Chapter Thirty-Two #2
Tristan’s smile stayed where he’d put it. She hadn’t said anything particularly cruel. She’d been gentle about it, the way you’d talk about a series axed before the finale.
“Better Half is part of that same conversation, really,” Sarah went on.
“About how traditional ideas of what a relationship should look like are being challenged. And that’s important.
That’s necessary. But we’re allowed to mourn the old ways a little bit, aren’t we?
The version where the handsome young King marries the beautiful princess and the nation gets its lovely Royal Family, with beautiful babies every two years or so.
” She looked at Greg. “Is that an awful thing to say?”
“That’s not awful at all,” Greg said. “It’s what a lot of Brits must be feeling.”
Tristan kept his gaze soft and his breathing steady, even though he wanted to lean into the camera and tell them, live, exactly how wrong they had it.
They talked as though James were a man diminished by the revelation of his sexuality.
Like he’d been unmanned by it, and that this new reality of James’s had reduced him from what he might have been into something lesser that the country now had to make its peace with.
Birrell didn’t let it sit.
“Can I say something about that, Greg? Because you’ve got it the wrong way round.”
Greg made an encouraging noise.
“We keep talking about the King’s announcement as a loss.
The wedding we won’t get, the version of him we don’t get.
But what he actually did was stand up in front of the entire world and tell the truth about himself, knowing exactly what it would cost him to do it.
That’s not a man settling for something less.
That’s about the bravest thing I’ve seen a public figure do in years.
And I’d put it to you that it takes more backbone than marrying a princess when you’re really after a Prince Charming, and handing the country a fairy tale at your own expense. ”
Sarah started to come in with a response, but Birrell carried straight on over her.
“This is the point of our show, isn’t it?
It’s a programme about what happens to a man when he’s taught that he absolutely needs to live within a certain little box, beholden to a person who ‘loves’ him, and so maps out his every move for him.
” Birrell spread his enormous hands. “It’s a strange thing, to me, that we want to do this to our King.
That we’d prefer him to stay in his box, stick to the storybook ending, just so we’d be more comfortable with the shape of the Royal Family that’ll be making their appearances on the balcony. ”
A murmur of discomfort moved across the rows.
“He’s twenty-seven,” Birrell said. “There’ll be a royal wedding.
I’d put money on it. It just won’t look the way we’re all used to it looking, and I can’t see why that should ruin anyone’s morning.
You only have to remember that wedding last summer.
There’s the posh blond who married the boxer, Lex Murphy.
There was half the establishment under one marquee, the Archbishop, the King himself.
Nobody stood about mourning the loss of tradition there.
Everyone had a perfectly lovely day and ate the cake by all accounts. ”
The corner of Tristan’s mouth twitched. Out here, in the world that watched morning television, it was Lex Murphy’s wedding.
Lex was the name, the two Olympic golds, the face that sold protein powder off the side of buses all over London; the Marquess of Ashworth, heir to a dukedom, came through as the handsome blond standing next to him. The boxer’s pretty plus-one.
And Lex, to his credit, had spent as long as Tristan had known them cheerfully enabling Barnaby’s conviction that he was the main event and the multi-millionaire, internationally renowned boxer was simply lucky to be in the room with him.
Barnaby believed this completely, because Lex had never once given him cause to doubt it.
Tristan knew what that looked like from the inside. James was the axis the nation turned on, and yet he oriented his days around Tristan, texting him constantly as he was shuttled between his royal duties.
“Tristan.” Greg turned to him. “You, of course, have a personal connection here, of sorts. You were close to the Princess Royal. That was widely reported while you were filming the first series of Better Half. Did you get to know the King through her?”
“Yeah. She was incredibly kind to me when I first came over to shoot the show. I was on my own in Britain, I didn’t know anyone, and she took me under her wing.
Brought me along to things, introduced me around.
She’s one of the most generous people I’ve ever met, and I got involved in some of her charities.
” That part, at least, was true. “And through her, yeah, I was lucky enough to spend a bit of time around the King. He’s a great guy.
Very funny, actually. Everyone gets glimpses of it, I guess, during his appearances.
But privately he’s got this incredibly dry sense of humour. ”
“But in terms of my read on the situation—” Tristan lifted his shoulders in a shrug.
“I mean, I’m American. I really don’t have strong opinions about your Royal Family.
I don’t have any skin in the game. Daniel told me off the other day for putting my milk in before my tea, so that tells you everything about where I stand on British institutions. ”
“Well, on that very diplomatic note,” Sarah said, her smile going bright again, “Better Half continues on Thursday at nine, and you do not want to miss it. Daniel, Tristan, thank you both so much for coming in.”
The cameras held on them, the audience clapped on cue, and Tristan sat with his arm laid along the back of the sofa and his easy smile fixed in place, having managed, across his entire appearance, to say absolutely nothing in defence of the man he loved.