Titled? ~ 13

---

Chapter Thirteen

---

Anna Margaret woke when there was applause. People were standing up. She was not awake enough to do so. Luckily she was hidden by the curtain and no one in the theatre would be wondering if she somehow disapproved of the performance enough not to show her appreciation. Everything took rather long to get back to normal.

“Wasn’t that brilliant?” Ms Jacobs was all enthusiasm. “It was even better than the tryout!”

“It was certainly very good,” said Frederick.

Anna Margaret thought he was constitutionally incapable of overdoing it.

“I’m taking you backstage to meet the cast,” said Ms Jacobs.

She had not known about that, but it was not surprising. Whether she was expected to come or not, she would not go. She would be far too tired to drive home if she stayed even longer, or she would be unable to sleep when she got home.

Frederick excused himself and disappeared behind the curtain.

“I must go home soon,” Anna Margaret said to Ms Jacobs. “My workday always starts early.” But she would stay seated another few minutes to give more people time to leave the theatre.

“Of course. I do hope His Royal Highness will come?”

“If this was agreed with him beforehand, I’m sure he will.” She hoped he was not directly behind the curtain, eavesdropping.

Ms Jacobs lowered her voice for a woman-to-woman comment. “I have to say, he seems much more relaxed since he got a relationship.”

Anna Margaret did not think that was it. “Since he’s no longer the king, I’d say.”

“I don’t know. He was also more relaxed after you came in.”

She hoped he had not been too bad before then. “I hope he stays that way after I leave. I’m exhausted.”

“Is your visit a secret? I wasn’t sure what to make of it when his office sent me the request – and I have to say they didn’t seem to know either. His mother visits frequently and she’s lovely,” Ms Jacobs explained her willingness to go along with an odd request. “It took a while before she spoke, though.”

Anna Margaret decided that Ms Jacobs was also a successful woman in a leadership position and some explanation might actually be understood. “Well,” she began. “My idea was to keep our jobs separate to avoid comments. If you’re successful as a woman it’s of course due to anything but your abilities.”

“Oh, indeed.”

“And if I started accompanying him to places, people would think I was doing it to get ahead. So, while it’s not entirely secret, I wouldn’t volunteer to have my picture taken.”

“I see.”

Frederick reappeared.

“I’m going home,” Anna Margaret told him. “I really need my sleep.”

“Yes, I know.” Although he had touched her when they were seated, Frederick had not embraced or kissed her in company. He hugged her now.

Anna Margaret was stunned. “Will you be all right?” It was not a desperate hug. She supposed he would be fine.

“Yes. I’ll see you later.“

She left the box. People were walking past, some heading for the bar. She joined the ones heading for the stairs. Downstairs half of them went to the cloakroom and the rest went outside. Together with half a dozen others she crossed the street. Most people had not even looked at her, but the ones who had, had recognised her.

“You should wear dresses more often,” said a girl, who looked a bit thrilled to see a celebrity. “You’re not trying to be a clone of the German Chancellor, are you?”

“Imagine the headlines if I went to work in a short skirt tomorrow.”

“Dare!” said the girl excitedly.

“No, no, no.”

“Do you own one?” She entered the car park and considered queueing to pay. She waited until the conversation was over, a short distance away from the pay station. The audience would be smaller.

“Yes.”

“Women should have the freedom to dress how they like,” the girl said with a very serious look. “And they should be taken seriously no matter what they wear.”

“In theory.” She tried to guess the girl’s age and whether she had ever encountered the issue in practice. When she had become Transport Minister herself, she had been advised never to dress like a young girl. “In practice we are as guilty of doing that as men. If you applied for an internship at my office and you wore a crop top, I’d also advise you to dress differently.”

“Well, there are extremes! But mid-thigh is not extreme.”

“No.”

“Extreme would be hip-length or ankle-length. Would I get in with a nose piercing?”

“An intern? Yes. A minister? Depends. Although one has a tattoo,” she remembered. But of course that was not visible if he wore a suit.

“Oh my god, no?” the girl exclaimed.

“Yes. We don’t have to undress before we’re asked to fill the position, so they don’t check.” And before the girl would think she had asked this man to undress, she had better clarify where she had seen it. “We have these team outings some times. He had to wear short sleeves.”

“Men have it easy.”

“Not completely. They’re almost forced to wear suits, aren’t they? On formal occasions. Not all of them like that. In theory all these social conventions are evil. In practice we ought to be glad for them. I’m really not sure I’d enjoy a visit from a foreign dignitary in shorts and beach shirt, with his beer belly poking out underneath.”

The girl shuddered. “I guess.”

“So you think about these things, do you?”

“Yes, some things are definitely unfair.”

“And when you try to do something about them, you realise there are even more that you didn’t know about. But don’t give up.”

“No, I would really – oh, my mum has paid,” the girl said regretfully. “I guess I should go with her. I have to go to school tomorrow and it’s late. It was nice talking to you.”

“Yes, thanks.” She walked towards the pay station as a woman walked away from it who was trying not to look at her too much. She was sure that when the girl had joined her mother they would discuss her, but she did not mind.

---

She had not heard Frederick come home and when her alarm went off in the morning he stayed in bed. That was a first. It must have been late. She was up a little later than usual as well, but she had breakfast alone. That had not happened for a while.

Although her skirt today was not very short, it was nonetheless a skirt and she had stuck mostly to trousers in the past year. She wondered why she had listened to a girl she did not know. Or was it perhaps to show that girl that there would be comments? There might be; she had no idea. By now she might no longer have to prove herself through her clothing.

It had required only a little digging through her boxes and had left quite a mess. She hoped Frederick would not wonder what had happened in this spare bedroom where her clothes were stored. The first skirt she had tried did not fit well. The second required a wider blouse and several boxes had been opened.

---

Today Queen Isabelle was starting her tour through the regions of the kingdom. They were mostly daytrips, although once or twice she would stay in a hotel if there was a late activity planned. Anna Margaret had seen the entire programme. In fact, it was on her desk somewhere.

First Isabelle was interviewed. A well-known presenter asked her a few questions in an impressive-looking room in the city hall of the first town she would visit. Anna Margaret half watched it on her computer. Well, she intended to watch it with only one eye while she read a document, but she did not quite succeed.

It started out with the usual platitudes and politeness, yet Isabelle smiled graciously. She talked about her preparation and how she had not been all too surprised and therefore unprepared. This was not too surprising, although Anna Margaret supposed not everyone who was watching would think the same.

Even the presenter looked slightly shocked, however, when Queen Isabelle mentioned her intentions to adapt the monarchy to the century they were living in and specifically spoke of liking to see a relaxation of the rules on whom her children could marry. She did not mention her brother in this regard, but Anna Margaret did not doubt that his name would come up when someone discussed the interview. He was after all the only one of the family known to have a girlfriend.

She liked the way Isabelle implied casually that she had been working with her brother since her father’s death and that they had had the same ideas. And, she said, she would continue to rely on her brother in ways that might not always be visible to the public. Since she said the same, and more, about Philip, it did not sound too unhealthy or untruthful.

When the interview moved to the contents of that weekend’s programme, she turned down the sound.

Still, she only got halfway down the page. George came in. “Had you read the news?”

“Yes, but what happened?” She could not remember anything that had really stood out. It was all the usual stuff. Deaths in other parts of the world and football talk. If there had been anything else she had missed it. Since she had not pegged George as a football fan, it must be a bomb somewhere of which she had completely misjudged the importance.

“You should broaden your horizon.”

“Why? Did I miss something?”

“Clearly you don’t read the trivial news.”

“Not today. Oh, don’t keep me in suspense. Google Maps forgot to censor another naked man?”

“When was that?” George asked interestedly.

“Two days ago? Sorry, the media blurred the pertinent bits. There’s no need to look it up.”

“But you do read that kind of stuff, madam?”

“Sometimes,” she sighed. “But not today. I slept in.” She had scanned the headlines of one paper only. It happened to be the one with the least number of trivial distractions on its front page online. That was a deliberate tactic when she had no time.

“You were at the opera last night.”

“That was the trivial news?”

“You were seen. You queued for the loo like a normal person.”

“I pee like a normal person, too.”

“You gave someone your jacket and you were totally, like, normal.”

Anna Margaret gave him a look. “And you had, like, no work to do? But it’s good that you mention it. Now you know it’s real if someone drops the jacket off at reception.”

“Prince Frederick was at the opera and so were you, but you were not seen together.”

She balled her fist and raised it in the air.

“There was some speculation on whether you were there together, but you went to the normal loo and you didn’t have the VIP refreshment package –“

“No, I was queueing for the toilet,” she interrupted. “Because they don’t have enough toilets for women.”

“They loved it.”

She frowned because she had been ready to make another sarcastic comment and now she could not think of anything. “They loved that I had to queue, or they loved that I did?”

“They loved that you were normal.”

“I’ve always been normal.”

“You snared the king and you still queue for the loo,” George explained. “That’s sort of the general sentiment, I think. We’ve already received a few questions from the media, even though they know we never answer.”

“What could they want to know? Whether I’m normal?”

“No, whether you were there and with whom.”

“Interesting news.”