Masters And Lovers 1-4

*****

James

Carrying a tray with tea all round, I find Michael and Ben in the back ‘garden’. A great swathe has been cut through the tangle of briars. Both are hot and sweaty.

Ben scowls as he sees me, but Michael brightens, taking a mug from the tray. “Ah great, thanks, James.”

Ben nods, barely polite, but takes a mug anyway.

I glance up at the sun, beginning to beat through the last traces of the morning mist. “Perhaps I should have brought something cold.”

“Nah….” Michael waves a beer can at me. “Just had one. Not a good idea to have another while we’re still waving machetes and axes around.”

“Have you seen Charlotte?”

Michael nods back to the house. “In her room, I expect. She said something about revision for her exams.”

So, I go in search of my mermaid.

Not in her study….

She should be working. Exams next week….

Where is she?

She’s nowhere in the house, so I wander back outside, bypassing Michael and his sour-faced brother.

I don't see her at first but hear her voice. So, I follow the sound….

Where the hell is she?

And there, I find her, in the meadow, concealed by a stand of tall, scrubby grass, but sitting cross-legged on short rabbit-clipped turf overlooking the verdant slopes down to the lake. The long grass conceals her to the casual eye, but her own view is open, gloriously so, all the way down the valley to where the water sparkles far below. It’s hot and she’s in jeans and a skimpy tee-shirt, but she’s kicked off her trainers and socks to sit barefoot.

And, as she should be, she’s working, with a text on her lap, notes by her side and speaking quietly to herself in that sing-song way that suggests she's learning something by rote. Intent on her work, she doesn’t notice me until I am almost on top of her.

offering a

face lights up. “Master,

to go? I didn't mean

at all.” And smiling, she holds her

on my face as I sit beside her, burning its way through

hay. Small life buzzes and skitters through the stalks, tiny beetles, glistening black-green in the sunlight,

right

I say.

But I’m trying to memorise the equations for fluid flow, Bernoulli and Euler….

surprised. Would you like

Yes, that would

as I take the text, quickly scanning the pages to see what she’s working on. “Alright, give me the basic equation for Bernoulli’s

“Pee-one plus…. half rho, vee-one squared….” She falters, pressing fingers

do it the hard way,

settle on me. “There’s an

Instead, think about what the components of the equation mean.” Her brow furrows. “Instead of parroting

pressure of the fluid plus

that and how each parts of the equation is

half rho vee-one squared, plus, um… potential energy, rho, gee, aitch one equals….” Her face

Now,” I tap

*****

Michael

I gasp and jam my axe into the stump. “I need

go with that.” He stands and stretches. “Too much bending. Fancy a walk? Straighten the

“Good idea.”

rubs at the back of his neck. I roll my head and shoulders, working out the kinks. Scruffy trots along

with no particular aim in mind, we amble in that

general case of the Eulerian equations, what are

“Mass, momentum

give

“I see he's there with your wife

qualified engineer and a fucking good one. She's got exams next week and he's helping her study. What’s wrong with