Tag: Married Life

The Half Pair by A. Bertram Chandler

Posted on by Paul Fraser

The Half Pair by A. Bertram Chandler (New Worlds, November 1957) sees the male member of a husband and wife prospecting team, halfway between Mars and the Asteroid Belt, complain about a missing cufflink that has been flushed out the garbage disposal into space. When his wife tells him she’ll get him another pair when they land, he is not impressed:

‘We agreed’, he said stiffly, ‘that we weren’t going to let ourselves lapse, get sloppy, the way that some prospecting couples do. You must remember those dreadful people we met on PX173A—the ones who asked us to dinner aboard their ship. He dressed in greasy overalls, she in what looked like a converted flour sack. The drinks straight from the bottle and the food straight from the can…’
‘That’, she told him, ‘was an extreme case.’
‘Admittedly. And my going around with my shirt sleeves rolled up, or flapping, would be the thin end of the wedge.’
He brooded. ‘What I can’t get over is the clottishness of it all. I go through into the bathroom to rinse out my shirt. I leave the cuff links on the ledge over the basin while I put the shirt on the stretcher to dry. Picking up the cuff links, to transfer them to a clean shirt, I drop one into the basin. It goes down the drain. I hurry to the engine-room to get a spanner to open the pipe at the U-bend. I return to find you filling the basin to wash your smalls. I tell you what’s happened—and you promptly pull out the plug, washing the link over and past the bend…’
‘I wanted to see,’ she said.
‘You wanted to see,’ he mimicked.  p. 90

This domestic squabbling continues until the man decides to don a spacesuit and go out to retrieve the missing link (he has seen it on the ship radar orbiting nearby). His wife protests as they are not meant to EVA solo, and she can’t go as she has been traumatised by a previous space walk.
Needless to say (spoiler), the man goes out on his own, loses his thruster, and then realises his safety line has become undone. His air supply runs out and he lapses into unconsciousness—but later wakes up in the ship. His wife tells him, in an explanation as to how she overcame her trauma, ‘I do so hate half a pair of anything—and I don’t mean only cuff links!’
This neat last line, and the couple’s verbal sparring throughout, make for a fun if lightweight piece.
*** (Good). 1800 words. Story link.

Theory and Practice of Economic Development: The Metallurgist and His Wife by Richard Frede

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Theory and Practice of Economic Development: The Metallurgist and His Wife by Richard Frede (F&SF, August 1976) opens by establishing Horowitz as a hen-pecked husband who lives in an overheating apartment. On Saturdays he usually goes fishing and, during one particular trip out on the Many Happy Returns, something very odd happens:

[It] was at that moment that there was such a mighty tug on the dropline that Horowitz was in fear of losing his finger. Then, just as suddenly, there was no tension to the line at all. But as Horowitz looked over the side into the water, a large flounder about twice the size of any flounder Horowitz had ever seen before, surfaced next to the dropline. The fish had a hook and line in its mouth, and it seemed to gaze up at Horowitz and to judge him. After some little time the fish said, “Would you kindly remove your hook from my mouth?”  p. 70

During the ensuing conversation the fish tells Horowitz that taking the hook out rather than cutting the line will reduce the risk of infection, that it is an enchanted businessman, and that it knew better than to take the bait but couldn’t resist, etc. Then, after Horowitz returns the fish to the water, it tells him that it owes him one.
When Horowitz later tells his wife about this fantastic event she is contemplative rather than dismissive and tells him to go back and ask the fish for a better apartment. Horowtiz does so and, after the fish expresses his surprise that he is back so soon, tells him, “It’s in the mail”.
This is the first of a number of demands that the wife makes as she quickly becomes dissatisfied with what she has been given (a country home, a bigger apartment in the city, and a seat as a US Senator soon follow). When Horowitz is eventually told to tell the fish that she wants to be President (spoiler), the fish gets fed up and tells Horowitz that they are both going back to their original apartment. Horowitz says he would be happy to return there but asks if his wife can stay where she is. The fish says it’ll arrange a divorce, that Horowitz can go back to the original apartment, and that his wife can live with her mother.
This entertainingly combines the fantastic elements involving the fish with the mundanity of married life (in this latter respect it somewhat resembles a humorous mainstream story). The ending is a bit of a dud, though.
** (Average). 4,200 words. Story link.