Wives and Lovers by Margaret Millar Read Free Book Online Page B

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?”
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œWe ought to plant something,” Hazel said. “We ought to have a few flowers around the place, like next door.”
    â€œThe 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 approximationwas 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.
    â€œSuppose 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.”
    â€œMaybe 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.”
    â€œYou can’t drown gophers.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œI’ve tried.”
    â€œThey can’t swim, can they? If they can’t swim, they got to drown, don’t they?”
    â€œAll 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.”
    â€œHarold 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.”
    â€œSo 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