Her Best Friend's Secret: A gripping, emotional novel about love, life and the power of friendship

by Mansell, Anna

‘This. Him. Me. He’s just a work colleague, I need to get a grip,’ said Jess.

  ‘You still have feelings for him then.’ Lolly tucked her feet beneath her, pulling a throw down from the sofa and covering her knees. ‘Which have caught you by surprise?’

  Jess nodded.

  ‘The one that got away?’ asked Emily and Jess bit down on her bottom lip.

  ‘I don’t know if he got away or I pushed him away. I wasn’t in the right place, I was…’ Her eyes flicked up at Emily. ‘It’s complicated. He was… special. He made me feel like nobody ever has before or since. I couldn’t cope. I was going away anyway, travelling, do you remember?’ Lolly and Amanda nodded. ‘I ended it. I’ve no right to feel sad about any of it.’ Jess buried her head again, then stared out of the window.

  ‘You’re allowed to feel how you feel,’ said Amanda, gently. ‘Nobody can tell you otherwise.’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Was it just the travelling that made it complicated?’ asked Emily.

  Jess bit down on her bottom lip.

  Amanda peered at her, there was something she wasn’t saying. She was censoring herself, Amanda could see that. It reminded her of the months after Emily left, when Jess changed. They didn’t fall out, but neither Amanda or Lolly could work out what was different, or how to get Jess back.

  ‘I remember you changed,’ said Amanda, carefully. ‘When Emily left, you sort of went into yourself. I was never sure if it was the pressure of exams, or stuff at home. You wouldn’t talk… talking helps. Talking is good for us. Talking helps us to unpack things.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can,’ said Jess.

  They fell silent. Jess shook her head, still gazing out of the window.

  ‘Well, look, you can’t talk on an empty stomach. If nobody wants roast chicken, I’m getting crisps. Gather your thoughts, Jess. Trust us.’

  Amanda pulled a couple of bowls out of the kitchen cupboard, grabbing bags of onion rings and kettle chips, whatever she could find. The awkwardness of having Lolly in the house was being suitably masked by a chance to help Jess. For now at least.

  She dropped the snacks onto the coffee table in front of them. Lolly went straight for the onion rings, Emily pulled the kettle chips closer, peering, but not actually taking any. Had she been able to eat stuff like that in the last few years? Probably not, which made Amanda feel sorry for her because no amount of money and fame could get in the way of her and a bag of synthetic crisps. Jess didn’t move.

  ‘You can trust us,’ said Amanda to Jess.

  ‘I know. I know I can. It’s just not that simple.’

  ‘Nothing is simple. But Amanda’s right,’ said Lolly, crunching on her crisps. ‘This is us, Jess. Me, you, Amanda and Emily. There is nothing we can’t talk about. Like, do you remember back when we were on study leave for our GCSEs?’ she asked.

  Amanda thought back to what felt like months and months of red-hot summers in which they would sit on the beach, talking about life and the universe. Sharing their hopes for the future. Watching the surfers. Putting herself back there reminded her that she’d always dreamed about opening her own floristry. Dreaming.

  ‘I remember how low I felt back then,’ Lolly continued. ‘Stuff was going off with Dad and Jo. He’d met someone, Jo didn’t like her. It was all hushed tones and closed doors. Lowered voices on the telephone to his girlfriend, trying not let me hear them talk. It was weird, she kept coming round. I remember feeling removed from home. Replaced. I remember missing Mum more than I ever had before… or maybe since. And I remember how sitting with you girls was the thing that got me through. You were my survival. You were the reason I’m still here now, sitting here.’

  ‘Shovelling onion rings,’ said Amanda, grabbing a handful before passing it back to Lolly.

  ‘You girls were everything to me,’ she said.

  ‘Ditto,’ agreed Emily.

  ‘We still can be everything to each other,’ said Lolly. ‘You still can talk to us, Jess.’

  Jess let out a sigh. She crossed her legs into the chair, hugging her knees. ‘Things change. We changed. Emily left. Lolly, you’d decided you were going to go into nursing, you went off to college after our GCSEs. You got new friends. Amanda was obsessed with boys.’

  Amanda felt a nostalgic pang for those days. The days that taught her about life and love and sex. The days that led to the months to the year she met Pete. They still saw each other, just not as often. For her, Pete was the beginning of the end for their friendship. She was obsessed; she was free with Pete on the back of his bike. She could still feel how it felt to spend hours on the beach whilst he surfed, before drinking pints down the pub with all his mates. That part of her life was in technicolour, faded only by getting pregnant with Zennor when life got suddenly terrifying, and small, and a little bit claustrophobic. And the girls were too far apart to help by then.

  ‘We all changed,’ said Amanda, sadly.

  ‘We did. Which I guess was inevitable. And it meant I couldn’t talk. I was stuck. That’s all I remember. I was stuck. I needed to escape…’

  Jess

  ‘From what?’ asked Amanda.

  Jess shifted uncomfortably in her seat, her eyes flicked up towards the girls. Jess didn’t want to go back over it all, she didn’t want to relive any moment, and yet, as the girls sat around her, patiently waiting for her to talk, she knew she needed to move on. This stuff with Jay, did it bring everything back? Or did it just highlight the fact that none of it had gone away, just been buried, deep?

  ‘What were you escaping from, Jess?’ asked Emily.

  Jess looked up at her. Her old mate. A girl whom she loved. A girl whom she’d hidden the biggest secret of her life from. ‘Just… stuff,’ she said. ‘I can’t… but life got harder, foggy even. I was functioning, the days came and went, I lived, but I don’t know, maybe looking back I was living half-heartedly.’

  ‘Where were we?’ asked Lolly.

  ‘To begin with, you were around, we were doing what we did. Revising for GCSEs, secret house parties, days down the beach, walks in the park. You guys were a sort of safety blanket, a place that I knew, I understood. I didn’t have to think about it with you, I could be the kid I yearned to be. For a while.’

  ‘Until you couldn’t?’ said Amanda.

  Jess looked at her, unsurprised. ‘Until I couldn’t.’

  ‘I remember how distant you grew. I thought it was us,’ said Lolly.

  Jess shook her head. ‘No, no! It was never you. It could never have been you. I just needed to break all ties. I couldn’t fake it any more.’ Jess looked at Lolly, whose eyes glistened. ‘Don’t! Don’t start, because I don’t want to. Right?’

  Lolly nodded, a tear escaping with the force. ‘Sorry.’

  Jess half smiled. ‘I remember you both came to the Hub one day when I was working. Jay and I were flirting, I liked the innocence of it. It gave me a boost. I didn’t want to pursue it though, the idea was too frightening and yet I remember Lolly, you told me to go for it. To make the most of being young.’

  ‘I think I might have said something about getting a shag to loosen you up,’ said Amanda, scrunching her face up. ‘Sounds a bit crass now, on reflection.’

  Jess laughed. ‘You did say that, yes. And I don’t know, I guess when the flirting progressed, it wasn’t so frightening. He wasn’t so frightening.’

  ‘Why would he have been frightening?’ asked Emily.

  ‘I don’t know, I was just in a weird place.’ Jess smiled, weakly. ‘But suddenly, with him, everything was different. He was kind, and gentle. He was funny, so funny. He could make me cry laughing with an off the cuff remark. He was tender, so very tender. He kind of swept me off my feet, I didn’t know I could feel like that and before I knew it, I was head over heels.’ Jess drifted off for a moment. ‘But it was too much. He was too much, too kind, too supportive, too understanding.’

  ‘How can any of those things be bad?’ asked Amanda. ‘He sounds great!’

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nbsp; ‘Yeah, but I don’t think I felt I deserved it. I kept pushing him away, I kept setting him up to fail.’

  ‘And did he?’ asked Lolly.

  ‘No. He never did. He just proved even more how great he was.’

  ‘Sounds awful,’ said Amanda, winking at Jess.

  Jess half laughed. ‘I was messed up. I’d already planned the trip away. I couldn’t not go.’

  ‘That’s right. God, you went for so long. I fell pregnant with Zennor.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘You know, I really needed you lot when I first fell pregnant,’ said Amanda, wistfully.

  ‘Until you didn’t,’ said Jess, carefully, their meeting at the garden centre in mind.

  Amanda nodded. ‘Until I didn’t.’ Amanda sipped at her wine, thoughtfully. ‘I remember thinking it odd that you stayed away so long, out of all of us, I didn’t have you down as the travelling type.’

  ‘I don’t think I was. But it was the only way I could escape. Matt had been all over, America, Europe, China, Australia. He’d done stuff, seen stuff. He’d come back all tanned and full of life and I don’t know, maybe wisdom too. He knew stuff. About other cultures, about life. He seemed so calm and in control of his own destiny. I felt like maybe that’s what I needed. To get away and experience life outside of Cornwall. It felt claustrophobic and I was falling for Jay, which made me feel more so. Mum and Dad thought I was too young for a serious relationship anyway, told me I’d be mad to miss out. I told Jay I was going, that I needed to do it on my own and I think I’d really wanted him to tell me to stay but he was so encouraging, so supportive of me. He told me I had to go, that he wouldn’t be the one to hold me back from realising my dreams and I don’t know… I couldn’t tell him they weren’t my dreams.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Lolly, wiping her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help it,’ she said, reaching for a tissue. ‘I can’t believe we missed all this.’

  ‘Did you miss it, or did I hide it?’ said Jess, smiling sadly at Lolly. ‘You couldn’t have known. I didn’t talk. I didn’t have a voice somehow. I just sort of floated from one point to the next, blown on the wind of whatever direction life took me.’

  ‘Seems strange to think of you like that,’ said Emily. ‘I always saw you as the strong one of us all. Quietly so, not like Amanda’s fierce strength. Yours was always steady. Self-controlled.’

  ‘Yes!’ agreed Amanda. ‘You were the one to get shit done.’

  ‘I don’t think that was strength, though. Back then. I think it was fear. It was lack of knowing who I was in a house where I was supposed to be clear and free and independent. Mum and Dad believed in me, in my personality, in giving me the space to own me and for years that was great, empowering as a kid, but things changed and I didn’t know what to do with the freedom, it sort of locked me up.’

  Amanda

  A phone rang in the kitchen. ‘Do you need to get that?’ asked Jess, seemingly jumping on a chance to change the subject.

  ‘No, no, it’s fine,’ said Amanda. Irritated by the subsequent text message sound.

  ‘So, if he carried on waiting, and you were unhappy, why didn’t you go home and be together?’ asked Emily.

  Jess laughed to herself, then wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Amanda passed the tissues. ‘I met some girls whilst travelling. They seemed wise and strong. I think I was trying to replace you guys, but you know…’

  ‘We’re irre-fucking-placeable!’ said Amanda, and the girls paused, smiling at one another.

  ‘I’d talk to Jay often, anytime I had the cash and could find a phone. I must have been really subdued after each call ’cause as time went on, they started taking the mick. They told me he must be a sap for waiting. That he couldn’t have any ambition. They couldn’t believe he hadn’t just jumped on a plane to follow me out there and I’d tell them it was because he wanted me to have my journey, my experience, that he didn’t want to interrupt that or take over. They said I was being naive and though it hurt to be apart, like physically ached, I felt like I had to stay. I had to see out my travel, finish what I planned. So I told Jay everything the girls had said to me.’

  ‘Oh no…’ Lolly blew her nose.

  ‘I told him he had no ambition. That I couldn’t love someone who hadn’t lived. I told him it was pointless him waiting for me if he was doing nothing else with his life.’ Jess stopped talking. Amanda didn’t remember her ever crying before. Lolly was the crier in the group, maybe followed by Emily. But Jess, just no. Amanda wanted to wrap her up and fix it all for her. ‘Do you know that saying, if you love someone enough, set them free.’

  ‘Wasn’t that Jonathan Livingston Seagull or some shit?’ asked Amanda.

  ‘Blimey, you do read!’ nudged Lolly.

  Amanda stuck her tongue out, moving the crisps just out of her reach.

  ‘I don’t know where it came from. All I know is that it was exactly that. Jay loved me. And he set me free. And after time had passed, I didn’t come back and, of course, he fell in love with someone else. He had every right.’

  ‘It’s so sad,’ said Lolly. ‘The idea of what could have been.’

  ‘I thought I’d moved on,’ whispered Jess.

  Lolly

  ‘Urgh, girls, I think I might have gone too hard too fast. My head is banging,’ Lolly said, eventually, rubbing at her temples, peering into the now empty bowl of crisps for something to line her stomach with.

  ‘There’s more in the kitchen, go fetch them if you like. Along with another bottle,’ said Amanda, throwing another log on the fire, poking at it until it raged and danced.

  ‘I should probably opt for a tea, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘I don’t mind, you can have whatever you can find.’

  Emily held her mug up. ‘Do you fancy putting some water on this teabag?’

  Amanda recoiled. ‘You are allowed more than one teabag you know… if you can find another herbal one!’

  ‘It’s fine, water’s fine. Thanks.’

  Lolly shivered as she left the warmth of the lounge. She looked out of the window on a sprawling garden as she topped up the kettle. She peered at photos on the fridge as she reached for the milk. She saw Amanda’s phone light up with a text message.

  Amanda. She hadn’t opened up much yet, not like she had about Kitt and the boys. Not like Jess just had about Jay. As the kettle boiled, Lolly idly wondered what life was really like for Amanda these days, at the other end of the parenting timeline. Single in this big old house. Was she lonely? Did she miss having Zennor around? Did she meet people, other than young lads in bars or whatever it was she mentioned before?

  Emily had been quiet too, reserved almost. Was she regretting getting back in touch? Lolly thought it possible given that they’d all been so bloody earnest in their storytelling. What had happened to them? To the light and the fun they used to have? Reaching into a cupboard above the kettle, Lolly found a mug and teabag. The cupboard door had a host of photos Blu-tacked to the inside, stuff from over the years. And there, in amongst them all, was a photo of the four of them. All grainy and old. Lolly stared at it, picking it from the cupboard door. She could remember the exact moment it was taken, they were kids. So young. Her dad had taken them all to see Wet Wet Wet at the Coliseum in St Austell and this was taken whilst they were waiting for the band to come on. They’d been so giddy to be at their first concert, Lolly was obsessed with Marti Pellow. She’d scoured her back catalogue of Smash Hits magazines for interviews in which he’d been asked important details like his favourite colour, his favourite food and whether he preferred cats or dogs.

  ‘Oh my god!’ she shouted through to the lounge. ‘Girls, you are not gonna believe this!’ She picked up the bag of crisps to take back through, throwing them on the table for Amanda to top up the bowls. ‘Look what I just found!’ She passed the photo to Jess.

  ‘Wet Wet Wet? Jesus, how long ago was that? We look like children!’

  Amanda grinned. ‘We were children.’

>   Emily took the photo from Jess. ‘Wow, how long ago! That was my first concert. I couldn’t talk for days after from all the screaming.’

  Lolly laughed. ‘Dad was so irritated by the screaming, he swore he’d never take us again.’

  ‘Is that why he only dropped us off when it was Simply Red?’ Jess laughed.

  ‘Exactly! And wouldn’t come near the Radio One Roadshow at St Ives Rugby Club!’

  Emily let out an uncharacteristic belly laugh. ‘Radio One did not play St Ives Rugby Club.’

  ‘They did! Ocean Colour Scene played the year we went,’ said Lolly.

  ‘Yes! I remember. God, that was a fun day out!’ said Emily.

  Lolly left the girls giggling over the photo and some story about Amanda copping off with a roadie round the back of the rugby club. As she went back to the kitchen to make the tea, she felt dizzy with drink and memories and a warmth that came from being around them all. She could almost forget the crap going off at home and the guilt she was now beginning to feel over it all. She hated fighting with Kitt. She needed him, however independent she liked to believe she was, he was her mate, her right arm. He was the one she turned to when she needed a prop and them being at odds was awful. It all felt so wrong. Things weren’t perfect for them, it was tough since the boys came along. She was focussed on them, Kitt was focussed on work. But they’d been together forever, they just needed to work through it. She wasn’t naive enough to think that a baby would solve all that, but it wouldn’t break them. The first two hadn’t. They just had to find a way to sort things. She vowed to head home after the tea had sobered her up a bit. As she moved to leave the kitchen with two mugs in hand, Amanda’s phone rang out. She reached for it, glancing at the screen. ‘Amanda, you’re a wanted woman!’ she shouted.

  Amanda

  ‘You’ve a text message too,’ said Lolly, with a wink as she handed over the phone. ‘Looks like someone needs to speak to you.’