More Titles ~ 4

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Chapter Four

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Frederick had texted Anna Margaret last night that he had arrived safely. They had not phoned because he knew she was busy and when she was done, she thought he might be in bed.

This morning the texting had resumed. She received photos of the room, the apartment, the village, his breakfast and the bus ride to the rowing course. Then it had gone quiet, because presumably he was on the water.

She had not wanted to bother him with the outcome of the interview and she did not know if he had seen anything about it anywhere. This morning he had not referred to it anyway.

But they would soon travel there themselves. Philip had rented a house for the entire family. She was expected to come as well. They would be there the day before the competition started. Some of them would be in the stands. She had not decided if she was going to do that herself. That depended on the weather. She was not going to sit in the rain with a baby in her lap.

Frederick did a video call with her in the afternoon. “I’m travelling back to the village,” he said and briefly showed the inside of the bus. “Are you ready to hold a meeting at the rowing course?”

“No, that was just for fun. I didn’t put the tables together.”

“That might take a while anyway.”

“How...” She did not know how to phrase it yet. “I mean, should I find someone to do that?”

“Do you know someone who could?”

“I could ask.”

“OK.”

“You wouldn’t mind?”

Frederick hesitated for a second. “Not in this case. I think I’ve done most of what I felt I needed to do anyway. If you do something now, it doesn’t mean that I couldn’t. But keep receipts if you buy anything.”

“How are things over there?” she asked, thinking she would not have enough time to buy anything anyway, considering that she was leaving for Paris herself soon. But it was nice to know she could help.

“The Olympic app group had a good time with that station photo. I’m now being circled in every photo just in case. Like in the photos of people who eventually spotted me.”

“Every photo?” She had been added to an app group on the information day to be kept up to date with the athletes’ results, but not much had been happening there yet. It was definitely another group than what he was talking about.

“Oh, whenever someone takes one and shares it. I’m even being circled when I’m not in it.”

“Oh.” She did not know how to interpret that, but he seemed to find it funny. “Are you having a good time then?”

“It’s all good so far. When are you coming over?”

“We’re leaving on Friday, but we’ll watch the opening ceremony from the house. You’re still not going?” Frederick had said that before and he had also let the team leaders know. The media had at some point started wondering who was going to carry the flag, now that he had come onto the scene. Would he replace the athlete they had all thought the most likely choice before? Frederick said he had made it clear that he was not going, because his first race was the morning after, but not everyone seemed to have got that message yet because the team leaders remained vague.

“Definitely not. It was even team policy until they realised it might ‘put us on the map’ if I did it.”

“You already put us on the map last year,” Anna Margaret commented. As much as a very small pond could be put on a map. She doubted that his abdication had been front page news anywhere.

“My roommate and I are both staying in the apartment. Team policy. Maybe they’ll wait until morning to say so.”

“Don’t be swayed.” She was all for making it through to the quarter finals right away. He would have to be among the first three in his heat. In the quarter finals he would again have to be among the first three finishers to move to the best semi finals. Finally, he would have to finish among the first three there to move to the A final.

Not finishing among the first three somewhere made things a little less predictable with regard to his final ranking, so they had simply agreed that doing that was not an option. Jeopardising this smooth progression by attending the opening ceremony was therefore also not an option.

“I won’t. Rick and I are serious people.”

She had met Rick on the information day, along with all the other athletes. He was also not very young and also competing in a somewhat exotic sport – archery. Frederick and he had some things in common, but their family backgrounds could not be more different. She did not know if he had struck her as particularly serious, but he had certainly not been particularly impressed by anyone’s status.

“You should check his vlog tomorrow,” said Frederick.

“Why tomorrow?”

“Because he’s still editing it. He’s got his ranking rounds.”

“Are you going to be in it?” She could hardly believe it, but maybe he meant he could be seen in the background, sitting on something he should not be sitting on.

“We’re in the same apartment, so yes.”

“More media to follow! I also had to look at your family’s Instagram.”

Apparently he followed that as well. “Oh yes, is Alex all right?”

“Yes, he was very good. He didn’t cry.”

“The previous time he only looked surprised and then really angry with the doctor,” Frederick said with a laugh. “Where is he now?”

Anna Margaret took the phone to Alex and let him look at the screen while Frederick spoke to him.

---

Isabelle had been asked at an event if she always did the vaccinations together with her sister-in-law. There was a brief video in a news article. “It was only the third vaccination round and I did one of them with my brother,” she had answered.

This had been met with amazement. “Your brother?”

“He’s the father of my nephew. I think it’s important for both parents to know how it works.”

“But wouldn’t a mother always want to be there?”

“We trust the fathers. We sent them together the second time, but my brother had a train to catch this time.”

“Oh, yes. Are you going to watch your brother competing in Paris?”

“Yes, of course we are going to watch him. What a funny question. But with a baby it’s difficult to predict our precise schedule.”

“Do you mean the Prime Minister’s baby?”

Isabelle gave the man a death stare. “You missed that I had a baby as well? Really?” And she was moved on by officials so nothing more could be said.

---

Even Philip was pulled onto the case. He was asked if he had witnessed any of those 35 hours, because that was evidently more interesting than his opinion on this new museum that was being opened. He was reported to have said that obviously they were not 35 consecutive hours and that live spectating had only started in the 36th hour, after his wife had interrogated the Prime Minister about the abdication and had found her ‘suspiciously understanding’. His wife had then subjected them both to a test, which they had passed.

When asked what that meant, the prince said that their family and acquaintances who had no clue, still had no clue after seeing them. And Prince Philip and his wife? They had seen that “she had a good influence on him” in subtle ways and that “YOLO has never been part of their vocabulary”.

---

The next morning at work, Anna Margaret had read the articles – even if you read only serious media, such things did not go unnoticed if the serious media included them and George was still sticking sticky notes on them.

She thought Philip had been surprisingly open, or perhaps he had not foreseen that his words would end up in an article. She was happy he had left out the hotel, the vomiting and the overnight stay at the Palace.

She phoned him. “Why is everyone now running with those random 35 hours?”

“Do you mean you didn’t time them with a stopwatch?” he asked.

“Oh, please. You have no idea how many questions we got about this matter.”

“We got them too, but our spokesman usually declines to comment.”

“And you didn’t. But didn’t you know they would publish this?”

“I might have suspected.”

She suspected that he might have suspected, yes. “I’m glad you left out that I vomited and he put me in his bed.”

“Oh, did he? He never said.”

“Oh, crap. This will now drag on for days.” She was beginning to think it might have been wiser to stick to silence, instead of doing that interview. “But don’t mention the details if they ask you anything again. And what is YOLO?”

Philip only laughed.

“And that other event I read about...” she said. “Well, actually there was also a video clip...”

“Oh yes that,” he said with a dangerous undertone. “Isabelle couldn‘t have been more annoyed and now she’s unleashed.”

“Unleashed? Is that a good or a bad thing?” She could understand the annoyance – it had been a particularly stupid moment – but she did not know how it was going to work out.

“Nothing you need to worry about professionally, I think. Not you. Some of the media, however, may not like it.”

---

She had asked around on her floor. “Do any of you have older children who are good at putting new furniture together and who’d like to earn some money?” She thought they might have more experience doing such things than her nephews and nieces. She could not see them ever assembling closets.

“I have some,” said her political advisor. “What do you need to get done?”

“At least ten things at the rowing centre. All the tables they delivered yesterday and then some things that were delivered earlier.”

“When do you need it to be done?”

“Either this afternoon or in a week and a half or so.”

“This afternoon?”

“I know it’s short notice, but I’m busy tomorrow morning and tomorrow afternoon I need to pack my bag for Paris.” Of course it could wait, but she was thinking about it now.

“And it would be at that rowing course?”

“Yes. I’d go there to let them in, if it’s going to be this afternoon. There are chairs and there is coffee, but not a lot else. If people can only come when Frederick is back, I won’t be there, but he will. Same when it’s too much for one afternoon.”

“But is there a building then?”

“Yes, with electricity, running water and Wi-Fi.” That was all working. First things first.

“I’m just trying to get a picture of it,” her political advisor apologised. “I’d never thought about it in that much detail. Why don’t you send around a note? You might end up with a few volunteers.”

“Good idea!”

---

“By the way, there’s a journalist outside asking everyone if we’ve ever seen your husband here,” said one of the policy advisors.

“If he or she asks the wrong people, there’s going to be another article about how he’s never seen,” Anna Margaret said with a sigh.

“Actually I asked what most people had said so far – and they said they had seen him. So she can’t now write that he’s never been here. She also wanted to know how he behaved.”

“Oh. How does he behave?”

“I don’t know,” the policy advisor said with a shrug. “Normal?”

---

Her note, not shared with a very large group of people, had yielded at least ten children over fifteen who were not on holiday or working summer jobs this afternoon. It remained to be seen how many of them were actually useful.

She decided quickly: she would be working from there this afternoon, instead of going home. Anyone who had helpful children could also stay there or come and pick them up again at five o’clock.

She quickly walked home for lunch and loaded Alex’ things and a toolbox into her car, got something to drink at the supermarket and took care that she had some cash in smaller banknotes.

Interestingly, none of the staff she had shared the note with had left it to their spouse to take the children there. They were all too curious themselves – and with the boss approving of it, they had not seen any harm in leaving the office. There were enough others who had stayed behind to hold the fort.

Most of them wanted a tour, so after observing the youngsters getting to work, she took whoever wanted to through the building and outside. But not around the course. It was close to 5 kilometres and not accessible yet everywhere.

Someone asked what sports could be done there. “Well, rowing and maybe other water sports if they ask. There’s also been interest from – gosh, I forgot what it’s called, but they were going to use the path around it because there’s no car traffic. It’s supposed to be used, yes, but not supposed to be claimed.”

“Why the fence?”

“That’s mainly to restrict access to the waterside for safety. You don’t want to row over someone’s dog or child who went swimming. The idea is that all people who come here for an activity are registered and that they only have access during a specific time slot, so that people coming to row and people coming to swim cannot be on the course at the same time, for example.”

“He’s thought about this.”

“He has,” she agreed.

“Can you swim here?” asked someone else.

“I’m going to when all the workmen are done,” Anna Margaret said. “It looks very inviting. But not when there are any boats, unless we’ve agreed to stick to different sides. I’m sure there are going to be many possibilities eventually.”

“Do we have any other rowers?”

“Other than in Frederick’s family? Not yet. So if anyone is interested, stop by in a week or two.”