Power Games

That night Adam, Mitch and I all have dinner together at my place as Mitch brings over Chinese which even Adam didn’t know about being in Yellow Peak.

“So heard from Danny today?” I ask the boys because I haven’t heard anything today “Yeah, I did he picked up the boys from school and seemed really good, he took the day off and went fishing out at the river so he seemed pretty fine to me and Tash was about so I guess he’s playing dumb”.

“Can I ask a favour from one of you two tonight?” I ask realising that my car is still parked at the mine, “My car is still at the mine and I need to grab it to do something in the morning” they both look at me strangely before Mitch says that he will help me.

‘So, what is it that you need to do tomorrow?” Adam asks as I sit and finish eating “Nothing important, I just need to go out to Sapphire Ridge to pick up some fitness equipment that’s all” the response isn’t fully believed by Adam and Mitch but they reluctantly accept it.

Finishing dinner, Mitch sits there for a minute “You’re going to Grantham tomorrow aren’t you” he says looking at me throwing out his box. “What makes you think that?” I avoid the question as he looks at me. “Well I told you to talk to your father and then tomorrow morning you need to pick up your car, it doesn’t take a genius to work out what you’re doing”.

I roll my eyes “What if I was going down there, which I’m not?” my defensiveness about the situation sets Mitch off. “Why are you lying to me about going there? I told you that you probably would need to talk to your father about this situation so I’m not going to be angry, alright?”

Sighing I sit back down “Well just thought that you would be talking me out of it rather than encouraging me because I know that Adam would be doing just that”. Mitch laughs “Well, I’m not Adam, am I? I’ve been with you all through this and I am going to see this through to the end with you”.

I hug Mitch as we start to head out to the car “I’m coming with you” he says as I get into the passenger’s seat. “It’s not your battle to come with me for, I need to talk to my father alone and just settle this situation” Mitch looks at me and shakes his head not really approving of me going alone but at the same time reluctantly agrees. “I won’t come with you to the meeting, but at the very least let me come to Grantham with you and we can debrief straight afterwards”.

Driving to the mine, we change topics a bit and talk about various things until we get to the mine where Mitch drops me off. “I’ll ring you in the morning and see what you want to do ok?” he says to me as he slaps me on the arse “Night hot stuff”. I laugh and say goodnight before getting in my car and driving home.

I head straight to bed and set my alarm for 6:30 to make sure that I am up and ready in plenty of time. I send a text to Mitch “Bring all the paperwork with you and we can get breakfast in Grantham and set out a plan” his reply is a thumbs up.

The next morning, I take a shower and get ready to go see my father, I have a quick breakfast before driving to Mitch’s place to meet up with him. He’s still getting ready as I knock on the door “Hey man, come in” I wander in and look at his amazing body which he’s shaved since the last time we got naked together.

He finishes getting ready and he gives me the paperwork that I would need Dad to sign so that he can stop Brendan from selling the house and gives me a few other things that I can get Dad to sign if I want to take him for a lot more than just stopping Brendan.

We drive down to Grantham separately but talk on speakerphone the entire way, my nervousness starting to get the better of me as I realise that this isn’t the greatest idea that I have ever had. Mitch reassures me until we park in the city and head to a Café that I always used to go to which is near my old apartment.

“Nice part of town here, plenty of good things to look at,” he says checking out both the girls and the guys walking around. I elbow him “concentrate on things alright?” I laugh as he goes through what my plan should be and then reassures me that I can handle all this.

I leave him to explore Grantham a while as I drive out to the family estate where I’m meeting Dad, I pull up to the gate; My key card is no longer Valid to get through, I push the intercom button and wait “It’s Isaac here to see Dad”, the gate opens up and I drive up and park right behind my old car that is still sitting in my family spot.

Dad comes out and meets me at the front door “Isaac, it’s good to see you” he puts his hand out and he seems genuinely glad to see me. We walk in and sit down in the living room “Before we talk about absolutely anything, I need your guarantee that Brendan isn’t here or that he isn’t listening in to this conversation”.

“This is just between you and me Isaac, nobody else is here except for your mother but she is down by the lake with Mrs Hamilton” I give him a look that is still is distrusting. “I guarantee that Brendan is not here and that the only two people that know about this conversation other than you and me,” he says as I nod and agree.

The housekeeper brings out Coffee and snacks for us to have as we walk “So what was the urgency with the meeting?” my father asks as he takes a drink of coffee. The tension in the room is slowly building “I need you to stop selling my place in Yellow Peak”.

My father looks at me strangely “What on earth are you talking about Isaac, nobody is trying to sell your house?”. My instant thought is to not believe him at all “Why should I believe that?  A real estate agent turned up yesterday morning and was there trying to list my house and looking for Brendan to sell”.

I sit there as my father looks totally shocked over it all “Brendan is doing what?” he says and I realise that he doesn’t know about what he is doing. “Apparently because the house is technically owned by the trust rather than me personally, I don’t actually have any control over whether it’s sold or not which is why I came to see you to know why it’s happening and to get you to sign this” I pull out the paperwork that my father needs to sign to block it from happening.

“What is this Isaac?” he asks as he looks at it and reads through the form. “It is a form to override any actions that Brendan takes in trying to sell the house in Yellow Peak, Brendan is merely manager, you are the trust holder and can block anything to stop Brendan”.

My father looks at me “You really like it in Yellow Peak, don’t you?” he says with a sense of proudness. I sit there nodding “I know it’s nothing like Grantham and what I had here at home but I’ve learnt a lot about life and myself out there and I realise that how I acted here was selfish and was terrible”.

My father sits there and nods “I will sign it Isaac but there are conditions that I want you to meet for me and you can do that then I will ensure that the house is fully signed over into your name at the completion” he says as I sit there and nod.

“I want you to finish college first and then if you do that without getting into trouble then I will ensure that the house gets put into your name,” he says which I can agree with and in all honesty, I wanted to finish as well. My father signs the document and hands it back to me “Thank You Dad” I put the piece of paperwork back into the folder I brought with me.

“There are quite a few other things though that we need to talk about and again they involve Brendan,” I say as my father rolls his eyes. “Now I know why you didn’t want him here, what is this problem?”.

“Brendan is the god damn problem; he is still constantly on my back continuously spying on me and using somebody else to keep track of me in Yellow Peak” sitting there I say getting frustrated by the situation. “What do you know about Natasha O’Sullivan?” I ask as he sits there with a confused look on his face.

“Robert’s daughter? Brendan’s ex-girlfriend? What does she have to do with anything?” he asks not getting why I am bringing her up. “A couple of weeks ago, my neighbour Adam and Danny, you remember from the mine, helped organise a Barbeque at my house so that I could be welcomed into town by a few selected people and whilst we were there another friend Mitch spotted somebody out the front of my house, when he came to get me the person was gone but a car was still there watching”.

I continue “I went to the car and as I did it sped off” my father sits there nodding, throwing his head back getting frustrated and it’s becoming evident that he didn’t know anything. “A few days later the car returned and again was sitting outside of my house when I came home from work, this time I managed to get a picture of the plates it had".

“Using a friend’s connections, he helped me discover who the car belonged to and I need you to see this” I give him the piece of paper that Mitch printed off for me with the registration and he reads through it.

“What the hell is all this?” he says as he throws the piece of paper onto the table and stands up. “I was hoping that you could tell me because you’re close with the O’Sullivan’s” my father pacing around the room. “I’ve never heard of this company or any of this” sitting there I can see him getting upset about it all and his frustration with Brendan growing.

“How can you not about any of this, at the mine you admitted to me that you knew Yellow Peak was meant to be a challenge for me so how can I expect that you didn’t know anything about this?” my voice getting raised as my father looks at me. “You wanted me to prove myself to everyone and what you don’t expect me to believe that you weren’t keeping tabs on me to either see me fail or find some excuse not to get through all this?”.

Standing there my father looks insulted “I never wanted to spy on you 24/7, I wanted you to have your own space and as I said, I didn’t know Brendan had organised for you to go to Yellow Peak until after he told me that you had moved out there and I honestly didn’t tell him to keep tabs on you and I especially did not know about this company”.

I sit there and believe that he didn’t know about the company especially with how many hoops that Mitch had to go through to even find the ownership of the company. “So again, tell me what you know about Natasha O’Sullivan”.

My father looks at me “I have no idea what is going on about her life, Robert barely mentions her at anything and says that she brings the kids for a visit every so often but then goes off back to Sapphire Ridge where she’s been living”. I look at him as he keeps talking “All I know is that after a few issues with Brendan she moved out to Sapphire Ridge and had very little to do with anyone, but going by the look on your face I guess that it wasn’t Sapphire Ridge and clearly she hasn’t stopped seeing your brother”.

I shake my head as he gets furious “Fucking hell, I’m glad that he resigned because I could fucking kill him right now”. He sits there and looks at me “Did you have anything to do with that leak?” I shake my head “Nope, wasn’t me and I don’t know where you think I could do that” the tension in the air is mounting significantly.

“So what else do you know?” he asks me as he looks across the room. ”Natasha O’Sullivan is living in Yellow Peak as Tash Jenkins and she is married to Danny, as in my mate Danny’s wife and he has no idea about her past or any of this and the fact that she is cheating on him with Brendan”. My father lets out a massive sigh “I’ve got something I need to play you”.

I get out my phone and play the phone call that we had yesterday about her threatening me to leave town and the fact that Brendan was there upsets him even more. Sitting down again he looks across at me “I’m sorry Isaac, I never expected him to stop to this sort of level… EVER” my father looks across at me almost in tears, the sense of disappointment and sadness he has right now is evident because he tried to play this game where everything was happy families from the outside but he realised that his family were in a civil war with each other.

Brendan aiming to build a legacy for Dad, Sarah trying to get everything for nothing, Nick is too dumb to think on his own and just follow in Brendan and Sarah’s path. Then Eliza not really having much interest in politics but being more interested in helping people as a doctor and then me who was more interested in fun and not being a Keppel than anything more in the world.

“Thank you for coming today Isaac and I can understand why you didn’t want Brendan here after venting everything that you have today and I can see that he has been trouble for you since your move” I don’t know whether my father is being genuine but I would like to think that he was when he said everything today.

He stands up and tells me that he has several briefings to handle that he put off to see me but he would like me to come back more often to visit and that he is sorry for everything. As I start to leave, Brendan comes through the door and walks into the living room and looks at me “What the fuck are you doing here?” he says raising his voice.

“Honestly, I came here to speak to Dad about certain things and it was his idea for me to come here when I rang yesterday” Brendan is getting aggressive. “You have no right to swan in here after everything that you have done and think that you can just get a free passage back into the family”.

Dad wanders into the room having heard Brendan coming in “I invited Isaac here because he wanted to talk to me and I’m glad that you’re here because there are plenty of things that we need to talk about Brendan such as trying to sell Isaac’s house?”

Brendan looks across at me “It’s not Isaac’s house, it belongs to the trust and given the fact that it belongs to the trust I can sell any unused assets” his voice is frustrated as I look across at both him and Dad.

“No, it doesn’t actually, Dad signed an override to your decision to sell my house” Brendan’s smug look drops as he looks at my father. “What the fuck are you on about Isaac? Dad wouldn’t be signing over that house to you after everything you’ve done and ruining the campaign for him”.

Dad looks at me as I nod and admit that I did know about leaking the information about both Brendan and Sarah. “You directly lied to me Isaac, what was that about making the changes for the good?” I stand there and look back across at him “Yeah I did lie about knowing about the leaks but it was because both Brendan and Sarah knew about everything going on in my life and spying on me” I say standing there. Dad doesn’t look impressed at me but nods “Seems like you did learn something from the political game” he says trying not to smile as I admit to using the information to deflect back onto my opponent to discredit them.

Brendan stands there “You’re ok with this?” surprised that Dad is taking my side; “Are you serious right now Brendan? You organised all this so that Isaac could fail in Yellow Peak and then when you knew that he was handling himself, you went out of your way to cause trouble for him by using Natasha who I know you’re still seeing and having an affair with despite her being married” my father is on a tirade towards Brendan at the moment.

“You then tried to sell the house out from under Isaac because you wanted payback for your own personal mistakes which he exposed, now that I know, I’ve had enough of your antics behind my back,” my father says to Brendan who looks across at me glaring.

“Fuck you, Isaac, I only did this to protect the family name that you were more interested in trashing every single fucking time you thought about yourself” Brendan is getting aggressive as Dad just stands there as he continues to yell at me. “I covered everything up for you Isaac and quite quickly I can undo that” my brother looks across at me as my father shouts.

“ENOUGH BOTH OF YOU” he stands there looking at both of us “Brendan you have been an absolute dickhead through all this, you’re a self-centred child that is thinking about himself rather than this family aren’t you?”

“And you Isaac, the number of times you embarrassed me with your escapades, yes I can get that you don’t want anything to do with the politics game and you didn’t have to, but the very fact that you did what you did all the time was embarrassing” I nod my head, feeling guilty about everything that has happened.

“None of you have been cleanskins in all this so there is nothing more that I can say now other than the fact that you are disappointing me” my father stands there and looks across at both of us. I stand there “I apologise for everything that has happened between us and everything I’ve done. My behaviour has been totally unacceptable and I learnt that I should’ve handled things a lot better than I did”.

Brendan stands there and rolls his eyes “Are you going to say anything Brendan?” my dad asks as he doesn’t look like he wants to say anything but ultimately he doesn’t say anything. “I’m sorry that he brought this all on you Dad, I was only trying to make sure he didn’t cause trouble again,” he says as I walk out of the room and head straight to my car.

Dad walks out of the room up to take a briefing and Brendan walks out to me “Dad is pissed off with me because of you” he says as I turn and look at him. “Don’t blame me, now if you don’t want this situation to blow up anymore, take my advice… go and pick up Tash, take her someplace nice and leave the boys with Danny and just leave me alone please and then I won’t be any more trouble”.

I leave Brendan and drive off ringing Mitch “Hey, meet you in the park, we need to talk about what happened,” I say as he asks “Good or Bad result. I sit there and sigh “Both, but with Dad, it’s what I wanted” as I start to drive back to Grantham to meet Mitch. The end of the tunnel is just about there.