More Titles ~ 14

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Chapter Fourteen

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When they got to the house, it turned out that Frederick’s mother was about to arrive. Anna Margaret had not known, but she supposed it made sense that it was more comfortable not to drive down very early in the morning. And it did not affect her anyway, because Isabelle put her mother in Murielle’s room.

It seemed that every day they tried out something new, because today they had dinner delivered. Anna Margaret, not used to running a large household, had finally collected enough laundry to fill a machine after a few days, and was surprised to find piles the size of Mount Everest in front of and on top of the machines in the laundry room and a full machine already running. She stood for a second blinking, not only at the piles, but also at the fact that she had completely overlooked that other people might have dirty clothes as well and that she had not wondered for a second who might be in charge of washing them.

Would she now drop her laundry on top of the pile or would she come back tomorrow? She went to find Isabelle, although she was not really sure Isabelle would be in charge of the laundry. But then again, nobody else would be a more logical choice. Philip was already taking care of other things.

Still with her arms full of clothes, she found Isabelle in her bedroom, lying on the bed on top of more clothes, presumably clean ones.

“We should have brought a housekeeper,” Isabelle complained. “But at least nobody has to worry about cooking today.”

“Oh, is that why we’re having it delivered. I’m sorry I didn’t even consider what would be happening to everyone’s clothes, or I would have helped.”

“What you’re holding needs to be washed?”

“Yes.”

“Open the door and throw it in. Some sort of fairy will get it done, I’m sure. Then come back and help transfer all this to the coffee table, so everyone can pick out their own socks and underwear, because I have no clue.”

Anna Margaret obeyed. She then grabbed an armful of small items of clothing and took it to the living room. There were feet and glasses on the coffee table.

“Clear the coffee table and make sure it’s clean,” Isabelle ordered Julian and Charlotte. “Now.”

They were not very quick to react, but eventually they did it.

Isabelle dropped her load. “Pick out your own clothes and take them to your room and put them with your clean clothes. Anything not removed from this table tonight will be thrown away.”

“I don’t know what’s mine,” Julian complained.

“Then how am I supposed to know,” his mother retorted. She started sorting types of clothing to help speed up the process.

Anna Margaret thought someone had better set the dinner table. She did take a photo of the laundry closet and sent it to Frederick, but with a do not share addition.

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The next morning, they had to get up relatively early to go to the rowing stadium for the semifinals. There was no sleeping in with a baby anyway, so Anna Margaret had already gone for a swim with Alex in his bouncer to watch over her. Isabelle had decided someone needed to play catch-up with the laundry, so she was already up and about untidily hanging up towels to dry on a washing line that nobody had discovered before.

When Anna Margaret dropped her own towel in the laundry closet, it already looked much emptier and the washing machine and dryer were both running. Not all underwear had been collected from the coffee table, but it had not been thrown away. It was now on a chair. The household had seemed under control for a few days, but now it was slowly falling apart. She suppressed a smile.

Queen Anna was sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee. Anna Margaret put Alex’ bouncer somewhere safe, because Philip was walking around putting away groceries. “Do you think he’ll win today?” asked Frederick’s mother.

“He said he would.” She hoped he was right. But she trusted that he would not say it if he did not absolutely believe it.

“Then I hope he will. His aunt wanted to come, but I said there was no room and she is more a hotel person, I think.”

“I’m beginning to think I’m more of a hotel person as well,” Isabelle declared, coming in.

Philip hugged her in sympathy.

“Philip, you must watch out, or else you have number seven in nine months,” said Queen Anna. “And then it’s even more work.”

“We know. But number seven is far less likely than Anna Margaret’s number three or four, and then she’ll have to rent her own house, so it will be less work for us, actually.”

“Oh, nice of you,” Anna Margaret grimaced, but she did not take it too seriously. “I wasn’t planning to have one baby per year.”

“Babies don’t care about your planning.”

“A week in this chaos is an excellent contraceptive,” said Queen Anna.

“Chaos? Mama, you have only just arrived. You cannot call this chaos.” Isabelle looked slightly offended. Her face said that she might be complaining, but that she had it all under control.

“There was underwear on the couch.”

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They left at eight. Well, a large part of the family did. Two of the children had not yet been ready and were told to run after them. By the time the family was in the queue for the screening area, they had caught up.

“Remember we have an upgrade,” said Isabelle with a critical look at their clothing. “But it does not come with unlimited food and drink. Everything goes through me, except water.”

They tried the day passes the little Frenchman had provided and surprisingly they were accepted at once. The children of course had to explore the space and find what the best seats and spectating spots were. Isabelle allowed them one drink and no snacks. “We’ve just had breakfast,” she said.

All the Germans from two days ago were there again. Isabelle sent her mother their way. Anna Margaret was not really noticing anything. She was wondering if she should step out to watch the race later or if she should stay in and merely hear the result, to avoid the excitement. But Frederick had been confident. She should trust in that. And did it truly matter which place he got? To her it did not, but she did not want to see him disappointed.

When the race started, she went out anyway. Alex had not enjoyed all the cheering the previous time, but now he saw a woman with a huge orange hat with things dangling off it that probably reminded him of his baby mobile. He was too busy trying to catch one of those things to mind any noise.

Frederick increased the tension today. He was not ahead at the halfway point, but then he sped up. By 1500m he had a small lead and then he made sure nobody could surprise him.

The woman in the orange hat jumped – the orange boat had finished second – and Alex seized his chance to grab one of the small bells dangling off her hat. His grip was strong and he pulled the hat right off the woman’s head.

“Alex!” Anna Margaret cried in shock. She had not been paying attention to what he had been doing.

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RTA had finally decided to be there. Frederick could not avoid them in the mixed zone.

RTA Sports Reporter:
"Frederick, congratulations! That was a very strong finish—can you walk us through what was going through your mind in the second half of the race?"

“Not much. ‘I can do this’ or something.”

“Were you always planning to make your move in the final 500 meters?"

“It was more like consolidating.”

“We saw your wife and baby in the stands. Does having your family here change the way you approach a race like this?"

“This is a unique race, so I can’t really say.”

"Your semifinal performance has put you through to the A final—what are you focusing on between now and race day?"

“I’ll be doing exactly what I did on my other days off.”

“How do you think you’ll place in the final?”

“There will be two people I beat today and three people I didn’t race today. It’s possible that all of them have been holding back so far and raced strategically, but then, so have I. I’ll place anywhere from sixth to first.”

"From athlete to royal and back—how are you balancing it all here in Paris?"

“I’m not doing anything royal here.”

“There’s been talk about sponsorship agreements. We understand you refused to sign the standard contract and that therefore earlier this week you did not attend meetings with sponsors. Can you clarify why?”

“Yes, it’s in the constitution. It forbids me to do commercial promotions. So I did not sign the contract.”

“What was the reaction to that?”

Frederick smiled, but it was dangerous rather than amused. “I was told it wouldn’t matter if I signed, because I wouldn’t win anything anyway.”

“But meeting interested sponsors...“

“I am always willing to speak to people who are interested in the sport, but they will have to come here. I’m not going to meetings that disrupt my schedule, because I’ve not signed a contract that requires me to. I’m here to row.”

“Thank you and good luck in the final.”

Frederick nodded and moved on. He was stopped a few more times, but he tried to keep it brief.

---

Anna Margaret and the rest of the family had gone back inside into the lounge when the other boat types were racing. She had sat down to recover from everything. Alex had had to give the orange hat back. The bells were too small for a baby to play with. He had grown hungry anyway.

It turned out that Florian and the oldest children had made acquaintances at the National House the day before that they wanted to meet up with again. “Any girls?” Isabelle asked suspiciously.

“Can we just go?” he asked. “Why do I even have to ask? You were married at my age.”

“And a whole lot more sensible. Don’t you want to say hello to Frederick?”

“OK. We have some time if we want to be there at one o’clock.”

When Alex had finished nursing, they left the lounge. Anna Margaret had not seen the little Frenchman give Isabelle more day passes for the final, but he undoubtedly had. They went to the restaurant and had a drink.

Some fans stopped by to share their predictions for the final. Some were girls and they were specifically looking for Florian, but he had just gone to check out the merchandise. Philip sent them there.

Isabelle looked at him. “Why?”

“Why not?”

“They were about sixteen!”

“Then maybe Julian will like them better. Clearly they want some contacts their own age.”

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After fifteen minutes a couple came to their table and then looked shocked. “Er...” said the woman. “I wasn’t expecting that. I – my daughters came to ask us if they could go to the National House with some boys and I needed to see what sort of boys.”

“My boys? Are asking girls –“ Isabelle rose and scanned the crowd. “First step is asking me, second step is asking the girls.” She saw the boys and beckoned them with an imperial gesture.

Florian and Julian approached, looking very innocent.

“Explain,” their mother ordered.

“We met some girls and we thought it would be fun if they also came with us.”

“Those girls looked about sixteen – or have we moved on to different girls already? You’re not going anywhere with girls who are only sixteen.”

“Eighteen.”

Isabelle looked at the woman, who was listening, dumbstruck. The woman only just managed a nod. “Florian, you’re twenty-four,” said Isabelle.

“Julian’s only twenty. And we’re not going to take them there, we’re going to meet them there.”

“Well, all right then.” She looked at the woman. “They’ll behave. If not, security will let me know, and they know that.”

Anna Margaret spoke up. “Flo, she told me she had informants spying on Frederick and me. They’re probably everywhere.”

“Hahaha, no, she didn’t. She knew the two of you didn’t have a social life and didn’t intend to get one. Thanks, Mum,” said Florian and disappeared before his parents could say another word.

“You can always go there and supervise,” Isabelle suggested to the woman. “We won’t be there. I understood there will be a small group of around their age there.”

The couple supposed it was safe enough and took their leave, too tongue-tied to say more.

“Did you have informants or not?” Anna Margaret wondered.

“Did you have a social life or not?”

Anna Margaret focused on her drink. There was no winning this discussion, she feared, and there was no need to. The next person was already waiting to say something about the race. If she answered everyone politely and spoke to them, this counted as a social life, she would think. It was just that normally during the day she had so many of these encounters that at night she only wanted to stay home. Other people might have boring jobs and want the reverse.

“Apparently it was now on RTA too,” said Philip, who had been checking the news.

“How nice that they’ve caught up,” Anna Margaret replied. Alex had had enough and Frederick had not even appeared yet. She hoisted him in the baby carrier, but he did not like it yet. “I’ll just go for a little walk to calm him down and I’ll be back soon.”

Her plan was to walk around a bit in the plaza outside, away from the crowds. RTA were there too. “Now is not a good time,” she told them when they approached her.

“Just a quick reaction?”

“Now is not a good time,” she repeated. Alex was still crying. She walked on and wondered if she should take him out of the carrier to try another feed. She gave him her finger to suckle on and suddenly felt something hard in his mouth. He was teething and she had not even noticed until now. No wonder he was feeling a little out of sorts. She sat down on the foot of a large lamppost and took him out of the carrier, speaking soft words of comfort to him. She let him latch on to see if that was going to make it better for him.

It was. But now she was stuck here. She could text Frederick to say she was under one of the lampposts – if she could reach her phone, that was.

Suddenly the woman with the orange bell hat brought her a chair. Tears sprang to her eyes. “Thank you. He’s teething.”

“Alex is now my little friend,” said the woman and walked away again after helping her up as if it was nothing.