More Titles ~ 1

This follows the story that is still on the board, but I had to update the date in this to 2024 :-) I have all these WIPs hanging around and this one is mostly finished now, though I keep thinking of more to fill it in with

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Chapter One

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It was tiresome. Just when she thought the stupidity over one thing ended, another topic surfaced. However, Anna Margaret had finally agreed to do an interview with a more personal angle. She had told herself that was only because it was tiresome and because she now had the time.

Of course she was going to work throughout the summer to catch up, because her maternity leave was going to be over afterwards, but the summer recess allowed her to spend some time on irrelevant things like an interview. And perhaps this reluctance to speak was going to harm her at some point. It was difficult to predict. She had decided to follow her instincts and not her advisors. Women in high places should not speak about their family life too much – even her father had always said as much – because it made them look soft and weak. Yet if she never wanted to speak about it, it made her look too cold.

“Today a large part of our Olympic team said goodbye as they departed for the Games.” A photo of people saying goodbye at the central train station was shown. “By train this time, because it’s so close, and of course it’s more environmentally friendly than flying. But your spokesman said you are not going to the Olympics, Ms Rendinger,” Marion began. “Yet you are the Prime Minister.”

Her office had been nagged about that, indeed. It was only after Frederick’s participation had become known that anyone had cared to wonder if she was going. A month ago nobody had thought about it at all. “I’m not going in an official capacity, no. The Minister for Sport will be representing our country, as has always been customary.”

“But you are going as a private person?”

“Maybe.” Well, she was here and at some point she might reveal something, but she found it more difficult than she had expected to come out with details about her private life when she had always tried really hard to impress upon everybody that her private life was irrelevant to how she was doing her job.

Yes, she was going as a private person, but they would want more details about her visit as a private person than if she were going as a head of government. And she could not yet give them those details.

“Your husband and you are not often seen together, so people were wondering if you were going there to support him,” said Marion.

Anna Margaret raised her eyebrows. It was happening early on in the interview. She would have expected a little more build-up. “We’re not often seen together?” In her perception they were seen every day by dozens of people. They were all over town. They ran. They walked.

But yes, she had been shown tabloid articles that suggested they must have split up because they were never seen in each other’s company. She knew where this rumour was coming from.

“May I remind you, that in the beginning of our relationship people were worried that they would see too much of us and that it would influence my job, and now people are worried that they see too little of us? And that certain outlets have been speculating on whether we were even still together?” Anna Margaret asked.

“Yes, but is this an unrealistic question? During every state visit, you’ve been receiving the foreign visitors alone, for example. Prince Frederick only attended dinners at the Palace when you did not attend. You never attended events at the same time.”

“Yes, that.” It was clever, she supposed, to bring up something vaguely professional and not something like social occasions like parties. They would think it might make her more inclined to answer. But there had been only a few state visits in the past few months. How could they think that meant anything? “And you think it strange that we did not always attend together?”

“People have questions.”

“People should think.”

“What should they be thinking?”

“They should think: am I really supposed to believe this nonsense I’m reading?”

“But was it nonsense? You weren’t ever together at the same events, were you?”

“Yes, we were.” She could name dozens of occasions where they had been together, from going shopping to their baby’s first swim. But such ordinary happenings were paradoxically enough never a measure of being together and such ordinary happenings had always gone undisturbed. She was loath to change that, so she did not want to name one particular occasion as an example.

“Even at official events,” she said. “Not everyone may have seen that, though. But let’s look at it logically. When half of these occasions occurred, I was pregnant. The other half occurred when I’d just had a baby. Some happened within my maternity leave and theoretically I would not have needed to attend at all. What could then possibly be a logical explanation for our not attending these events at the same time?”

“I don’t know?” said Marion.

“Oh, come on. It’s not that complicated or mysterious. When I was pregnant, we divided them up. I did the obligatory daytime events. Dinners are in the evening; my husband went to the ones hosted by his sister when I did not. The planning was always coordinated with his sister. The reason for my not attending was also given in more than one case. Due to fatigue, or something like that.”

Marion looked as if this was completely unexpected.

“There was always one of us there,” Anna Margaret went on. “And after we had a baby – nobody ever wondered where is the baby? It was all where is the husband? I mean, the media did not question my having a full-day programme without a newborn baby in sight, but they did question a two-hour dinner without a husband.”

“But it would be very unusual to have a baby present, so nobody will have wondered why he wasn’t there.”

Anna Margaret wanted to scream, but she had to remain cool and composed. “Which is odd. Politicians are humans. Their children are little humans who need to be fed, whatever else is going on. My son was usually there, behind the scenes. With his father, because that is his other primary caregiver, but his father can’t breastfeed him.”

“Are you saying Prince Frederick was present at all these occasions?”

She did not understand why this was such a dramatic revelation. “Well, he may have gone out for a bit here and there and not sat right behind the door at all times, but yes. This is so logical to me that I cannot understand why reporters would jump to such stupid conclusions. They knew I had a baby. But they could not make the connection between not seeing a baby and not seeing a husband. If I’d been a male prime minister and my wife had just had a baby, there would be nobody wondering where my wife was. They would immediately assume: with the baby.”

“People might have assumed you had a professional caregiver.”

“Why would I hire someone if I’ve already got the best I could get?” Anna Margaret reasoned. “Do people also expect male prime ministers to hire professional caregivers so they can take their wives to dinners? Why do they expect it from a woman? I’m very fortunate to have a husband who can adapt his schedule to mine most of the time so we can take care of our child together.”

“So that must mean you’re not going to the Olympics, because he will be too busy to share the care for the baby.”

That was again a very odd conclusion. “He will be busy, so I’m going to adapt my schedule to his. That should clear up any confusion.” But as she spoke, she wondered if it did. Some people were not that clever – and they had antiquated notions.

“But does that mean you are going?”

“We’ll find the best compromise for the three of us at any given moment.” She could not yet say where or when she would be there. They would not accept any deviations from any schedule she gave them, so she had best not give them that.

Marion looked confused. She clearly hoped to hear a yes or no.

“You may not see us, but he will see us. And ordinary people will see us, as they already do every week.”

“They do?”

“They simply don’t report on it. I see a lot of people, so they must see me too.”

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“And how do you rate Prince Frederick’s chances?”

That, again, was a tricky subject. The prominent sports journalists in their country were convinced that his participation was a joke. They could not even be bothered to look up the qualification criteria or who had won the qualification regatta that gave access to the last few spots in the Olympic tournament. One had even suggested that she, of all people, had procured a wildcard for him.

It was a fine line between setting them right and sheltering Frederick from a sudden increase in interview requests. He had said he liked being able to prepare in peace and he had shrugged off the stupid comments in the media.

Anna Margaret folded her hands so she would not gesticulate in indignation if Marion was going to bring up the wildcard. “Don’t underestimate him.”

“Do you think he will do well?”

“Do you think he won’t?”

“Well, I’ve not really done my research.”

“Few people have done their research,” she sighed.

“But he’s not giving interviews.”

“He is not giving interviews to media who submit unintelligent questions,” Anna Margaret said with a shrug. “But it’s a bit late for intelligent questions now, because the team left today.”

“He was not at the station with the rest of the team.”

“Yes, he was.” She had dropped him off herself. Early, because she had had somewhere else to go.

“But nobody saw him.”

“He was there. He was even in that photo you showed earlier.” That was the most ridiculous part of all. He was clearly in the photo that accompanied an article that said he was not here.

The photo was shown again a few seconds later. “Where?”

“That’s a nice puzzle for everyone to figure out,” Anna Margaret decided. “But people should probably think a bit about the discrepancy between what they expect to see and what they actually see.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Exactly what I said.”

Marion was at least clever enough to know she was not going to get a better answer. “But again you weren’t there. He wasn’t seen. You weren’t seen. So what else are people supposed to think than that neither of you were there?”

“There being in front of the camera. No, I wasn’t there. It’s a very limited reality to think there means only what is in front of the camera at the moment the photo is being taken. It’s a very limited reality to think that everyone who’s not together in that particular snapshot there is not together at all. Yet the media keep insisting that their limited reality is the true and only reality. Ordinary people know better.”

“Which ordinary people? You’ve mentioned them before.”

“A lot of people who were on the same bus to the station, I suppose.”

“You took the bus?”

“We took the bus.”

“Why take the bus?”

“Because we had to go to the station.” Did she really have to explain they lived within walking distance, but that with a suitcase it was more comfortable to take the bus departing from the bus stop some fifty metres from their house rather than loudly drag said suitcase over the cobblestones of the streets around the station?

“And by ordinary people, you mean…”

“The bus driver definitely knew us. I’ve been taking the bus for years and they have only so many bus drivers. Why should she start taking photos now?”

“You have always refused to share your private life, so people wouldn’t think you’d take a bus to sit where everyone can see you.”

“The problem is,” Anna Margaret said carefully, “that some people – not all – have very clearly defined ideas on what my private life should look like. And then, when reality does not conform to their expectations, they get confused. Let’s take you, for example. You got confused when it turned out we took the bus. Presumably because you expected us to go by car. And that is just one example. People don’t base their assumptions on our personal situation.”

“Can you explain what you mean?”

“I think that a lot of people are basing their expectations and assumptions on what we are and not on who we are. Or in the case of the bus, not on where we are. They forget to think. Not everyone is like that. A lot of people will understand what is logical or practical for us in a particular situation, but there are still too many people who don’t consider us when they make assumptions.”

“I don’t think that makes it any clearer.”

Anna Margaret sighed. “I can’t make it any clearer. Nobody goes to the station by car. I can’t dissect every example, so let me stick with this one. If you’ve got three people, luggage, you live near a bus stop, and you’ve all got somewhere to go on another mode of transportation when you reach the station, you do not go by car. And if you have another appointment, you do not hang around just so someone with a camera can see you together.”

“Some people will see this as a deliberate way to avoid being seen together.”

Anna Margaret’s face clearly betrayed what she thought of that. “We waited for the bus together. We were seen together on the bus. We got off in the busiest place in town. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense.”

“But presumably this was a habit you cultivated before he abdicated?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Before he abdicated you will have wanted to avoid being seen.”

“We were not in a relationship before he told me he wanted to abdicate. I don’t think that in those few weeks afterwards we ever visited each other in disguise. People saw me; they simply didn’t know where I was going.”

“You visited each other?”

“I thought the general consensus was that there’s no relationship if you’re not in each other’s company. So in order to build a relationship, you must see each other. We played boardgames with my neighbours once. He wasn’t wearing a mask then, even though the abdication ceremony had not been yet.”

“And before he abdicated, you didn’t have a relationship with him.”

Anna Margaret shook her head. “I simply hadn’t had any personal conversations with him until the events surrounding his decision.”

“No persona conversations? But you did know him?”

“Well, I met the King every week to have him sign documents. Those are not personal conversations. Basically I knew him by sight and I knew he didn’t have creepy vibes, but that’s about it.”

“But then he said he wanted to resign and you were in a relationship almost immediately? And playing boardgames with neighbours?” Marion clearly could not grasp it all.

“It didn’t feel that fast to me. It was probably after 35 hours of interaction, all added up. And we were 37, not 17, nor did we have a history of failed relationships. And the boardgames were in the period after those 35 hours.”

“35 hours!” Marion exclaimed.

Anna Margaret shrugged. “When you’re in the public eye, you don’t have the luxury of using 35 weeks to find things out, but you have to do more talking. Imagine the uproar if we had still been busy figuring it out. As long as this worked for us, I don’t see why other people should worry about it.”

“But you also got pregnant very quickly, so naturally people wondered which of the three things came first: pregnancy, relationship, or abdication.”

“Naturally?” Anna Margaret blinked a few times as she tried out other orders in her mind. “Naturally there is only one possible order for me. It was announcing the abdication, then a relationship, then – not at the same moment, do I even need to explain that – a pregnancy.”

“But people who suspect the order was different, will naturally also suspect not seeing you together.”

“Explain that to me, please.”

“Well, it’s possible that your relationship started much earlier.”

“While I stress again that it didn’t, how is not seeing us together related to that? How would it be more logical not to see us if there were many more moments that someone could have seen us?”

Marion had no answer.

“And now I’m interested in how someone could entertain the ridiculous notion that a pregnancy came first, or that it factored in any plans. If you look at our son’s birthdate – and I know people do these things – and you subtract 40 weeks, or even 42, you’ll find that there is no way he was even conceived on or before the day Frederick handed in his resignation, and on the day that we announced our relationship, it was too soon to know about a pregnancy.” She paused. “Pregnancy can only have come third.

“Also, when we announced our relationship, we could not have known about a pregnancy, so we could not have fabricated a starting date for our relationship in order to make the time between relationship and conception more acceptable to the general public. Is everyone still following me?”

“Yes.” Marion had nearly given up.

Anna Margaret was not done yet, however. “And we did not fabricate a starting date in order to make the decision to abdicate come first, because we would undoubtedly have been seen by more people than just my neighbours and there would not have been any abdication or coronation excuses to visit the Palace so much, would there? Any visits would have been noted as unusual. So, it all happened when we said it did. And we're still married, just taking the bus and not the limo. I’m sorry. I can’t make it any more exciting than that.”