SONS OF THE FATHERS

Chapter 17: Sydney Shore Shells

Just then the ferry blew its whistle and a man on the gangplank announced loudly, "All aboard for the Head!"  "Do you need to use the loo on the boat?" Ando asked Sue.  "Most certainly NOT!" Sue huffed. "Then why are we standing here on the Squarish Quay?" Ando queried sensibly.  "I have no idea," Sue replied.  And so the four of them left.
********************
Several days passed, and Sid kept an ever-more-attentive eye on the final expansion of Bunny's former waistline.  "Ah...niiice!" he pronounced, sliding his palm over her curve. He wanted a big, strong son...bigger and stronger than Dess.  

Bunny was worried, not just about where she might end up giving birth, but the long purple cape with the black furred drape that Sid had had made caused her great concern.  What would happen when Maximus saw him wearing it?  It was, she thought, going a bit too far on his part to aggravate the General.

Despite Sid's attentiveness to her ripening, he still disappeared for unexplained amounts of time each day.  Now it was midafternoon and she and he sat at a small table on the  apron of the Wharf, drinking tea. He tipped his chair way back, propping his shiny black shoes on the table top.  Almost too offhandedly he remarked, "Did you know there are nearly 1000 rooms in the Opera House?"  

"No," she responded, truly surprised at the largeness of the number. "How do you know this?"

Not answering her query, he continued.  "And 26 of them are air-conditioning plant rooms."

She studied his handsome face.  He looked quite pleased with himself, an expression which, when found upon Sid's face, more often than not boded ill.  "And to what do we owe this sudden interest in the Opera House?" she asked.

He grinned.  "I have an idea."

Her teacup dropped to its saucer with a loud clatter.  The last time he'd said that to her he had ended up transferring his essence into Maximus' body, resulting in her pregnancy and not less than three deaths.  "No!" she gasped. (See: A YOOK By Any Other Name)

He cocked his head, grinning even more widely.  "This is even...," he began, but then she saw his eyes fasten on something behind her. Turning her head, her gaze was filled with the sight of Maximus and Joimus coming down from the end of the Wharf where the Western Apartments were.  He was pushing a small stroller and was speaking earnestly with Joimus about something so that he had not as yet glanced ahead.  

 

She looked back at Sid, who had tipped his cheek down into the deep, black fur encircling his shoulders and was rubbing it slightly back and forth as his eyes were locked on the approaching General.  She noted the glitter in his eyes and for all the world he looked, with his face partially buried in the fur, like a cobra peering over the top of its basket.

"Sid!" she said, her voice full of caution.

He removed his shoes from the table and let his chair settle back on all four of its legs. A sharp gust of wind scurried its way across the Wharf, and his cape billowed out to one side.  The sudden movement caught Maximus' eye and for the first time he looked straight at them.  His jaw tightened and a small muscle under his left eye twitched.

 

Joimus saw his knuckles whiten with the pressure of his grip on the stroller handle. Purple.  Not only was Sid flaunting purple, but he was doing it in the form of a cape strikingly like Maximus' but for its colors.  

Maximus stopped about five feet away, his eyes hard and dark as he studied the blowing cape. "Why?" he said, the single word heavy and cold.

Sid stood, letting his cape billow more freely.  "Why not?" he smiled.  

Bunny also stood, her belly in profile, great with child.  She was very aware of how Maximus' eyes moved then from the cape to her midsection.  She could see he wanted to say something, but instead clamped his teeth on his lower lip as his eyes flashed back again to Sid.

 

Her heart squooched a bit in her chest.  She could still not look at the General's form without her mind going back to its weight over her on the bed in the back of the caravan in Bellingen.  That night she had learnt its every contour, its every scar...and more, much, much more.  It had been Sid, of course, but...still...the body had been that of Maximus.  

Sid's eyes narrowed.  He knew what his English wabbit was thinking. Nostrils flaring he stepped quickly beside her, curving his cape possessively around her shoulders, his jaw jutting out a bit more than was necessary.  

"My son is due any day now," he said, accenting the "my."

Joimus watched the two men glaring at one another.  The wind blew more strongly and she studied the flow of the rust-colored and the purple capes as they whipped and curved so like the motion of the aurora.  She had tried to forget about that, not to let it matter any more as it seemed Maximus had, but the movement of the thick materials was bringing it all vividly back to her and something deep in her yearned for that.  The freedom of it, the flow and play of it, the "knowing" and the music that accompanied it. How could she completely forget that? Tears stung her eyes and she felt suddenly tired.

"Your...?" Maximus had begun when she rested her hand on his arm and said, "I cannot walk more today.  Please, can we go back home?"  

Instantly his full attention transferred to her and he lifted his left hand from the handle, placing it over hers.  "Perhaps we have gone too far?" he said, concerned.

"Yes," she said, closing her eyes briefly.  "We have come...very...far." Then she opened them, looking directly into Sid's.  "Very far," she repeated.  

 

Something in her face caused the slightest grimace to flash across his own.  He had left all his inner purple atop Uluru.  He did not miss it, nor wish it back.  He did...not.  He chose to ignore the sudden sear of green across his retinas and, hardening himself, curled his lip, remarking, "Best take your wife, General, and YOUR son back to the apartment."  He tightened his arm around Bunny.

Maximus stood there, silently staring at Sid a long moment.  Then he breathed deeply, moved his eyes back to Bunny, saying, "Good day, Bunny," turned on his heel, wheeling the stroller about and walked with Joimus back the way they had come.  

Sid watched them go, watched the easy, comfortable sway of Maximus' cape behind him as though it were part and parcel of his being and not just some decorative drape.  The man was entirely infuriating.  He narrowed his eyes, focusing on the walkway in front of the General, but no gaping hole opened to swallow him.  Drat! Why had they not programmed him with ocular lasers?  He turned then, smiling at his companion.  "It's time," he said.

Bunny frowed slightly.  She'd always thought that was a line SHE would get to, um, deliver. "Time? Time for what?"

"Time to say 'good-bye'," he sang, giving his cape a grand swirl and bowing, hand extended.

"To...whom?"

"Them," he answered, indicating the remainder of the Wharf.

"Them?"

"All of them, especially...some...of them."

"Maximus?" she breathed.

His smile broadened, showing a bit too much teeth.   All it needed was a sudden sparkle of light on one of his canines to complete the sly pleasure of his countenance.  The fingertips of his outstretched hand curled under hers and he began to back down the Wharf toward the shore, leading her slowly, his head cocked as though listening to some inner music only he could hear.

"2045 you say?" Himself repeated, shaking his head again as the amazement of it all refused to leave him.  He studied Joimus a while as she sat beside Maximus on the couch, Dess nestled in the crook of the General's left arm.  Joimus nodded assent and Himself continued, "It actually explains...much, you know."  

 

He thought of how when Lachlan Macquarie had arrived in Sydney on the last day of 1809, he found it little better than a prison camp with a population of less than 12,000. When he left after 12 years, the nation of Australia had begun its formation, with nearly 40,000 people in Sydney, 276 miles of road constructed, the "impassable" Blue Mountains had been crossed, a bank had been established and the currency stabilized, all sorts of manufacturing had begun,  bridges, churches, courthouses, hospitals, schools...200 public buildings...now graced the land.  He smiled again at Joimus, repeating, "It explains a lot about how he was able to do so very much in such a short period of time."  

Joimus suddenly looked a bit worried.  "It mustn't get out, though," she added quickly to his words.

He nodded, understanding, when a loud banging on his door interrupted what he might have said next. Crossing the room, he opened the door to find Mary and Johnny standing there, faces flushed. "He's taken her!" Mary exclaimed, waving a piece of paper.

"Who's taken whom?" Himself asked, giving one quick look over his shoulder at Joimus, who, more often than not seemed to be the taken one.  

"Sid!" Johnny said firmly.  "He's taken Bunny."

Maximus stood, still holding Dess, and walked to stand beside Himself, his face a thundercloud. "Where?" he asked harshly.  "Where has he taken her?"

"I...I'm not sure," Mary said, looking down again at the paper.  "We went to their apartment to ask if they wanted to join us for dinner tonight and...and...THIS was tacked to the door."

Himself took the paper, holding it so Maximus could read it, too.  It was a poem of sorts, a takeoff of some old nursery rhyme.

"Maxi, Maxi, turdball eater
Had a Bun but couldn't keep 'er...
So Sid took her to the great big shell,
And there he kept 'er very well."

Maximus scowled darkly. "Pah!" he exclaimed, smacking the paper with the back of his hand."What meaning is THIS supposed to have?"

Himself looked very thoughtful.  "He's playing with us, Maximus...as usual.  He's made some sort of 'announcement' here, left some sort of clue."

"Why?" Maximus growled, very much as he had done on the apron earlier in the day.

"He knows we...you...will come looking for her because of...," Himself turned looking toward Joimus again, not finishing his sentence.  

 

Joimus had pressed her lips together and was staring intently at Maximus, who now also looked across the room at his wife.  Dess yawned hugely, attracting his father's attention, and Maximus smiled down at him briefly, then walked toward Joimus.

He knelt in front of her, supporting Dess between them, and Joimus thought of that day on Matlock Island when the waves had crashed around them and Dess, still within her, was yet nestled between them. She reached out, cupping her hands around Dess' head, kissing his chestnut curls, then lifting her eyes to lock onto, into the seagreenness of Maximus'.  She saw clearly, unmistakably in them his love for her, for Dess, and yet there was also that distant echo of trampling horses' hooves.  

 

"I...I...need to make sure...he...is safe," he murmured.  

 

"I know," she whispered.  And she...did.  She took Dess into her arms as she and Maximus stood together, facing one another closely.  He encircled both of them with his arms, closing his eyes for a moment as he rested his cheek atop her head.  

Jack was struggling to get to his feet, but his cane fell and skittered out of his reach. "Blast!" he roared, bending, trying to reach it.  Rose picked it up, looking at him seriously, understanding how much he wanted to accompany Maximus.  She shook her head quietly side to side and he sank heavily back into the large, padded chair.  

 

"Blast," he said again, only a bit more softly.

Stephen placed his hand on the Captain's shoulder.  "She's right," he pronounced.  "It's way too soon for you to be out and about...heaven knows where."

Jack looked up at the Doctor's face.  "That's the question, isn't it? Where?"

"I may know," Himself said, crossing the room, paper in hand.  "The great big shell", he read again, continuing toward the western window wall, his eyes fixed on a familiar object down the harbor, an object whose overlapping roof sections were referred to as "shells."

"But it's DARK!" Bunny said as Sid's unseen arm guided her up a flight of metal steps and along a corridor.

"Great, eh!"  Sid replied.  "Just a bit more and we'll be there."

"Be WHERE?" Bunny moaned, her back really starting to hurt from being on her feet so long.

"HERE!" Sid said proudly, opening a door he seemed somehow to know was there.

She took a step forward, her eyes filling with the spotlit harbor bridge. She turned, startled, toward Sid.  "What...?" she began.  She had, of course, seen that he was taking her to the Opera House, but....

"Like the view?" he grinned, indicating the harbor and the city with a sweep of his hand.

"Sid?  The...roof?"

"Best spot in town!" he said.  "Well, except for the top girder of the bridge, perhaps.  But, then, they don't allow pregnant women up there."

"I would expect they don't allow pregnant women on the roof of the Opera House, either, Sid," Bunny replied.

He cocked one eyebrow.  "Spoil sports," he pronounced.  "What do they know?"

A cold wind blew over the roof and Bunny pulled her sweater closed. "OK, Sid.  I've seen the view.  Can we go down now?"

But Sid was looking at the paved walkway that led from the Botanic Gardens to the Opera House.  Maximus, cape flying, was sprinting towards the building, followed closely by Himself, Terry, and Jim.  He frowned.  "Well, at least they don't have the gimp with them this time."

"What?" Bunny said, her confusion mounting.  

But Sid had slipped past her, gone through the tiny doorway and was beginning to close it behind him.  "You'll be safe here," he called back.  "Just don't...move!"

"WAIT!" she cried, but the door clicked shut, locking.  Frantically, she looked down at the running men.  "Maximus!" she called.  

They skidded to a halt, craning their necks upwards.  There on a tiny platform built into the curve of one of the larger shells, stood Bunny. "My God!" exclaimed Himself.  He looked at Maximus.  "Why would Sid leave her up there?"

"Why would he take her there in the first place?" Jim added, cleverly covering his real concern that he had been added to this foursome because his movie was in release now and "she" had already seen it four times.  He knew, he'd always known, that some day he would be brought to the forefront of her attention.  It was a happenstance he'd been dreading for well over a year now. He thought that, perhaps, Teller actually had got the better deal, being able to stay on the farm with their Mum and eat her cooking and have Lucilla's company.  It was not a bad life.  And, certainly, it did not involve racing through the night toward an Opera House with a fully pregnant cast member stranded atop its roof.  He wished he had more backup.  Maybe the cop. Perhaps even the nimble Melbourner.  "Could we call for backup?" he said, his eyes still on the roof. Looking then at Himself, he asked, "Do you have a phone?"

Himself glowered at Jim in the night.  "A PHONE?  You speak to ME of phones at a time like this?"

"I...I...just thought...we...," Jim stammered, but as Himself, Maximus, and Terry had by then resumed their sprinting, he sighed and ran after them.  "Sheesh!" he mumbled under his breath.  "Why would Himself get so uptight over a silly...phone?"

Terry had found a service door, quickly and expertly picking its lock. "This way," he whispered, and all four men stepped inside.  Cautiously, yet fairly rapidly, they made their way down several dimly-lit corridors, up a flight of steps, coming out backstage in the Opera Theater, the second-largest of the halls in the building.  Terry walked toward the front of the stage, studying the room.  Its walls and ceiling were painted black, making its night-time darkness even darker.  He caught a quick flit of movement on a catwalk high above them and pointing soundlessly, attracted the attention of his companions upwards.  

 

Instantly Maximus ran toward a narrow, metal ladder and began climbing, hand over hand.  A loud peal of laughter curved its way downwards, accompanied by strangely muffled organ music.

"Good Lord!" Himself said.  "He's flipped for sure this time!"

Terry just narrowed his eyes, preparing to follow the General up the ladder.  "He's no Phantom of the Opera," he called back over his shoulder.  "He doesn't even have a mask!"

There was the sound of feet running along the metal catwalk, another laugh, a brief chorus of "Love me...that's all I ask of you"...and then a door slammed.  A large piece of scenery began to descend unseen toward Jim.  "Watch out!" Himself called, barely managing to push the boxer out of the way.  

Then Himself and Jim headed for the ladder on the far side of the stage. "I'm Jim, not Jack," Braddock thought to himself as he climbed in the darkness.  "What the heck am I DOING on the far side of anything?"  

Meanwhile, up on the roof, Bunny...but of course...had just had her first labor pain.  "I KNEW it!" she cried, clamping her teeth a bit roughly onto her knuckles.  "I just KNEW it!!!"  She beat wildly on the small, locked door.  "SID! You let me in! SIIIIIIIID!" And, but of course, in an equal bit of unpropitious epitiming, the bolts on the left side of the tiny platform began to bend.