Isabelle came to them with two bowls of fruit and two glasses of orange juice. "There, and I've aired your room for a few minutes."
Anna Margaret had no idea how long ago she had been let in and whether it had been possible to do all of that in that time.
"My room?" Frederick protested. "But we could have been -"
"No. She said she was on the couch. Don't be silly. I'll send someone around with dinner at about six. You won't have to worry about cooking. But I was in the area myself right now."
"Thanks," said Anna Margaret, but Frederick kept looking put out that his room had been aired.
"What was that?" she asked when Isabelle was gone. She had not expected him to be so silly. "You don't like her going into your room?"
"Bedrooms are private. She should know."
"Why?"
"When I was young, I - never mind."
"Who walked in on whom?"
"Who was doing things when I was young? How could you even wonder? She was."
"All right. But she knew I wasn't there." She leant towards the table and drank the orange juice. "She probably went there to find you, not to peek into your room."
Around six o'clock, as Isabelle had said, someone came to the house with a tray and a bag. Frederick went to open the door.
"A tray," Anna Margaret said when she had dragged herself to the kitchen. "And are they going to pick it up afterwards?" She could not see anyone waiting for it, but perhaps they were trained to be invisible.
"No," said Frederick. "And here's another blanket."
Anna Margaret lifted the lid off the tray. "I'm not sure I'm hungry, but we cannot not eat it. They went through so much trouble."
"You need to eat at least a bit for the baby."
"I have reserves," she protested. "It was brought to my attention that I have plenty of reserves."
"I'm too sick to know what you mean."
"It means I get emails calling me fat."
"Fat?"
"Even you -"
"But I didn't mean that!"
"Yeah, I know," she smiled. "And it's one of the more innocent types of emails, so I don't really care."
She watched how Frederick got an extra plate. The thing under the tray was a kind of plate as well. Ordinarily it would not be enough for two, but given that they were ill Isabelle had probably instructed the staff to prepare a smaller portion. There were two closed containers with soup, however.
After the soup she tried a few bites of the food, but she could not manage much. The television was still on and they watched a news show. Frederick wrapped himself in the blanket his sister had sent over and Anna Margaret had the other one.
Apparently after visiting them, Isabelle had been to a military parade where she had not looked well. Anna Margaret was worried. "That wasn't because of us, was it?"
"Can someone pick it up that fast, whatever we have?"
She wanted to feel relieved. "I doubt it. Maybe you both got it in the same place? If she's got anything at all. It looks as if she only sat down a lot, which may not mean she felt ill. I may have to request a high stool for debates as well in a few weeks."
"She might have to go public with it soon." He picked up his laptop.
"What are you doing? You're not going to do it for her, are you?"
"This morning my secretariat posted that I had to cancel my appointment, but that was on the general family page. I maintain my own page, but I haven't said anything about it there. I'll just see what the general tone of the reactions is."
"Why do you maintain your own page?" She would think that a lot of work, unless he posted only once a week when he actually had a work visit or lunch.
"So I can block deranged people. If you look at the official family page, it's full of nasty comments. I'm not sure why they don't get deleted. I do that on my own page." He typed something.
"What are you typing?"
"That unfortunately I was ill today, but that you were too."
"How often do you post?"
"I post after I've been somewhere in an official capacity."
"Which is pretty infrequently. So if you post you spent the day on the couch, you're bound to get people saying you spend all week on the couch."
"Do you think so?"
"Yes. Trolls are predictable. I get my fair share of them. Maybe you should write a bit more now and then and give an impression of what you really do."
"And then what?"
"I don't know. But no one is going to imagine you do a lot of other things if you don't write about them. Have you posted it yet?"
"No, I was still typing."
"What were you doing yesterday morning before you started to feel sick?"
"I went running, I had breakfast with you and then inspected the lake project on site. After lunch I compared the prices of office furniture, although I was feeling unwell by then."
"Write that," Anna Margaret advised.
"Why?"
"Try it for once."
"But it's so much longer than what I usually write."
"People read your page to have something to read, no? How could they complain if you actually give them more text? But if you think it's too much at once, try a picture of the rowing lake first and say you went there yesterday and that it's progressing according to plan - if it is."
"You're probably better tomorrow," he decided. "You have too many ideas."
"I could - and should - probably get my own laptop to check my email," she said with regret, feeling she was shirking her responsibilities. "I feel as if I might be able to compose articulate replies."
The next morning neither of them went running, but Anna Margaret had set her alarm at a normal time to see if she was up for a day of work. While she was not completely recovered, she was feeling much better than the morning before. "I'll give it a try," she said.
"So will I."
"Will you do your trip today?" She tested leaving the bed.
"Yes. It was late morning yesterday, so if I phone early enough that should work. And when I get back I'll take a nap."
"You lazy thing."
"Come home and nap with me then."
"I probably can't."
That was right: there was a debate. "Did you watch it on TV yesterday?" someone asked.
Anna Margaret smiled wryly. "No, I wasn't in control of the remote." She had completely forgotten to think of the debate anyway. It was not one she was expected to get involved in.
Today's debate was not much different and she had painkillers and tissues to get her through. She also had a cardigan to keep her warm, but she was still cold and tired by the time it ended. At least people had seen her use up two packages of paper tissues and they would know she had not stayed home without reason yesterday.
In the restaurant she chose soup for lunch, because that was at least hot and she could warm her hands.
"Your cardigan looks like a bathrobe," said Louis.
"It's open and it's not as long!" But she checked it anyway. It did not look like a bathrobe.
"It wasn't my opinion. I just read it on Twitter."
"Twitter." She sighed. "People watch live debates for what we are wearing?"
"And yesterday, was this the normal flu, or..."
"Or the beginning of the end, you mean? I think it was a normal heavy cold." She did not think it was related to her pregnancy or even made worse by it.
Other people joined them and Louis was forced to give up that subject. Not all of them knew about her pregnancy yet. She was glad for his consideration.
"I read on your hubby's Facebook that he was ill," said the Pitbull.
Anna Margaret thoughtfully twisted a strand of hair around her finger until pulling on her hair made her shiver. "My hubby," she said with some distaste. "I hope he didn't use a similar term for me?"
"No."
"Good. But yes, he was ill. You follow him on Facebook? On his official or his personal account?"
"Er...he has two? It's in the name of Prince Frederick. There's another?"
She did not doubt he would start to look for it immediately. "Apparently. I don't have one myself, so I haven't looked for it. You'll have to ask him."
"Do you mean you don't write the Prime Minister's own posts?"
"Nope."
"But he does write Prince Frederick's own posts?"
"He's been doing that for a few months, I think."
"I thought he might only have done yesterday's one, because it was a bit different."
"I told him to experiment." She tasted her soup and ate some.
"Is he better? I have someone who could be of use to him."
"Yes, although by now he might be taking a nap."
"Great, I'll contact him." The Pitbull moved on.
He was not the only one who thought she had an intriguing husband. Now she had to satisfy the curiosity of the rest of the table, who all wondered what a staunch republican like the Pitbull could want with a prince.
"You're not looking it up on Facebook now, Sarah?" Anna Margaret asked one of her companions who had suddenly taken out her phone.
"I was. I met him, you know. You let us ask him questions."
"Oh right." Now that Sarah mentioned it, she remembered. "The phone call." She had asked Sarah about it at the time.
"Did your father ever find out?"
"Who answered the phone, you mean? No."
"I'm glad he did it, though. It made him look different."
"No doubt."
"You don't like talking about him."
Anna Margaret examined herself. She was not really opposed to it, she thought. "I don't know where it's going if I do. Some things are not for public consumption."
"I guess. On the other hand, you get people like my mother-in-law who think your marriage is a fake because you never go anywhere together."
"I suppose your mother-in-law doesn't live in my neighbourhood." She supposed anyone in their street could see them together if they kept an eye out.
"No."
"We often go shopping together on Saturday. And we go running together almost every morning. It's just not very...glamorous, I suppose. And yesterday we spent half the day on the couch together. We don't eat out and we don't go to parties, so it's all very boring. What would be the point of faking a marriage?"
"She's into conspiracy theories," Sarah said with a shrug. "I try not to encourage her. She's probably read it somewhere. If you don't provide a little news they will make it up."
"I'm not really bothered unless it's too outrageous."
"By the way," said Sarah after a few moments. "You know one of my committees has begun to look into maternity leave for ministers..."
She did. They had discussed this in their Women in Politics Workgroup after Danielle had raised the issue a few weeks ago. She had stayed silent about herself so far and she had not said much about it in general either. "And...?"
"Most of the young people are all for it, but people like Rita would vote against."
"Rita..." Anna Margaret said with a sigh.
"She says that theoretically a minister could be appointed and never work at all in those four years."
"Including parental leave, I suppose? But she's never looked into it what it actually entails? Such as how many hours you could take off?"
"No, apparently not. She argues that four months of maternity leave, followed by six months of parental leave, followed by four months of the next baby's maternity leave..."
"She does have a point if parental leave is allowed and someone takes the maximum - although even then they would still need to work - and they breed constantly but I doubt that would occur in practice."
"Theoretically we could also appoint one man after the other who die of heart attacks," said Sarah. "But she said it was not the same. Women, when they have babies, bow to the patriarchy."
Anna Margaret studied her soup in bemusement. "Er, really. Has she got therapy yet?"
"She is of the opinion that if someone takes on such a highly important task for four years, she ought to refrain from getting pregnant. And that you should have made a thorough risk assessment of the prospective ministers before they were appointed."
"I did," Anna Margaret said with a guffaw. "But based on other criteria. Whether they were sane and whether they were likely to blow up, and so on." Rita was going to blow up if she found out, assuming that she did not already know. All the ministers knew, but she did not know if any of them had talked. "I thought this crap would come from men. The same who protested when I was made Minister for Transport."
"It does too. You continue to be dangerous. Anyone under forty."
They might have to stretch that up a bit, she commented silently. She blew her nose. "So women who have babies are evil?"
"Oh no, just dumb," Sarah said cheerfully.
Anna Margaret knew she had two or three children. More than one, at any rate, but they were no longer small. "After the birth? Or when does this set in exactly?"
"Conception, probably."
"Does someone recover from this loss of brain cells, or are they forever impaired?"
"I asked the same thing, but she couldn't very well insult me to my face. Although she was, but she wasn't realising it. Apparently you recover some of your brain cells when they go to school, so I got a few back. But it's still a sign of mental instability to want to stay home if one of the children is ill."
"Oh." Anna Margaret finished her soup. Something occurred to her that was quite similar. "And how about going to a child's school if the child has a problem that needs to be sorted?"
"Surely that cannot be more important than work?"
She tapped the spoon against her mouth. "Poor Rita, living in a country where the queen prioritises visiting her child's school over discussing things with the prime minister. But then, the queen is a mother of so many children that her brain cells have probably suffered irreparable damage."
"She stood you up?"
"No, I had to go with her. When we were supposed to do country business we were sitting drinking coffee in a teachers' lounge."
"Rita would be appalled."
"It would so prove her point. Let's not tell her. Let her think we are really stable and committed and we have compartmentalised the family in another section of our minds that only opens up when we go home." She paused. The only other person at the table was Louis and he already knew. He had let them talk, perhaps guessing wisely that he should not interfere. "Had you heard anything? About me?"
"I hear a lot."
"Not from your mother-in-law. I mean around here." She gestured vaguely around the restaurant, although she meant the entire government district.
"Related to...?"
She nodded.
"Once or twice someone speculated," Sarah said carefully. "Different clothes and all that. Although you recently had some trousers again."
Anna Margaret pulled her cardigan closer. Not because she was trying to hide anything, but because she felt cold. "Yes, I've been shopping. But what people said might have been right, depending on what they said."
"Er," said Louis.
"What? Don't mention my brain cells, thanks." She turned back to Sarah. "But yes. I'm not saying when, because I'd like to avoid the issue of maternity leave altogether. I knew there'd be people against whatever I'd decide, so I'd rather not give outsiders any say in when I should go. But you don't seem surprised."
"Well, my husband predicted it back in June."
"He did? But he didn't tell his mother."
Sarah laughed. "No, his mother has no idea I met the king. There are some things you just can't tell her. But I told him - and I told him exactly what was said and so he jumped to certain conclusions, which he felt were justified when you began to wear wider blouses. Men pay attention to such things."
"Apparently." Anna Margaret raised her eyebrows. She thought she had never worn really figure-hugging blouses in the first place, just ordinary ones. "Now I'm wondering what was said. Wasn't it simply 'do you have illegitimate children?' and then 'no, I was never alone with women and besides, my sister doesn't approve?' But it took too long for that."
"It was quite close to that," said Sarah, looking impressed. "A bit wimpy, wasn't it? Nobody bought it at first, but you can't say that to a king, can you? You can only look underwhelmed. He explained what his sister would not like and that did make a little more sense than a grown man saying he wouldn't do something because his sister wouldn't approve."
"She's ten years older. They are not always equals."
"But he did have ideas of his own, so he started to look better as he went along. Oh, there's Rita."
Anna Margaret resisted the urge to look over her shoulder. It might be misconstrued as an invitation.
Rita came anyway. "Well, Your Royal Highness, or can we still say Miss Rendinger if you lunch in the company restaurant off a plastic tray?"
"Anna Margaret will suffice, thanks." She wished she had bought more food to concentrate on, but she was still not very hungry today. Soup had at least been easy to swallow. Now she only had an empty bowl and a spoon to play with and she could not feign being busy.
Rita sat down in the empty chair. "I've heard some rumours," she said.
"Oh?"
"But first, I don't think it's appropriate for you to take a title."
"Well, isn't it fortunate that I don't want one?" She tried to sound polite. Rita, though annoying at times, had always sort of approved of her, she had felt, until Frederick, who was the exponent of the obsolete money-guzzling institution that was the monarchy.
"I have heard..." Rita lowered her voice. "You might be taking maternity leave."
Of course the first thing people talked about when someone might be pregnant was that, exactly. "I can't," Anna Margaret answered. "The proposal is still in its research stage. There is no such law yet. Sarah was just telling me about it."
"I doubt it will be passed. However..."
"Yes?" She wished she had bought a muffin or something else that was not good for her at all. She might finally be acting pregnant, because she had never before felt like eating a muffin after her soup.
"Do you realise people will not take you seriously anymore if you start having babies?" Rita articulated very clearly, as if she was speaking to someone who might otherwise not understand. "And if you take a lengthy period of time off?"
"It was brought to my attention at least five years ago, yes."
"I have said the same to Danielle. We shall never get rid of male supremacy if you get pregnant. But she didn't understand what I was saying. Power is in the hands of men. We shall never get our fair share of power if there are women who don't take their jobs seriously."
"I disagree," said Anna Margaret, although she did not want to start a discussion with Rita at all. "Maternity leave makes it possible for women to hold positions of power."
"No. Because once we introduce maternity leave for ministers, no one is going to appoint women anymore."
"And if we don't introduce maternity leave, women will refrain from getting pregnant?"
"Yes. You -"
"That doesn't seem to be the case in practice." What with two pregnant members of the cabinet who had no maternity leave.
"Do you realise that if someone is appointed just before her maternity leave and she takes parental leave and -"
"And she breeds constantly, she's hardly ever at work?" Anna Margaret cut in. "Yes, that could happen. But there are a lot of things that could happen. Your point is that no one should get pregnant at all. I don't know what your issues are precisely, but I don't think I have time for them."
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