Bittersweet by Colleen McCullough

own, a certain self-confidence, and a streak of generosity that might lead him to offer to chop the lady a bit of wood for her cooking stove. Most heartening of all to that deputy manager had been Bear’s skill with a car, allied to a knack for fixing cars. The result? Bear got the job.
    To hear Bear talk, he had never looked back. For one thing, he discovered that he loved the act of selling. Nor did he ruin things for himself by over-spending on his living allowance. Steadily he rose to better and even better circuits, was given the first new car in a batch, an increased expense allowance, and raises in pay. After five years he was the top Perkins Man in New South Wales, and in the four years since then, he had kept his edge over every other Perkins Man in Australia and New Zealand. At thirty, he told Grace jubilantly, he was in good nick — he had a secure career and money in the bank.
    That he was very attracted to her was obvious, especially given that they shared this strange obsession for steam engines. He too had done a little fishing into her life-stream, and been delighted to find her several cuts above him. It meant she was an ideal wife, her children domestically educated to be ladies and gentlemen, her aspirations for their education high. Only how was he going to persuade Grace’s family that he was the right, the only husband for her?
    He lost no time in discussing everything with her as soon as they slid into a back booth at the Parthenon; she ordered curried egg sandwiches and he a steak with fried potatoes, tomatoes and field mushrooms. What bliss! Absolutely no one noticed them! Con Decopoulos, the proprietor, was serving lunch himself, no waitresses to sticky-beak.
    “I know I’m not your equal, Grace,” Bear said earnestly over a pot of tea and an ice-cream sundae, “but I’m going to marry you. There’s no other woman for me, I knew it when you gave that screech at the streamlining on the C-38 that hauls the Spirit of Progress . Then I saw your face — lovely! It’s got to be marriage, and I won’t take no for an answer.” He clasped her hand. “The sooner the better, dear. I love you.”
    Her eyes darkened by emotions new and strange to her, Grace gazed into Bear’s frost-fair face hardly able to believe what he was saying. Marriage?
    Nor had he finished; as he talked his thumb caressed the back of her hand. “I can sell anything, dear. I’ll never be out of a job. I love selling Perkins Products because they’re so good, I can be honest. Honest selling’s as important to me as my life is. I’ve got two thousand pounds in the bank, and that’s enough to buy a decent house in Corunda with plenty left over — oh, not as ritzy as the sort of home you’re used to, and we couldn’t afford more than a scrub woman, but I’ll rise higher, Grace, I will! One day you’ll live in the lap of luxury.”
    She returned his clasp with trembling fingers. “Oh, Bear! As if I could ever call any time spent with you hard! I must haveknown too, because ever since I met you yesterday, my mind can’t think of anyone or anything except you.”
    His face, she decided now, drowning in the ardour blazing from his eyes, is strongly handsome. Yesterday I found his extreme fairness off-putting, too strange, but today it’s inside me, a part of me forever. His brows look frozen, his lashes sparkle like crystal — where does that tanned skin come from? And I have never seen eyes so blue, so enthralling … His nose is like Edda’s and mine; we will have fine-featured children, and they will be tall. Oh, please not twins! Just a pigeon-pair, a son and then a daughter …
    “Will you marry me?” Bear was pressing.
    “Yes, dearest Bear, of course I will,” said Grace.
    Face alight, he visibly swelled. “Back to our seat in the park, woman! I want to kiss you.”
    He hurried her, but Grace scarcely noticed the pace, her mind whirling, her heart singing. For the first time in her life she was idyllically