Titled? ~ 17

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Chapter Seventeen

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If I qualify for Rio I can go as an athlete and a delegate,” said Frederick. He appeared to be checking his email. “But I won’t qualify.”

“Why not?” she asked before she had realised he had said Rio.

“I’m not good enough. I mean, I’ll have months to get into a better shape, but I’ll also have other things to do in those six months.”

Anna Margaret had not really realised he might have to give up something as well when the baby arrived. It was not entirely her fault; he had not told her. This was the first time he ever mentioned qualifying for something. She felt guilty for resembling her father. Sometimes she forgot to notice things that concerned others. Or could she have known? She searched her memory, but she did not think so. He had never mentioned Rio before. Only rowing for Germany, which she had taken to mean rowing in Germany.

But what if he was good enough to qualify for a large tournament in six months? He had said he would look after their baby. What would he prefer or choose? If this was important to him they would have to find another solution.

“But if you qualify…” she said.

“I won’t. I don’t train nearly enough. It was a merely hypothetical observation. Don’t worry.”

“Will you go as a delegate if you don’t?”

“Will you? They may invite you too.”

“I think not,” she said hesitantly. “With a baby. Unless you get in. Then we’ll need to watch.”

He looked very pleased.

She wondered if he never got any spectators who came especially for him. “Who else watches?”

“Me? No one. Teammates who are there. But there won’t be much in the way of competitions for months.”

“Has no one ever gone to watch you? Family, I mean.”

“Not really. My father, as you know, didn’t like my rowing for Germany. Instead of suggesting we set up our own federation, he said I should give up altogether.”

But evidently he had not done so. “And then…”

“I talked to people about having a federation of our own and of course they were willing to give some information or assistance, on account of who I was. But my father was still against it.”

“Why?”

“Because people might then find out I had done a few World Cups using my German passport.” Frederick looked amused, although that could not be how he had felt at the time. It must have been immensely frustrating. “He thought it was a disgrace for me to represent another country. Even though people don’t find out about these things unless you tell them. You don’t know what types of races I went to either.”

Anna Margaret blushed. “No.”

“Which is partly my fault, because I feared I would end up last. I haven’t been training enough and I’m getting a bit old, but these were the first tournaments I could do under our own flag, so I wanted to do them anyway.”

“Yes, of course.” She understood that. “But I wouldn’t mind if you ended up last, so you can tell me next time. And I’ll try to ask more questions. I should ask you what exactly you’re going to do. Or maybe I should come along.”

“I thought you should get some rest on your days off.”

She would like to be the judge of that herself. “When is the next thing?”

“I haven’t planned anything yet, but I’ll let you know.”

“But…” Her cautious confidence in her future home life was a little shaken. She could not help it. “If you have something to do after we have the baby…”

“We’ll see.”

“But I can’t ask you to give that up. You sort of implied you had nothing to give up.”

“I sort of implied it was my fault,” he corrected. “But don’t worry. If I have something important to do, which I doubt, there will be someone.”

The undefinable discomfort did not go away. “But I…”

“I know,” he said.

“But you don’t know. I haven’t said.”

“I know. But it’s probably something upsetting the plan.”

Anna Margaret examined herself. “Well…finally we had some plan and then… Now it’s all uncertain again.”

“No, it’s not.”

“But I can’t tell you not to go somewhere if you need to or want to go.”

“How often do you think that will be?”

“I have no idea.”

“So you’re fearing it will be every week?”

“I have no idea.”

“So in fact you have no idea what you’re worrying about.”

“That’s the worst kind.”

“I said I won’t qualify. There’ll be no point in training on the water three times a day.”

“But if you wanted to…”

“I’m going to force you to have hobbies,” Frederick decided. “The notion of people doing things other than work seems to have surprised you a bit.”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“No! I simply had no idea that you might be good at it. And if you’re good at it, you will want to get better and you deserve to spend time on it.”

“Not if I’m not good at it?”

Anna Margaret looked pained. “You know what I mean. I don’t want to take it away from you. You’re not taking anything away from me either. But what about the baby?”

He shrugged. “I told you. However, if you still think I don’t know my own chances, I say: Isabelle.”

She remembered that Isabelle had indeed offered her services. Exactly how that would work out she could not imagine. The queen had engagements and events, she would think. She was not always home. There were always people in the Palace, that was true. Perhaps he meant one of them could do it.

Frederick, who had been looking alternately amused and annoyed, now looked more sympathetic. “I’ll solve it. Besides, you may not even want to part from the baby during the first weeks.”

She thought that was unlikely. “I don’t feel anything of that so-called mother instinct yet, so I can’t imagine that at all. I’m not sure I feel very motherly.”

“It would be odd if you felt motherly already with only me to look after.”

“I’m –“

“—neurotic.”

“Thanks.”

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Anna Margaret was nevertheless not reassured enough. She took the matter up with Isabelle when she next saw her. “Frederick says he won’t qualify for the Olympics, but this was the first time I heard about the Olympics at all and I had no idea there was even any possibility of qualifying.”

Isabelle did not look surprised. “From what I heard the possibility is remote.”

“Yes, but I did not even know there was a remote possibility.”

“You thought he was training for fun.”

“Well, it’s not that much, surely? A bit of running or swimming in the morning. And sometimes a bit in the evening.”

“What do you think he does when you’re at work?”

“I thought he discussed official engagements and read his official mail.”

“That does not take all day. What do you talk about when you’re home? Or don’t you talk?” Isabelle wondered, her eyebrows raised.

“The house, furniture…” But yes, apparently there were things he did not tell her. While she could understand, in this case, it was still unsettling.

“The baby…”

“Sometimes. But that’s my problem. If he’s so good that he needs to train so much, how could he look after a baby? I don’t want to ruin his one and only chance.”

“And you thought only one of you could look after that baby?”

“No, but we should be the most important ones. If I have to go away for work and he has to go away rowing, what would we do? It never occurred to me that he might have to go away. He says it’s not likely, but I’m not sure of that. I have googled,” Anna Margaret said ominously.

“Well, in that case – you have to go away and he does too – you take the baby with you and you take someone along who can take care of the baby when you cannot. If you have a dinner engagement and he’s not home, you either take the baby with you or you leave it with a babysitter.”

“Take the baby with me to a dinner?”

Isabelle shrugged. “If I could do it, so can you.”

“But how?” She could not imagine eating with a baby in her lap. At an official dinner, no less. It could simply not be done.

“They always have a waitress or dishwasher with baby skills, in case your lady in waiting doesn’t have any.”

“But what if it cries all the time?”

“I don’t know why it should, if you’re always in sight. Mine never made a fuss.”

“Well, if mine takes after me and Frederick says I’m neurotic, I’m sure it will make a fuss.”

“Professionally you’re far from neurotic. In fact, Frederick might be more neurotic professionally. You are more or less unflappable. I find it very fascinating that this baby could turn you into Frederick.” Isabelle studied her with interest.

“How? He’s not worried about anything at all. I don’t see it.”

“I see it. Of course I haven’t really spoken to him about the baby. I’ll try to do so, to see if he’s turned into you.”

“I think you’re simply mad,” Anna Margaret grumbled.