Slave to Love

That was all, nothing else. And as she stood there, white-faced and staring at him, she could sense Lulu’s triumphant laughter hiding behind those pretend tears.

‘Mac. You—’ At last she tried to defend herself, but it was too late, and he wasn’t listening anyway. His attention was fixed firmly on his daughter, his arms and the soft sound of his voice all aimed to soothe her as he led her out of the door without a backward glance.

Roberta stared after them for a long, long time before it hit her, really hit her, what Mac had just done. Then, on realising it, she found she still could not move.

All right, she argued with herself. He had been in shock. Lulu had been in shock. Dear God, having listened to Lulu’s garbled description of what had happened to her mother, they both had a right to be suffering from shock!

But it was what had come after Lulu had told her about Delia that was holding her stiff and still. All that bitter bile that had spewed from Lulu’s mouth—the hatred and resentment that had been all too real. Then the quick-thinking lies she had flung at her father in an effort to show Roberta in a bad light.

And Mac’s face. She shuddered. The expression on his face had been all too real also. He had looked at Roberta with a cold contempt that had frozen the blood in her veins.

She didn’t for one moment doubt that Mac would see Lulu’s lies for exactly what they were once he’d had time to think about them. But could she live with that depth of hatred and resentment constantly coming between herself and Mac?

No. She looked down to where her hands were still trembling in reaction to Lulu’s vicious onslaught, and knew she could not continue to take that kind of treatment on the chin, with no right to retaliate. Her own pride would not allow her to.

And as long as Mac continued to refuse her the weapons to retaliate there was no hope for them as a couple.

Choices. They were back to choices, and Mac had once again made his. And, with shock as an excuse or not, she accepted now that the balance would always be tipped Lulu’s way.

Mac didn’t love Roberta, but he loved his daughter. Blood was thicker than water. Sex was no substitute for love. She could never compete with that, and it was way past time that she accepted that.

She had to get away, she realised, on a sudden burst of movement that sent her walking stiffly to the door. And not only from this hospital, but from everything—Mac, work, the lot.

She needed to be alone to think, think long and hard about what she was going to do with her life.

She needed to go home...

And where was that? she asked herself bleakly as she stepped inside the waiting lift. There was a place in Oxfordshire that she supposed could be called home. She had a key to the front door of the red-bricked detached house, and a room upstairs that she supposed she could call her own, though she had spent very little time in it. Her parents wouldn’t be there because they rarely ever were.

But at least she could virtually guarantee her own solitude while she came to some decisions about herself.

The idea was tempting, so tempting, in fact, that by the time a taxi had dropped her off at Jenny’s flat she had her next few hours firmly planned out.

Jenny was still at work—for which Roberta was grateful, because it saved her having to explain why she was back so early from Zurich and why she was quickly repacking her suitcase with fresh clothes before shooting off again.

Instead she left Jenny a note that just said simply, ‘Gone away for a few days. See you when I get back.’ Then, armed with her fresh clothes, the keys to her rarely used car and the keys to her parents’ house, she left for Oxfordshire, stopping only once on the way to pick up the necessary provisions to see her through the next few days.

As she expected the house was empty, lacking the warmth that came naturally to a place where people were actually living. It was clean, though, neat and tidy, because her parents employed a lady who came in a couple of times a week to keep it that way.

Dropping her suitcase down in the hall, she went back to the car to collect her bags of shopping, efficiently storing them all away in the right places before making a third trip outside to garage the car so that no over-zealous neighbour would come snooping around to see who was using the Chandler house while they were away.

A few minutes after that and the coffee-pot was full to the brim with freshly ground, invitingly scented coffee, and she sat down at the kitchen table with it—to wilt, rather like a flower when it was starved of oxygen.

Or like a human being when starved of any more excuses to keep depression at bay.

Grimacing at the miserable thought, she poured steaming coffee into her cup, then just sat staring grimly down at it.

It was late in the afternoon, and the September sun had already dropped so low in the sky that dusk was beginning to draw in. Outside there was no wind, nothing to disturb the mood of darkening depression beginning steadily to close her in. This was rural Oxfordshire, and the nearest house to here was at least half a mile away. The lane that ran alongside the house was used only by the few houses dotted along its five-mile length.

So the silence was total—a luxury she had not experienced in a long time, London being the noisy, busy city it was.

It was strange, really, but just like the last time she’d reached this same milestone in her relationship with Mac. She felt calm, superbly composed, refusing to let anything even vaguely upsetting creep into her mind.

She was tired, she recognised that. Physically exhausted by lack of sleep and emotionally exhausted by too many battles with Mac.

So she sat on and on, not drinking the waiting coffee or even thinking much, but just letting the increasing darkness and a sense of complete aloneness in the world slowly close her in.

Maybe she dozed off. She could have done, though she wasn’t absolutely sure. But a sudden noise brought her jerking out of her odd half-awareness, just in time for the kitchen door to fly open and the light to flick blindingly on.