Masters & Lovers Box Set Three

Taking us over the river, across his beautiful bridge, my Master hums as he drives.

“You sound happy.”

Dark eyes flash side-long to me. “Counting my blessings. I have so many of them. It’s easy to forget it sometimes but being here reminds me.”

“Here?” Confused, I look right and left: the river, the City, people milling, traffic flowing… “Why here?”

“This bridge,” he says, then thumps at the horn as some idiot in a roadster swerves and cuts in front.

“Moron,” he mutters, then, “Yes, this bridge.” Lights turn to red and we ease to a halt.

“Master, I’m not following you.”

“This bridge was the start of everything I have now. Winning the contract for the design work brought me wealth, the friendship with Richard, the directorship...” He lays a hand on my thigh, squeezes, then jolts back to the steering wheel as traffic lights switch to green. “But most of all, it brought me the money to bid in your auction. It brought me you.”

“I’d not thought of it like that.”

He stares directly ahead. “I think of it every time I come here.”

Winter is still here, but with the promise of early Spring. The wind bites, but the sunshine is bright. I feel good. “So, all your skies are blue, Master?”

That sideways look again, his eyes crinkling. “Very blue.” Then his smile fades and he looks away.

*****

We park up. Some distance away, there is movement in an area I know only too well. A man in a hi-vis jacket and hard hat moves with purpose, setting up a theodolite; one of the modern ‘total stations’ with EDM and GPS. However the new park is laid out, the exact position of Blessingmoors will never be lost. Even if it were under a retail complex or a sports centre or a car park, it could be found again…

… if needed…

“What’s happening?”

“They’re about to move in with the earthmovers again and finish the demolition process.” He scans the area, settling on the portable site office squatting on its trailer amid mud, stacks of black piping, spools of blue piping, pallets and paraphernalia. “I need a word with Sam. I’ll not be long.” He hands me a file, then waves out over the sea of rocky debris and once-were-roads. “Outline plans for the park. You can entertain yourself lining it up with the reality. I’ll come find you.”

He moves off in search of the site foreman. In the distance, the Haswell offices tower, surrounding by buildings already up or under construction; warehouses, the retail complex, the residential area which edges the slope down to the river.

close by, bulldozers are moving,

Master’s instruction, with the file hanging limply in my hand I find myself

… drawn…

towards my

now-defunct roads

black pits; places of terror, punishment and dread of what might come

Unholy ground…

at its work, I

there, mesmerised, simply watching as with a crash, a ton of broken brick and stone tumbles down. Despite the damp, clouds of dust

but I want to

A figure stands behind me. “It is you, isn’t it,

clothes are thin and worn, cheap to begin with. The skin of his hands is red and rough, the fingers pinched white with cold, the skin splitting around the nails. A

Yes, it’s

then, “I thought I saw you here once before, but you didn't want to

me. Heat rises up my neck. “I’m sorry. Yes, that was me too, but…. I was in a bad place just then. I’m sorry

smiles. “That’s okay. If you were here…” He gestures vaguely over the outline shadow of where the prison we both once occupied used to stand… “I suppose you wouldn’t have been feeling so good.” He pokes at the

“Yes, me too.”

it seems his conversation is

Looking for me?

here that day

day it all

The day I confessed…

a murder I’d

sights me, then heads my way, taking great long-legged distance-eating strides. His movements urgent, the

up, scraping up another load. Benny and

Benny? How’s your life

the others… You know about that? That man who

know about

know him? Who he

he’s… a friend

displaying yellowed teeth; some missing, one blackened. “Well, say thank you to

lapses into silence and I scratch