Bittersweet Page 8

  “A convent, not a jail,” said Bear.

  She giggled. “To some extent, yes, but no prayers.”

  “Are you a Catholic?”

  “No, my father is the Rector of St. Mark’s Church of England — staunchly Protestant, but rather High than Low.”

  He looked blank. “Really?” he asked vaguely.

  Only the lengthening shadows recalled Grace to the world; after agreeing to meet Bear for lunch at noon the next day in the tried-and-true environment of the Parthenon café she bolted, her hat still in one gloved hand, and her heart singing.

  Bear Olsen! Several cuts beneath her, she was well aware of that, and didn’t care a fig. Bear had told her he was one of a type of man notorious for multiple girlfriends and even, in worst cases, bigamous wives. Yes, Bear was that seedy individual, a commercial traveller! Infidelity was easy when the job involved moving from place to place on a very large circuit that did repeat itself, but not quickly. Commercial travellers talked well, were always charming to women, and commonly held to be able to sell flames in Hell. Daddy would hit the roof if he knew about Bear, but Grace had no intention of telling him, let alone Stepmama. In her sisters she could put perfect faith: they’d never breathe a word, no matter what they privately thought. Edda for one would deem Bear not good enough. None of it mattered, however: Grace knew her fate. In a single afternoon she had fallen in love with Bear Olsen, and would marry him. Oh, not immediately, and not without opposition from her parents. But marry him she would!

  He was a Perkins Man, which had to count for something. No lounge lizard with patent leather hair and a toothbrush moustache, out to sell a dozen pairs of silk stockings to an Outback farmer’s wife, Bear Olsen! Perkins manufactured and marketed balms, tonics, liniments, ointments, lotions, emollients, aperients, antiseptics, elixirs, emetics, little blue liver pills and little mauve kidney pills, soaps, and a fizzy saline drink that either brought it all up or settled it all down. Everyone bought from the Perkins Man. Perkins products weren’t sold in shops but from door to door, so city and country knew the Perkins Man. Perkins horse liniment and Perkins ointment were by-words, and every house had a tin of Perkins saline powder. Children actually liked Perkins laxative liquor; as the alternative was castor oil, it was very popular. Grannies swore by the little mauve pills, poppas by the little blue pills, while everybody swore by the tonic, loaded with alcohol and creosote. After so long nursing, even Grace knew how momentous calling the doctor was. When people felt poorly, they dosed themselves, usually with something bearing a Perkins label. It was cheaper than the doctor, and nearly always just as effective.

  Bear had told her that he came from Sydney’s western suburbs at a place called Clyde, where the railway workshops were; he had spent his childhood listening to the huffs, whistles and howls of steam locomotives, but his father, a hopeless drunkard, had not courted the railway workers’ unions, so his tribe of sons became unskilled labourers far from railways. Bear, the youngest, was determined to get out of Sydney, and had answered a newspaper advertisement for a commercial traveller with Perkins Products.

  The deputy manager who interviewed him was as shrewd as he was experienced; what he saw, Grace divined as Bear went on with his story, interested him above and despite educational limitations. For Bear had a naturally honest face, bore no hint of the Dago to frighten a woman at home on her 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 have known 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 happy, and dreaded that it might end. Bear loved her, Bear wanted to marry her! The joy was so great it was almost a pain, and the future loomed before her like a huge, roseate sunrise too glorious to assimilate. I will never be alone again — I am loved, and I love. What more can there be to life than that?

  There was no one in sight. They sank onto the bench half-turned toward each other; Bear took Grace’s head between shaking fingers, staring down into her smiling, uncertain eyes.

  Then his face was too close to see; Grace closed her eyes and waited for the touch of his lips — cool, sleek, light as a feather. After the first little shock she moved her own lips, beginning to savour the incredible sensations in a kiss given by someone loving and loved; for it was as if she had never been kissed before, this was so different, so reciprocated. Nor did he force her mouth open before she was ready, or use any of the techniques other young men s
eemed convinced girls craved. When the kiss did deepen and become passionate, it was with Grace’s heartfelt participation, and the touch of his hands over her breasts, clothed though they were, was electric.

  “Only we’re not going any further until my wedding ring is on your finger,” he said, pushing her away a few minutes later. “Nothing is too good for you, Grace, and I’ll not dishonour you.”

  By an odd chance all three of her sisters were in the common room when Grace walked in; no one was on afternoon shift at present. Edda looked up and stiffened. “The wind is in your tail, Grace,” she said.

  It was a saying they had picked up from an early nanny; as far as they could translate it, it meant existing in a state of sheer confusion, the way animals became when the wind blew the scents of all their enemies over them at one and the same moment.

  Grace blurted her news out. “I’m going to be married!”

  Even Tufts lifted her head from the books; Edda and Kitty gaped, astounded. “Rubbish!” said Tufts with a snort.

  “No, no, it’s true!”

  “Who is the lucky fella?” Edda asked, half-jokingly.

  “His name is Bear Olsen, and I met him yesterday while I was watching the locomotive turntable rotating engines,” said Grace, her elation beginning to die, quite why she didn’t know.

  “Yesterday?” Kitty asked with awful emphasis.

  “Yes, yesterday! It was love at first sight,” said Grace.

  The other three groaned.

  “Grace, Grace, it doesn’t happen like that!” Edda cried.

  “When he’s the only one, it can,” Grace maintained. “He is the only one, Edda, and I’m going to marry him as fast as I possibly can!”

  “How about finishing nursing first?” Tufts asked. “You’d have something to fall back on in times of need, Grace.”

  “I hate nursing! I just want to marry Bear!”

  “Mama will never let you marry anyone she doesn’t approve of,” Kitty said, “and your behaviour screams the fact that this chap is unsuitable.”

  “I am twenty-one,” Grace said defiantly, “so how can anyone stop me marrying whomever I choose?”

  “You don’t have the steel,” said Edda clinically.

  “This time I do!” Grace declared in ringing tones. “I have met my soul mate, Edda! We share enthusiasms and ideals, I have nailed my colours to the mast of his ship of destiny! I tell you straight, I will marry Bear Olsen, no matter who opposes me!”

  “What’s his name?” Tufts asked.

  “Björn Olsen. His family is Swedish. Björn means bear, so everybody calls him Bear. He’s a Perkins Man, the leading salesman in the company, and while he may not be my social equal, he’s going places.” Grace thrust out her chin and looked, for Grace, singularly unbendable. “I will marry him!”

  “Not before you give your sisters a chance to inspect him,” Kitty said, sounding affectionate. “Come, Grace, give us — and this Bear Olsen! — a chance, please. I can understand why you think Mama won’t approve, though perhaps you judge Father too harshly. He’s not a snob, Grace, and if he likes your man, he’ll be a valuable ally. But you must bring Bear to afternoon tea here tomorrow, while all four of us aren’t working the second day shift.”

  “We can’t invite him here!” said Tufts, startled.

  “Oh, can’t we?” Edda asked, getting to her feet. “I’m off to see Matron.”

  “Edda, no!” Grace wailed.

  Too late: Edda was gone, and lucky enough to find Matron with time to see her.

  “Yes, Latimer?”

  “May I have permission to invite a young man to afternoon tea in our cottage common room tomorrow, ma’am? All four of us will be present to meet him.”

  No explosion of wrath greeted this request: instead, Matron indicated the supplicant’s chair with an expressionless face. “I think you had better sit down, Latimer, and explain this rather extraordinary request.”

  “It’s about my sister Faulding, ma’am.”

  “You are aware she isn’t happy nursing?”

  Edda sighed, hunched her shoulders. “Yes, I am.”

  “Is she in another scrape?”

  “Not yet, but if she isn’t handled properly she could get into a very serious one. By handled properly, I mean her sisters need to move closer to her in her present dilemma,” said Edda, struggling to leave so much unsaid, as it had to be. “Our stepmother has very fixed ideas — laudable, naturally! — and a situation has blown up that we sisters need to know more about before Stepmama is informed.” Her hands went out, appealing. “You see, Grace has met a young man she wants to marry, but unfortunately he isn’t from Corunda — in fact, he’s an itinerant, a commercial traveller. A Perkins Man, respectable, but we need to meet this young man and find out more about him. Afternoon tea in our quarters would be ideal.”

  “Permission granted,” said Matron, foreseeing an answer to her difficulties with Grace. “I will inform Sister Bainbridge.”

  “What an eminently sensible young woman Latimer is!” said Matron to Sister Bainbridge over dinner in her house. “She came to me, which is exactly what she should have done. To keep the nurses terrified of us is vital, but it is so refreshing to find that some nurses can see under the veneer. A clever young woman too. Not one word of criticism did Latimer pass against Maude Latimer, but I was able to plumb all the currents. The young man is socially suspect according to Maude’s lights, clearly. We must do what we can to help, Marjorie, including with the Rector, if it comes to that. Can our cook manage scones, jam and cream?”

  Two hours with Bear Olsen reconciled Grace’s sisters to this stunningly sudden change in Grace’s life and future welfare. That he loved her was plain, but — equally important — he wasn’t a shiftless ne’er-do-well of a commercial traveller. He was a genuine Perkins Man, the best in the Antipodes, with a promising career, two thousand pounds in the bank, and friends in high management. He was not a drinker and he would be a good husband to Grace; her three sisters came away from the interview fully convinced of that.

  “I’ll be on this circuit for at least another five years,” he explained, having done justice to the Sisters’ cook’s scones with jam and cream — a mark of Matron’s generosity and approval that staggered its recipients. Perhaps beneath the iceberg lay a human being? An appalling thought of an alien kind. “For that reason,” said Bear, “I wouldn’t want to uproot Grace from Corunda and her family yet. I’ve found a decent house on Trelawney Way, which means it’s on the city water and sewer. I can get it for eleven hundred pounds, cash.”

  “That’s a good price for city water and sewer,” Edda said.

  “Well built, Edda, honest! The roof’s properly lined with tar paper, the interior walls are plastered, and the toilet’s in a separate room from the bathroom. The floors are karri and the windows are all properly flashed — they can be easily fitted with mesh to keep out flies and mosquitoes.”

  “That’s all very good,” Edda conceded. “What about furniture? How many bedrooms are there?”

  “Three, and I’ll have enough left after buying the house to let Grace pick what furniture she likes,” Bear said, uncomfortably aware that he had to win this encounter if he were to succeed in marrying his dearest Grace. She sat anxiously listening, yet said not one word — utter terror, he suspected. Grace’s sisters had a tendency to bully her, he had noted. “Trelawney Way is on the ice man’s run, another good thing — Grace can have an ice chest. That’s real important for the kiddies.”

  Kiddies? Three pairs of eyes bored into him.

  “I hope you intend to limit the size of your family to the number of children you can afford to educate properly,” said Tufts with a growl in her voice.

  “Believe me, my children will be educated,” Bear vowed.

  Grace saw him off the premises, leaving the other three to deal with the realities.

  “Mama will never bless this union,” Kitty said desolately.

  “Nonsense!” Edda countered
briskly. “We just have to handle Maude the right way. Which means we go through Daddy. It’s the social comedown will get Maude’s goat, so we have to make a strong case for a top Perkins Man as distinct from shady purveyors of quack remedies and vulgar women’s undies. In other words, we enlist Daddy’s help to un-tar Bear from the commercial traveller brush. At least he’s not a Dago in looks or name! He’s very respectable from appearance to actions, he drives a new Model T, and our bank manager won’t sneer at him. Personally I think Grace has done extremely well for herself.”

  “I agree,” said Kitty, “and I’ll harp on it to Mama.”

  “Me too,” said Tufts. “Bear is exactly right for Grace. I mean, they met in the shunting yards oohing and aahing over steam engines. How odd is that?” She giggled. “Their babies will dine on coal rather than milk, and hoot rather than cry.”

  “So what’s wrong with that?” demanded Grace, entering.

  “Nothing, dear, nothing,” said Kitty. “How are we going to prise a wedding out of Mama?”

  “I don’t want a wedding,” Grace said flatly. “I don’t mean I won’t wear a white dress and carry a bouquet of flowers, just no fusses like breakfasts and speeches. Bear doesn’t have any family or close friends to fill one side of a church, and I’ll not have him embarrassed. So I want Daddy to marry us quietly, then I’ll go on his circuit with Bear instead of a formal honeymoon.”

  Her cup was full to overflowing; not even the prospect of Maude Latimer’s umbrage had the power to dent Grace’s happiness.

  The four agreed that it would be Edda to broach the subject of Grace’s marriage to the Reverend Thomas Latimer and his wife, and that she would do it at the start of her next days off.

  If Maude and the Rector were surprised to see their senior daughter, they put a good face on it and asked her to lunch.

  “I fail to understand what the fascination of nursing is,” said Maude, whose sense of self-preservation was keen enough to tell her that Edda nowadays was impervious to the slights and sarcastic comments of other times. A self-possessed young woman with an unshakable knowledge of her own worth; Maude felt a trifle shrivelled as she realised the girls, in going nursing, had somehow outstripped her in character, resolution, admirability. All sensations Maude didn’t like.