with British gemstones, bracelets that took weeks. Jane helped. She knew someone who ran a boutique for artisan jewellery and gifts. We agreed: Jane would supply my pieces, saying they were by a master who preferred to remain anonymous; the shop charged a small commission. The first lot sold out in three weeks.

“Sarah, you have no idea!” Jane told me, excited on the phone. “Theyre asking for more. That labradorite ring you made two years back sold within hours.”

“For how much?”

Jane named the price.

I stepped onto the balcony, suddenly needing air.

In three months I sold enough jewellery to make what once seemed an impossible sum. I put the money into an account Id set up myself at a bank near the solicitors. Matthew never knew about it.

Meanwhile, I found builders not through Matthews contacts, but on my own, meetings in cafés while he was at work. The team I hired was small: four, led by a reserved man named Peter, who looked at the building as I had, without disgust.

“Good bones,” he said, knocking a brick. “Roof needs doing, part of the ground floors to be replaced, new windows all round. Complete rewire, obviously. Four months or so, if there arent delays.”

There wont be.

Peter looked at me, neither judging nor dismissive, simply attentive.

“Alright,” he said.

Life at home rolled on. I cooked, hosted, attended Matthews functions, heard talk of investments and supply chains. Sometimes hed say something, Id nod, thinking all the while about window frames and mezzanine floors for painting storage, the right lighting for a gallery.

Matthew never noticed. I was the backdrop, and the backdrop remained unchanged.

Once, it nearly went awry. He found a receipt from a builders merchant in my bag, where Id been buying paint samples.

“Whats this?” he asked at dinner.

“Picked up a few things for the house,” I replied evenly.

“Some sort of primer?”

“I want to repaint the cellar, theres damp down there.”

He shrugged and checked his phone. In all, the exchange took thirty seconds.

Peter turned out to be excellent. He took his time where it mattered, hurried where he had to. We spoke efficiently, never with wasted words. Sometimes Id come to the site and simply stand amid the hammering and sawing, breathing in feeling something happen in my mind and body, as if the air itself had changed.

Jane came for a look in June, when windows were in and the walls made good.

“Good grief, Sarah,” she said, eyes wide with admiration. “This is going to be something beautiful.”

“It will,” I agreed.

“You decided what youll put on here? What events? You need what do they call it a concept.”

“I have. Exhibitions first local artists struggle to show their work anywhere. Workshops too. Studios for rent to those who need space. A café on the ground floor. A reading corner.”

“Youve planned this for a long time,” Jane smiled.

“Three years, in my head. I just never imagined it could be real.”

In September, I met Alice. She was selling handmade dolls at a local fair, standing behind her little table and reading a book as people strolled by. The dolls were exquisite. I stopped and picked one up.

“You make these yourself?”

“I do.”

“Long?”

“Seven years,” she told me, meeting my eye. “Do you like them?”

“Very much. Im opening a little art space, looking for people who might want to exhibit or work there.”

Alice put aside her book.

That was the start of our little company. Alice knew two artists; one brought a sculptor; the sculptor was friends with a woman who ran ceramics courses and had long wanted a suitable space. By October, my list had grown to twelve people waiting for the opening.

The money was running out. Only a handful of pieces left to sell works Id wanted to keep. Peter still needed paying for the final stage; I had to buy lighting and signage.

I sold the last piece I meant to keep for myself a set of silver and amethyst Id worked on for two years. Jane called the day after.

“Sarah, it sold within the hour. The lady who bought it said shed never seen anything like it. Asked if there was more.”

“There isnt,” I said.

“Are you upset?”

“No,” I said. And it was true.

The building opened in early November. I didnt make any fuss. Just posted in the local community forum, saying an art centre was opening, welcoming artists and visitors. The first night drew around sixty people.

Matthew was away for work. I told him Id be at Janes. Alright, Ill warm up supper, he replied.

In the gallery, I watched people how they looked at the displays, talked, picked up Alices dolls. My hands trembled, not from fear, but just because when you want something for so long and it finally happens, your body can scarcely believe it.

Peter came too. He kept to the back wall, looking around.

“Its come up well,” he said.

“Thank you so much,” I said.

“Thank you,” he replied simply.

Everything moved faster than I had hoped. Studios filled up. Ceramics courses reached full capacity. The café downstairs, run by a young woman named Sophie, opened in December and quickly became a hub for far more than just the art crowd. Local journalists covered us with a feature. Then another.

One afternoon, I bumped into the elderly man who lived across the lane.

“Youre the one who opened that?” he asked, nodding towards the building.

“I did.”

“Ive lived here all my life, and for the first time, theres somewhere to go round here. A good thing.”

I thanked him and walked on, grinning like an idiot all the way back to my car.

Matthew found out in January not from me, but from a colleague whod seen the article in the city paper, with a photo of the exhibition and my name mentioned. He brought it up at dinner.

“Sarah,” he began that night once guests had left, “have you something you want to tell me?”

I was clearing dishes, unhurried and calm.

“I do,” I agreed. “Come, Ill make us tea.”

I told him everything the inheritance, the building, the renovations, the jewellery. He listened in silence, his face unreadable his business mask.

When Id finished, he said nothing for a moment, then finally: “You kept this from me.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I met his gaze. He genuinely wanted to know, or believed he did.

“Because if Id told you before, Matt, youd have decided for me. And it wouldve become your project, not mine.”

“Thats unfair.”

“It is,” I agreed. “But sos the fact that, in twenty-seven years, youve never truly asked what I want.”

He stood, took his teacup, and stared out of the window.

“You want me to tell you Im proud of you?”

“No,” I said. “You dont have to say anything.”

He didnt.

We lived together for several more months, but a shift had happened not a dramatic break, just a silent melting, like ice beginning to thaw with no sound.

Then came the Ball.

The City Charity Ball was held every February, a major event involving local business and council bigwigs. Matthew went yearly. This year, I received a separate envelope, addressed to me. A woman from the organising committee rang to say that, for the first time, thered be an award for “New Urban Space” and that The Clarke (Id named it for Aunt Edith) was among the finalists.

“Will you attend in person?” she asked.

“I will,” I replied.

Matthew heard about the award the very day, and I didnt hide it. He looked at me oddly, as if he were glimpsing someone hed known for years, but now saw anew, and felt awkward.

“Congratulations,” he said crisply.

“Thank you.”

I bought the dress myself. Navy blue, well cut, spare of detail. And wore my own jewellery: new labradorite ring, earrings with deep red garnets.

Inside the hall, we were seated apart. Matthew, being a regular on the charity committee, sat up by the stage. I, as an award nominee, joined the other finalists. Our eyes met as I took my place. He nodded. I nodded back.

The hall was grand, an old townhouse with ornate ceilings and crystal chandeliers. It was packed smartly dressed people, music, the scent of flowers. I kept my back straight and thought: a year ago Id have been washing dishes and listening to others laughter through the wall.

When our category was announced, I stood and made my way to the stage. Each step felt slow, my legs not quite mine, but I kept my stride even.

The chairman, a dignified older man, was talking about the role of cultural spaces in the city. Then he called my name and handed me a small crystal sculpture and an envelope.

“Would you like to say a few words?” he asked.

I took the mic. The hall fell silent. I found Jane in the crowd, smiling at me; then I looked for Matthew he watched, his expression unreadable: not pride, not resentment, but something in between.

“I want to thank the people who believed in this place before it existed,” I said. “The artists, the makers, everyone who came and stayed. And my Aunt Edith, who left me more than a building.”

It wasnt long three minutes at most. The applause was warm. I returned to my seat, sculpture in hand.

Jane swept over during a break and squeezed me.

“Did you see his face?” she whispered.

“I did.”

“And?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing remarkable.”

Matthew came to find me after the speeches, during the dancing when the crowd milled about.

“Beautiful speech,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“You look good.”

“Matt,” I warned, “don’t.”

He paused.

“We need to talk. Properly.”

“I know,” I replied. “We will, at home.”

It was a long talk, not a row we were both too weary for rows, and in truth there’d hardly ever been any, just that quiet, exhausting distance where you sit beside one another yet feel invisible.

I told him I wanted a divorce.

He was silent a long while. Then: “Is there someone else?”

“No. I just want my own life.”

“You have it now, dont you?”

“I do. And I want to keep it. On my own.”

He paced the room.

“The house,” he began, “will we split it?”

“It’s in your name,” I said evenly. “But the land it stands on is mine.”

He stopped dead.

“What?”

I explained. Years ago, the land the house sits on had been registered through a relative of my mother’s Edith herself, as it turned out a fact Id only discovered while sorting through the inheritance. The solicitor pointed it out, and Id had a lawyer confirm all perfectly legal. The land was mine.

Matthew stared at me as hed never done before.

“You knew for a while?” he asked quietly.

“Since the inheritance. You kept a lot of secrets too, Matt.”

He sat.

We talked for hours. No shouting or tears. Just two tired, middle-aged people whod shared a life, now seeing each other as if for the first or last time or perhaps remembering someone theyd forgotten.

The solicitors took three months. The divorce was handled quietly, with no drama. I left the house to Matthew, but under terms my lawyer laid out precisely. The compensation went into The Clarke, expanding the café and opening a little exhibition hall upstairs.

I rented a flat small, in the same district as The Clarke. Fourth floor, view over old rooftops and a tangled lime tree, which scented the air every spring even when the windows were closed.

That first night, I woke at three, lay there and listened to the silence no voices, no footsteps, no ones breathing beside me. Just the odd car in the street and the sound of rain.

I was fifty-three. Alone, and not afraid. Somehow, that felt important.

A year went by.

By the next winter, The Clarke was thriving. Three artists used it as their studio, ceramics courses ran three times weekly and were booked up a month ahead. Sophie had created a wonderfully cosy café, all wooden tables and old city photos. On Friday evenings, a local jazz quartet played.

Alice sold all her dolls and began taking commissions. We became friends, proper friends, the sort who meet at just the right moment.

Jane would sometimes say, “Sarah, you look ten years younger. Or more.”

“I just catch up on sleep,” Id reply.

I kept making jewellery not for money, just for myself, evenings in my flat. Id turn on the lamp, set out my stones and silver and tools, and work. It was quiet my own time, nobody elses.

I bumped into Matthew by chance at the start of December. I was leaving a café near The Clarke, he was heading the opposite way. We saw each other at the same instant.

Hed aged a little in the past year, or maybe I just noticed for the first time.

“Sarah,” he said.

“Matt. Hello.”

We paused. Not awkward just a gap, as between two people who know each other long, but have nothing left to say.

“Hows things?” he asked.

“Well. You?”

“Fine.” He hesitated. “Heard youve opened your second gallery upstairs.”

“Yes, in November.”

“Good for you,” he said. And this time, it was sincere, with no hint of that old patronisation.

“Thank you.”

Another pause. He shifted his weight.

“Look,” he began, “Ive a question, business-related. Im thinking of leasing a place for a showroom, in the centre. Do you know anyone decent for renovation in that part of town?”

I looked at him. Something old stirred in me the bent towards helping, making things easier, solving problems next to him or for him. It was hard-wired into me from twenty-seven years.

I smiled.

“No, Matt,” I said calmly. “Cant help you.”

He looked a bit surprised, not hurt just surprised.

“Alright,” he said. “Understood.”

“Good luck,” I wished him.

“And to you.”

We went our separate ways. At the corner, I paused and turned up my collar. The chill was gentle, crisp, almost pleasant. From a side street, the scent of pine from the Christmas market drifted over.

Tonight, I thought, Id go to The Clarke. Alice would be hanging her new display, people would drop by. Sophie would bake, as always. Thered be jazz, and voices, and the glow of lamplight through wide windows.

I walked forward.