Margaret Millar - Wives and Lovers

They were seated across from each other at the round, oilcloth-covered table, Harold drinking a cup of coffee, Ruth cutting up a large head of cabbage into a wooden bowl.

Hazel leaned down to pat the dog’s firm little rump. “Any more coffee?”

“On the stove,” Ruth said. “I was just telling Harold—”

“I heard you from outside.”

“Well, don’t you agree?”

“If she wants artichokes, let her have artichokes.”

“Very well,” Ruth said stiffly. “Very well. I shall eat the cabbage myself.”

“The calcium will do you good.”

“There is no growing child inside of me whose little bones need strengthening.”

“Inside of me either, but I’ll help you eat the cabbage.” She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table beside Harold. They smiled at each other, very faintly, so that Ruth wouldn’t notice.

She noticed anyway. “I don’t see what’s so humorous about the high cost of food. I realize that I don’t contribute any actual money to the household, but it’s my job to keep expenses as low as possible, even at the risk of incurring unpopularity.”

“You’re not unpopular,” Hazel said. “Now forget it.”

Ever since Ruth began having trouble with her nerves, she had to be treated, on occasion, like a child, to be given firm yes and no answers, and sometimes strict orders or very abrupt changes of subject.

It was Hazel who usually provided the change of subject.

“I thought you were going to babysit for the Fosters this afternoon.”

“I was, yes.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. Mrs. Foster came home unexpectedly and paid me for a full hour, seventy-five cents, though I was only there half that time. I’ve saved fourteen dollars now... Do you think that’s enough?”

“Enough for what?”

“The suit,” Harold said and kicked Hazel under the table as a reminder. “The suit she’s going to buy to wear in front of the School Board. Herringbone tweed.”

“No, not tweed.” Ruth paused, looking reflectively up at the plaster ceiling. “I’ve changed my mind about the tweed. Silk shantung, I think, very simply cut. Don’t you think silk shantung would be better, Hazel? It will still be very warm in September... And perhaps if I’m lucky enough to get a real bargain on the suit, I’ll be able to afford a hat as well. I’d like to cover up my hair.”

“There’s nothing the matter with your hair.”

“I don’t want them to see what a change there has been in it. They might think something drastic has happened to me the past year, the way I’ve suddenly become gray like this... A turban would cover it up nicely. Are they wearing turbans any more, Hazel?”

“Some people are.”

“Then I shall aim for a turban.”

“Ruth—”

“Then, when I have my outfit all ready, I’ll phone the superintendent and ask for an interview. They say the teacher shortage in town is very acute. Of course they say that every year. I mustn’t build my hopes too high.”

“No, you mustn’t.”

“By September, I should have at least twenty dollars.”

She picked up the wooden bowl of cabbage and carried it over to the sink.

Hazel looked at her brother. “Where’s Josephine?”

“Sleeping. I told her to lie down, she looked bad.”

“You didn’t tell her she looked bad?”

“No.”

“I hope to God not.”

Harold’s responsibilities as a future father weighed heavily on him. He had always been a sweet-natured, dreamy man who could spot a silver lining a mile away, but as soon as Josephine missed her first period, Harold became a worrier. He worried nearly all the time because Josephine looked very frail and had a chronically delicate constitution. Harold had never been ill a day in his life and delicate constitutions fascinated and alarmed him.

“She’s so little , Hazel.”

“You talk like she was a midget or something.”

“It’s not only her size. It’s — well, she’s no spring chicken.”

“For God’s sake, don’t tell her that. I got enough trouble on my hands.”

“Sure, I know that, Haze.”

“For instance, that yard. You’d think a bunch of foreigners lived here the way that yard looks. We might as well go live in a jungle.”

Ruth turned sharply. “Are you implying, Hazel, that I should attend to the outside of the house as well as the inside?”

“Speaking of the jungle,” Harold said. “You know what a guy down at the plant told me the other day? He said, in the jungle the natives — well, say for instance the natives are going from one village to another, walking, and the native women are pregnant. They just stop walking, have their babies, and catch up with the rest of the tribe again. Can you beat that?”

“I keep this house clean,” Ruth said. “There isn’t a cleaner house in town. I can’t be expected to get out and dig in the yard.”

“We ought to plant something,” Hazel said. “We ought to have a few flowers around the place, like next door.”

“The people next door have a gardener once a week. It’s easy enough to have flowers if you can afford somebody to look after them. It’s a question of money, the same as practically everything else in this world.”

Frowning, Hazel picked up her empty cup and began rinsing it under the tap. “I wish I’d meet a millionaire.”

Hazel often thought quite seriously about her millionaire. His face and age varied in her mind but always he had in his background a frigid wife. Hazel saw herself opening up vistas for this man and having a few vistas opened up in return.

In a town that was reputedly teeming with millionaires, Hazel had never met one. The closest approximation was her former employer, Arthur W. Cooke, who had a real estate business, a wife, and a black Cadillac big as a hearse. Now and then Mr. Cooke would drop in to inquire after Hazel’s health. He never stayed more than half an hour and he never indicated any interest in Hazel other than the state of her health. Though Hazel called these occasions “dates,” they were more like visits from the family physician.

“Suppose I did meet a wealthy man,” Hazel said, “someone with class like Mr. Cooke, for instance, I’d be ashamed to bring him here with all those weeds around the place and the gopher holes... It’s a funny thing to me that with all those nice flowers and plants next door that the gophers don’t move over there.”

“Maybe they don’t appreciate nature.” Harold laughed, but no one laughed with him, so he added apologetically, “Listen, Haze, I get Saturday afternoon and Sunday off, and honest to God, I’ll get out there and dig those weeds and drown the gophers with a hose.”

“You can’t drown gophers.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve tried.”

“They can’t swim, can they? If they can’t swim, they got to drown, don’t they?”

“All right, Harold, you win. Next Sunday you go out and catch all the gophers and we’ll take them down to the ocean and throw them in.”

“Harold isn’t concerned with a minor trifle like the water bill,” Ruth said contemptuously. “Water costs money. This is desert country, and don’t you forget it. Everybody forgets that this is desert country because water has been brought in to irrigate it. But it’s still desert country.”

“So what,” Harold muttered, very softly. He was afraid of Ruth because she sometimes said very intelligent and forceful things. Like that about desert country. Harold admired that. He saw himself down at the plant addressing the manager, or even the president. Gentlemen, said Harold, don’t you forget that this is desert country.

Ruth took a sack of potatoes from the vegetable bin and began to peel them very quickly as if supper had to be prepared immediately. The kitchen clock on the wall said ten minutes after three, and supper was at least two hours away. But Ruth had a clock inside herself which never corresponded to the others in the house. Ruth’s clock ran fast and Ruth had to run fast to keep up with it. All day she ran, and part of the night; in her sleep her legs and arms twitched and she breathed so hard she woke herself up. There seemed to be no resting place for her, no safety zone where she could pause from the pursuit and catch her breath, no moments of peace except the rare ones when she was alone with the two things she loved best, the Fosters’ baby boy and the little mongrel she’d bought at the city pound for two dollars.