Eddie stood by the door of the flat, his suitcases at his feet and a solemn look on his face. Arabella hadn’t allowed him to talk his way out of what he’d done. He’d been honest, and had said that he’d hoped that because he’d told her the truth, she would find it in her heart to forgive him. She’d laughed.
Eddie had told Arabella that when he bought the salon from a guy named Rory, he hadn’t known that Scarlett was the manager of the place. If he had, he wouldn’t have gone near it. That didn’t change the fact that Eddie couldn’t keep his dick in his trousers for the ten months that Arabella had been in prison. He’d bought her the salon out of nothing other than guilt. Good, she’d thought. He should feel guilty.
‘Have you got everything? I don’t want you turning up because you’ve forgotten stuff,’ Arabella said, making sure her tone was flat.
‘Yeah,’ Eddie said. ‘For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, Arabella. If I could go back and change things I would.’
‘But you can’t.’
Eddie sighed. ‘The salon’s yours. I won’t interfere.’
Arabella nodded and opened the door. That was the way she wanted it. She wouldn’t stay at the salon forever. Eventually she’d move on. Maybe go abroad, start a new life away from Glasgow altogether. But for now, all she wanted was to be on her own. She had to learn to love herself for who she was, learn how to trust the people she surrounded herself with. Over her life she’d chosen to be around people who only cared about themselves; it was time for Arabella to be selfish for a change.
‘Thank you,’ she replied. ‘Have a nice life, Eddie.’ She didn’t mean it in a nasty way, she genuinely wanted him to be happy. But she couldn’t have him in her life.
‘You too, Arabella.’ He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. It took her all her strength not to tell him to stay. Because that would be the easiest thing to do, wouldn’t it? Just forgive and forget. But she couldn’t do it.
Eddie turned and walked out of the flat and Arabella closed the door behind him, before sinking to her knees and sobbing silently into her hands.
When she opened up the salon the next day, Arabella decided that she wanted to change the name. ‘Hair Envy’ wouldn’t have been her choice. There was only one name that would fit, and it was the least that Arabella could do after bringing Roxanne back into Scarlett’s life.
‘Morning,’ Arabella said as the stylists started arriving.
She told them about her idea to change the name of the salon to ‘Scarlett’s’ and they loved it. Arabella had a lot of work to do with the place: she wanted it refurbished and kitted out with the best of equipment. Eddie would be responsible for that. That would be the only contact she would have with him. It was the least he could do in memory of Scarlett.
If someone had told Arabella back when she was a kid in the care system that this was where she would be now, she’d have told them to fuck off. But standing at the reception desk, taking in her surroundings, Arabella was going to make sure that she turned her life around. No more crime, no more fake friends, no more prison.
Arabella stood outside the hospital room and stared through the glass at the woman in the bed. Her heart thrummed in her chest as a wave of nausea took over. She hadn’t seen this woman in twenty years, but there were things that had to be said.
Pushing the door open, she stepped inside and the woman opened her eyes. Staring at her from the bed, it was clear that she didn’t know who Arabella was.
‘Mum?’ Arabella said.
The woman’s expression turned from fatigued to shock and she gasped, but said nothing. Arabella moved closer to her, and sat on the chair next to the bed.
The woman who she used to call Mum, was yellow in colour and looked a lot older than her fifty years. It was quite apparent that she was on her death bed. Arabella didn’t know how to feel about that. She viewed her differently now to when she was just eight years old.
‘I contacted the social work department to find out where you were. I just wanted to, well…’ she paused. ‘I don’t know what I wanted to do. I suppose I just needed some sort of closure. I always wondered what happened to you after I was taken into care. I always wondered if you got sober, started a new life. Maybe had more kids? I don’t think that’s the case, is it?’
The woman shook her head gently.
Arabella stared down at her, and a mixture of peace and sadness came over her. Arabella had no other family. Her only surviving blood relative was this woman lying in a hospital bed, dying through liver failure and lung cancer from the smoking. If she’d done her job as a mother, maybe things would have turned out differently for Arabella. Maybe not. Parents couldn’t always be blamed. Adults made their own choices. Just like Arabella had when she’d gone to prison. Just like when Eddie slept with Scarlett, or when Roxanne murdered Scarlett and Keiran.
‘I—’ the woman gasped. Arabella leaned forward to listen. ‘I’m sorry.’
She hadn’t expected that.
‘Me too, Mum. I’m sorry I wasn’t enough for you to get your act together and be there for me. It’s been a shit couple of decades, but I’ve survived it.’ Her throat throbbed against the emotion she fought hard to hold in. Seeing her mother lying there was harder than she’d expected. She couldn’t watch this woman, her mother, die from alcoholism. She’d abandoned Arabella as a child. She didn’t deserve Arabella’s sympathy.
Arabella smiled, squeezed her mother’s hand and got up from the chair before heading out of the room.
There were others who did deserve her thoughts and sympathies, like Scarlett and Keiran. They didn’t have to die because of what she’d done in her life due to her abandonment issues. It wasn’t their fault that Arabella had clung to the wrong people because she’d never had a real relationship with anyone.
The least that Arabella could do now was begin to build and live her life to the fullest, in memory of them.
The one thing she had learned from all of this was that not all people were bad, but then again, not all people were good. She would keep her guard up, always.