Is the title of a short story by Alexander McCall Smith that I have just finished reading. I find it haunting for the seriously flawed world that it depicts, Southern Rhodesia in 1959, and the way the 'aridness' of the prose parallels the aridness of the main relationship. The protagonist is a man, who marries, and then....well, you have to read the story to know why the marriage falters from the beginning, and rushes, pell-mell, into failure.
"On his marriage, Michael was moved out of the single staff quarters, a long, low, rather barrack-like building near the rugby fields, into one of the junior staff houses. It was a bungalow, one of the earliest buildings raised on the site, and was considered by the other staff to be at the bottom of the housing ladder. The roof, which was made of corrugated iron, protested loudly against its restraining bolts as the morning sun heated it up; the bath, an ancient tub on claw feet brought from a demolished house in Bulawayo, was chronically uncomfortable, and the kitchen was regularly invaded by ants. Anne, however, chose to defend it on the grounds of its character and surprised everyone by saying that she wanted to remain there rather than move when a better house became available."
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