The minute Tristan walks into his home, he knows Ife is not there. He didn’t expect she’d be, he hoped she would, so they can talk, but he did not expect she would be. He spent the night with Zainab, Rellie and Jacob war gaming the fallout from the story about to break but they came up short. He called the children and asked them to come home they have a lot to talk about and not enough time to beat the story; he cannot let them hear all about the affair from the tabloids. He’d expected the news to break this morning but so far, the papers are running with the story of some Tory and sleaze…it feels very much like the calm before the storm. And that storm is closing in.
He stopped by his parent’s home this morning, and he got into it with his father; things got very ugly and his mother was caught in the middle as she always is when it comes to his tetchy relationship with his father. For much of her life Josephine has stood as a shield enduring the grenade lobbed by his father and grandfather. What the public don’t see is the other side of Tristan Walden II; the tyrannical dictatorial side. The world saw the statesman and the national hero, but not the bastard husband and the worst father. Last night was no different; when he told his father he wanted to come clean, things went nuclear and he forbade him from doing any such thing. Instead, he’d called in the crisis team to game plan how to handle the scandal about to hit.
‘Tristan I am so sorry.’ Josephine could not allow her son leave like this, there is enough bad blood between him and his father.
‘Mum, you have nothing to be sorry about, this is my mess.’
‘I tried to shield you from this. From him. You are married to Ife because of me, I know what Evelyn did for me. I’ve always known my darling boy and I am so sorry I held you back because I didn’t want to expose you to their wrath.’
‘Mum…’
‘Tristan, you deserve a chance to be yourself and to be happy. All your life, from the moment you could, I have prevented you from being that and I know you have protected me from ire of the family, but that is not your job my darling son, and I am so sorry to have burdened you with that.’
‘No mum it is not a burden to protect you and you have done nothing wrong.’ He laughed a little, sadly, ‘I’m a big boy and I can handle myself. I did this to my wife, and I must live with the consequences.’
‘What do you want to do?’ Josephine asks her son. ‘Whatever it is you want to do, I will support you. I will always have your back. What do you want Tristan?’ She looks earnestly into her son’s troubled eyes that also show the fear of reality setting in. He was terrified. She knows that feeling, has known it since marrying into a family whose matriarch had no liking for her, whose patriarch treated her like she didn’t exist until the birth of her son. Her in-laws never cared for their son’s choice of wife, from the moment he brought her home to introduce her to his family, they couldn’t care less. Except for Charlotte, Tristian’s sister, who had been an ally to her over the years. She like most everyone was often dismissed by her family. Tristan was the golden boy, boy being the operative word, and they gave him everything, poor Charlotte felt like a spare part that would never be in use. Her achievements are never celebrated, her career never championed… eventually, having had enough of the toxicity, she left, moved to the other side of the world with her husband and children and has never been back. Fifteen years and counting. She kept in regular contact with Josephine, who confided all her secrets in her. Including that of her son. Since losing her best friend, Evelyn, five years ago Josephine has been left unanchored like driftwood on stormy waters and it is all about to come to a head. Her parents were two of the victims of the volcanic eruption that made her an orphan and a refugee until she was brought over to England to begin her life in foster, as a child of the system. She had to make a new home without friends or kin but was saved by her intelligence. She met Evelyn in the private school she attended having been awarded a scholarship and they became the firmest of friends; she would go on to win a scholarship to Oxford, whilst Evelyn went off to Harvard, but their friendship never suffered. They’d been so close; losing her was like dying. She is truly unanchored and is either going to sink or swim with the tide and come out victorious. She is about to enter a fight to the death because she will always and forever be her son’s champion.
‘You have always babied that boy.’ Tristan said when it is just him and Josephine, Christopher, what they call their son when the family is together, has just left.
‘And you’ve become a monster to him. Same as your father is to you.’
That tone stopped Tristan in his tracks. He looked at his wife, that look in her eyes, belies the bubbling anger beneath, anger she kept suppressed over the years of her marriage. She wasn’t the wife his parents wanted for him, far from it. She wasn’t the wife he thought he would marry either; theirs was not a love match. He was never meant to marry for love, his was a life mapped out to the letter, same as his father’s was before him. His father married an aristo’s daughter, titled man of the gentry that he is, and went on to produce an heir to that aristocracy only for him, the son, to veer off the course and marry a commoner.
Tristan was betrothed to Lady Elspeth Hampton; great-granddaughter of a political titan and noble family, so this was the perfect match; it couldn’t be more perfect if they tried. Their families were in the same class, the children had the same upbringing, attended the same schools and parties etc. He was going to be a politician and he needed someone who would fit the mould. Elspeth did to a fine T. But Josephine was a friend and a tutor he met at Oxford, their friendship blossomed over books and mathematical problems she helped him solve. One thing led to another one snowy night and just after graduation she came to him and told him of what more that night led to. She was pregnant.
Tristan did what he thought was right; broke of his relationship to Elspeth and stood by Josephine.
Introducing her to his parents was the first monumental mistake.
The second, according to his father, was allowing her to keep the child.
The third; expecting this to change the course of his life.
His parents sat with Elspeth’s and an understanding was reached. Josephine and Tristan would go on to marry, whilst Elspeth would remain his betrothed. Two years after the birth of her son, he was supposed to have gotten Elspeth pregnant and the divorce between Josephine and Tristan would be announced. Six months later a small ceremony will be held for the marriage between Elspeth and Tristan because by then Elspeth should be pregnant with a right and fitting heir. They would weather the storm; this wasn’t an anomaly in their circles anyhow. However, try as they might, Elspeth could not get pregnant with the heir they so desperately needed to get his life back on track. Meanwhile Christopher, Tristan Junior, was becoming quite the darling boy, adored by his mother, her best friend Evelyn, his aunt, besides everyone who met him. Charlotte stepped in where her parents and brother fell off; she provided the familial love that did not come from the rest of the family. That love wouldn’t come until Tristan was aged six; a brilliant young boy at school to whom the teachers had taken a shine. Intelligent well beyond his year, well-mannered, and astute. Whilst Tristan carried on with Elspeth, his parents slowly fell in love with their grandson. They would never accept Josephine as a daughter-in-law, but she provided them with an heir fitting the ambitions of the family. They were besotted with him, and so a new understanding quickly emerged. They accepted that Elspeth and Tristan would only ever be lovers.
She resented him, Elspeth, she never got to marry, never lived a life outside of him and their “understanding”, her entire existence was reduced to him.
She died two weeks ago, and Tristan is living with that regret.
‘So, what are you going to do now? Disown him?’ Josephine dared.
‘If he knows what is good for him, he will shut up and stick to script before he throws his entire life away and ruin everything.’
‘Like you did?’ Josephine laughed, cold and hard. ‘He will do as he pleases, and you cannot stop him.’ She faced him, eyes full of anger it shook his core. Good. ‘I have stood by for decades without putting up a fight because I wanted to protect my son. Do not push me Tristan-’
‘Or what?’ his voice was laced with steel.
‘I will blow everything to hell. That’s a promise.’
Josephine left her husband reeling from her words; they are about to go to war, and she better suit up.
…
Their bedroom is empty and feels untouched. Tristan walks into her wardrobe and if he didn’t know her well, he would assume she simply went for a run but some of her clothes are missing. He looks in the luggage cupboard and two suitcases are gone.
‘Fuck.’ Tristian leans against the wall, thoroughly deflated. This was not supposed to happen. He saw the two letters on her dressing table, one assigned to him and the other to their children. He opens the one addressed to him and reads…
That feeling of dread gave way to confusion and fear as he read the letter. This could not be happening. Ife simply could not be revealing all this to him in a letter. He looks at the other letter addressed to the children, and he knows what is in there would devastate them. Absolutely annihilate what belief they had in them as parents.
His phone ringing in his pocket jars him out of the swirl of confusion the letter had put him in.
Rellie.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s breaking tomorrow. I’ve spoken to Alfred and the children and he’s taking them away for a bit.’
‘You’d better come here because we have bigger fish to fry.’
Rellie should have asked what fish because this is as big a fish as it gets, she should have asked the question, but she didn’t and that was when everything sunk in for Tristan.