AUSTRALIAN ADVENTURES
Chapter 16: Like A
Bridge Over Troubled Waters
Her eyes returned to Maximus. Suddenly she wasn't hungry any more and let
her fork fall back to her plate.
He looked at her.
"Bunny, are you all right?" he asked, the genuine concern in
his voice almost her undoing.
She licked her lip.
"I...I'm fine," she lied.
******************************************************************
Jack was flushed with anticipatory excitement. Most of the cast seemed
particularly pale for some reason. In fact, Jeffrey and Ute had gotten up
at the crack of dawn and stolen away, awaiting the opening of a large bookstore
they'd noticed the previous afternoon.
"Lucky dogs!"
Ando commented, not terribly under her breath.
"You were addressing
me?" the Captain asked her.
She mumbled
something unintelligible.
"What did you
say?"
Again she mumbled.
"She said she'd like
to clobber you with a cannon barrel," Sue the Vile explained, ever
helpful.
"You are not eager
for this 'moderately exerting, highly exhilarating, and exposed to the weather'
climb?" he said, cocking one eyebrow in unbelief that not everyone was as
thrilled at the prospect as he.
"Sounds like a damn
brochure," she whispered to Hando.
He smiled. He was
actually rather looking forward to it. "I'll keep you close."
"Promise?"
"Word of honor,"
he grinned, which rather worried her.
It was 9 AM and our cast was in the base area, awaiting pre-climb
instructions. The climbs had begun at 5 AM as they did every morning,
with small groups departing every 10 minutes until 11 PM, rain or shine.
"You mean people
climb this thing in the RAIN?" Eryn gasped upon hearing that bit of
information.
"Or the dark AND the
rain," Colin added.
"Wha...what...about
lightning?" she asked. After all, it was a metal bridge, for Pete's
sake.
"Only
then," Bob replied, "only during thunder storms...or extremely
high winds." Bob was the guy in charge of the base area. He looked
to be about 25 and a triathlete. "But it's easy. You'll all do
just fine."
"Easy for HIM to
say," Susan grumbled, looking at
his extraordinary fitness level.
Bob counted the cast.
"I think we'll have to divide you into at least 3 groups," he
announced.
"Can't we all stay
together?" Pat asked hopefully.
Bob shook his head.
"It's for your own safety...in case someone slips
or has a heart attack or...dies suddenly," he smiled. "None of
you has been sipping liquid courage this morning, eh?" he asked.
Heads shook negatively. "Well, I'm afraid we don't go on the honor system about that," he
grinned again, turning and picking up a breathalyzer.
"Who's first?"
"I knew I shoulda
kept drinking longer last night," Ando grumped as she, alas, passed.
Next came a short stroll
through a metal detector. "Wallets, keys, bombs, cameras into the
lockers," he explained.
"No...cameras?"
Steve moaned, clutching his.
"Nope, sorry. Can't have
anything that can be dropped onto the roadway below. But we'll take
several shots of you as you go."
Steve sighed. This
was a big deal for him to have to leave his camera behind. "Are there
any exceptions?" he asked one last time before putting it in his locker.
"Not a one," Bob
replied. "We even had a guy once who wanted to propose to his girl
up top and he hadda leave the ring in his locker."
Next they were shown a video about the bridge, what was involved in the climb,
safety regulations, etc. "OK," Bob announced when that was
over, "now you can sign the release papers."
"Release papers?"
Himself gulped.
"Yeah," helpful
Bob explained, "so that if you go *splat*...which you won't... as it's my
job to make sure you don't...nobody connected with the bridge can be held
responsible."
Then it was on to
outfitting. The men and women went into separate semi-private dressing
areas and donned lavenderish grey "bridgesuits" over their clothes.
They had zipper fastenings and no pockets. Their feet were checked to
make sure they all had on enclosed rubber-soled shoes.
"For grip," Bob explained.
"Can't have you on the catwalks in slippery leather, now can
we?"
Everyone was given a
little wrist band with a cloth for wiping drippy noses or...in some
cases...tears of terror. Bob sized them up. "I trust all of
you have full eye-hand-foot coordination and full body control."
Joimus decided not to
mention how recently she'd been blind as a bat and Ando didn't speak up
about bladder issues. "We
are going to be doing some, um, prolonged stair climbing, folks, as well as crossing
uneven surfaces and narrow passageways. The whole thing is 3 1/2 hours,
start to finish."
As Ando was fit with
her safety harness over her bridgesuit, bathroom privileges seemed further and
further...remote.
"Now
we...practice," Bob said. Everyone took turns on mock-ups of steps, ladders,
catwalks. If you missed even one small thing, he made you go back and
start all over.
Satisfied with their performance at last, Bob introduced them to Marci, a
healthy-looking blonde Aussie with a spring in her step. She led a group
comprised of Terry, annsmac, Berti, Bud, Wanda, Lachlan, Ando, Hando, Sue, Cort, Susan and Zack. They began
in the bowels of the bridge, going down a narrow hallway to where stone steps
led up to a junction of girders. A
maze of riveted steel beams jutted high above a green park.
Marci smiled. "We've
never had the Worst Thing happen," she assured the former Welshwoman.
"'Worst
Thing?'," Ando repeated.
Marci jerked her head down
toward the park. "You know," she said.
Ando squinted down at the picnicking
folks, the sightseers in the park, their feet sensibly planted on firm grass.
She sighed. "This is hell," she
moaned.
"No," Marci
corrected brightly, "this is Australia!"
For 100 yards they followed the sprightly Marci as she walked into space...or
so it seemed. The track of steel mesh was high above the road, a shock to
the system even with the handrail and the lifeline shimmering along at one's
side. At its end, as though it were no big deal, Marci announced that she
would now be replacing their safety tether with ones that were REALLY safe.
She swapped their cog-like device for a kind of clamp.
Annsmac recognized it from
her first attempt to summit Everest. "It's a 'jumar'," she
explained to Berti. "If you should, um, fall, it's designed to
tighten when your weight is applied."
"Comforting,"
Berti said, shaking her head somewhat dubiously.
"Up there,"
Marci said, pointing toward an open, vertical mesh ladder five stories high.
Wanda buried her face in
her hands. "Now, now," Lachlan comforted. "I'll be right behind you."
At the top, the wind really began kicking up and the roar of the vehicular and
rail traffic was much louder. "Just think," Marci grinned,
"you could be doing this at night in the rain." Possibly she
meant it as encouragement in that they were now in sunny daylight, but it didn't help all that much. It also didn't help when she explained,
"This is where Vincent tumbled off the bridge." They peered
hundreds of feet down at unforgiving asphalt.
"Who
was...Vincent?" Wanda asked, hoping he wasn't a bridge climber on a slightly
earlier tour.
"He was a worker.
Fell off with his tool belt on. Broke three ribs and the soles of his shoes got plastered onto his privates. Went back to
work 6 weeks later, though, no worries."
A bit further on, Marci
pointed to another spot. "There's where poor George went over.
Never found that one. Everybody else was at lunch. Legend has it he
dropped right into the pylon." The bridge shuddered as a train
rumbled by far below. "Hear that?" Marci smiled. "Probably
ol' George."
"I think these guides have watched 'Quills' one too many times," Berti commented to Bud.
The long, gradual walk up the shallow steps of the arch itself were actually a
bit of a breeze compared to the ladders and the catwalks they had already
miraculously survived. At the summit, they clutched the rail, staring in
amazement at the panorama all about them. The Opera House looked quite ready to
sail away toward the distant Pacific.
"There's Woolloomooloo!"
pointed out annsmac.
Ando was just about to
decide she might live after all when Marci pointed to a very narrow, mesh
catwalk stretching for 50 yards, vibrating from the traffic 250 feet below.
It stretched from the summit of one arch to the summit of the other.
"Nope," Marci
said, pointing again to the catwalk. "We go that way."
"But...WHY?"
Marci pointed down the
arch to where the second group of cast members was already part way up. "Single
file," she smiled. "It's all single file." Looking at
Ando, she asked, "You wanna be the first?"
Hando, though, stepped
forward. "I'll go in front of her," he said.
When it was her turn to
step out on the narrow catwalk, she looked down through the mesh between her feet
at the 8 lanes of city traffic so far below. "Ack!" she
croaked.
In the second group, Jeff kept having to urge Marti to open her eyes.
"You're missing the view," he said several times.
"I hate views,"
she moaned. "I wanna be in...BED!"
"Soon," he
promised, knowing she would need lots and lots of comforting.
Eryn kept one hand on the railing
and the other tucked far down through Colin's belt. "I can't believe
we are PAYING to be terrorized," she gasped through clenched teeth.
Colin turned to look at
her over his shoulder. "Himself's paying," he said.
"Well, I'm not getting
his money's worth, for sure!" she replied.
When they got to the
summit, Steve stopped a long time, his arm around Laura's waist, his eyes sparkling
with the beauty of it all. An Australian flag snapped in the brisk wind not
far from where they stood. "I can't believe I don't have my
camera," he sighed, then turned to look at her face. Her long,
richly brown hair had been pulled back in a ponytail for the climb, but long strands had come free, curving and flowing about her head.
He reached out, touching her cheek.
"You are
so...beautiful," he said. When she answered him with her smile, an idea came to him. Well, it was an idea that always was
right there in his mind of late, but this place was just so...perfect...so
memorable. He leaned toward her, softly cupping her lips with his, moving
from her upper to her lower lip and back again, then claiming her whole mouth as his. She leaned into him, her hair whipping, the
flag snapping, the entire gateway to Australia lying beneath their feet.
It was, quite simply, magic, and she felt it in the deepest core of her
being. When he opened his eyes, looking once again into hers, he could see plainly the promise that lay in their blueness.
Jack was getting impatient, not liking much that Bob had put him in the last
group. When they were called, he stepped right up, followed a bit more
slowly by Rose. Then came Himself and Phyllis, Maximus, Joimus, Bunny, Nash,
Franki, and Stephen (who thought he could be more use in that form).
Just before they started
up the stone steps, Bob smacked his forehead and said, "I can't believe I
forgot two important questions!"
Sid, who had taken up
residence in the superstructure of the bridge and had watched with great
interest the cast's approach to the base then waited on a girder up above the
steps, leaned forward, listening. "Is everybody over the age of
12?" There were chuckles. "And is anybody pregnant?"
"Why do you need to
know that?" Joimus asked.
"Because if anyone is
over 24 weeks along, they aren't permitted to go and if less than that, they
have to have their doctor's permission."
Franki was busily
whispering in Stephen's ear. He turned slightly widened eyes on a cast
member. "Really?" he said. Franki nodded.
Joimus sighed, blowing out
a long breath, then took Maximus' hand. "I...I've just found out
something," she said softly, "and was going to tell you later
today."
He looked puzzled.
There at the bottom of the stone steps inside the structure of the
bridge, she lifted her eyes to his, her lips curving gently upwards.
"We're having a child...you and I," she said.
He blinked, not
comprehending right off. He tipped his head down and cocked it slightly to
the left, not breathing.
She repeated it, "A
child, Maximus, your child, yours and mine."
He blinked again, then
raised his free hand to his mouth, sucking in a deep breath through his
fingers. He was absolutely speechless for a long moment, just staring into
her eyes, searching them, clinging to them with his own.
Smiling more broadly, she
nodded her head. "It's true, Maximus."
She watched his eyes as
realization dawned in them, spreading across
them as though the gates of Elysium itself had parted, letting a bright gleam
of glory through. Breath bursting
out in a sharp gasp of sound, he put his arms around her, lifting her off her feet,
pressing her against his chest. Then he set her carefully down, holding onto
her shoulders
with his hands, staring into her face. His mouth was open but he just
shook his head in slow wonder, still unable to form words.
"He's happy,"
Jack said, beaming hugely.
Then the General began to
blink rapidly as tears brimmed and he pulled her back to himself, tucking her
close, the top of her head under his chin. She listened to his heart
beating rapidly, telling her all she needed to know.
He swallowed hard, twice,
then said, "This means...everything."
"I know," she
murmured, "I know."
Bob cleared his throat. "We need to be moving along, folks, before
the next group catches up to us."
Looking at Joimus,
he asked, "So, are you less than 24 weeks then?"
She turned toward him a
bit. "Probably," she replied, "but I have no idea."
He backed up a couple of
steps. "You...you...were dead... and...
"Maybe," she
said seriously. "I could have gotten pregnant before
I was killed."
My gods!" Maximus
suddenly cried. "You fell off the tor! You could have lost the
baby!"
Stephen spoke up then.
"But she didn't, Maximus, she only lost her sight, not the baby."
Bob had backed up a bit
more still. "Um, listen," he said. "We don't really
allow dead pregnant recently blind women to climb this bridge."
Bunny had stood silently, pale, listening to every word. No one had been
watching as strong emotions played across her face during the conversation.
Even Sid, high above, had been completely absorbed by what was being
said. Finally regaining her composure, she squared her shoulders, inhaled a deep breath, saying, "I can't do the climb,
either."
There was a scrape and a
loud *wham* as Sid fell off the girder, landing on a catwalk right above their
heads. He flipped himself gracefully down to stand beside Bunny, grinning from
ear to ear.
"Come with me," he
said, scooping her into his arms and making his way down the passageway past
another oncoming group.
"A baby Sid?" Jack said wonderingly, watching their quick exit. He turned to look at Himself, startled by the stone-like set to his chin, the deep crease between his eyes.
"What? What is
it?" Jack asked.
Pulling Jack slightly to
one side, Himself said, "Sid has no...seed."
Jack's eyes widened.
He looked at Maximus. "You mean...?"
Himself nodded silently.
"Oh...my...God!" Jack gasped.
