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

by Mansell, Anna

  ‘Of course not,’ said Jess. ‘I’d never judge.’

  Amanda laughed to herself. ‘We’ll see,’ she said. Then she paused, before sitting down opposite Jess and saying, ‘So, I do clean, here and there, just so I’m not lying to Zennor. But, that’s not my only job…’

  Amanda

  ‘Right,’ said Jess, uncertainly.

  Amanda took a deep breath. ‘I’m a sex worker.’ She said it in the most matter of fact way she could. Jess didn’t flinch at first. There was maybe a glimmer of surprise in her eyes, but nothing obvious. Amanda only noticed it really because she knew that some people tried to pretend they weren’t shocked when she told them what she did. ‘I’ve done it for a while now. It pays significantly better than hoovering up sand after holidaymakers.’ She nodded in the way of her money tin, as if to prove it. ‘I was finding it hard to pay the bills. I didn’t want to lose this place, it’s mine. My sanctuary. It’s saved me every time life has got shit.’

  Jess blinked.

  ‘I’m not on drugs. Nobody is making me do it. I wasn’t abused as a child and I really do like sex.’

  ‘O-kay then…’

  ‘I feel empowered. I’m the most confident I’ve ever been. It’s nice giving people pleasure.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘So there we are.’

  ‘There we are.’

  The two women looked at each other. Amanda was unusually desperate to know what Jess thought. It didn’t normally bother her. She didn’t do this job for anyone else, technical specifics aside, she did this for her. But Jess’s face was pretty much one of the best poker faces she’d seen.

  ‘So… that guy earlier…’

  ‘Was a client. I’m on a break technically at the moment, need a bit of space. He’s someone that usually just wants to chat though, a regular. His wife has Alzheimer’s, he’s her main carer. I guess I’m his respite and I didn’t want to let him down.’

  ‘Right.’ Amanda watched as Jess slowly nodded, processing. ‘And that’s the complication?’

  Amanda prickled. ‘Kind of.’

  ‘Kind of?’

  Amanda groaned into her tea. She’d thought about this pretty much non-stop since Zennor got out of Treliske and Pete promised her he’d try and get them to meet up and talk. Knowing Zennor was going to be okay had eased that worry but brought the whole Trev/Kitt/Lolly thing crashing right back to the forefront of her mind. Hence cancelling all her clients bar this morning’s. She needed time away. She needed to think. It was throwing her choices into question. She’d never met a wife before, least of all known one. Karenza said it wasn’t her place to tell Lolly but how was she supposed to let one of her oldest friends continue in a marriage that, it seemed to Amanda, functioned on lies. Jess had always been one for good advice, could Amanda trust her on this one too?

  ‘Come on then, talk to me. I’m not judging, maybe I can help.’

  Amanda looked down at her hands, wondering where to begin.

  ‘Are you sure you’re doing this of your own free will?’ Jess asked, suddenly.

  ‘I am! I am, I promise. I know people think that there has to be some dark secret to it all, but there really isn’t. It’s just a job. And I love it. Until…’

  ‘Until things get complicated.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Jess reached out her hand. ‘You can trust me, you know.’ She smiled at Amanda who immediately felt as though she wasn’t alone. As though she could tell Jess anything and Jess would probably find a way to resolve it. ‘Whatever it is, you can talk to me.’

  ‘Okay.’ Amanda took a deep breath. ‘I have a new client. I’ve only seen him a few times. And I don’t normally hear anything about their private lives, those things are left firmly at the door when they come in. Usually. I have a room down the corridor where I work. Or we go out and eat food, watch a film. Or we talk online, or whatever, you don’t probably need the details.’

  ‘Well… I can’t help being mildly inquisitive,’ said Jess, with a wry grin.

  ‘Maybe some other time.’

  ‘Probably best. Go on.’

  ‘So, this new client is married. Which happens. I don’t like it, but I take some comfort from the fact that mostly it’s not actually because they don’t love their wives. It’s not black and white, you know, and I don’t feel it’s my place to judge.’ A point of view she’d always stuck by. But then she hadn’t had sex with the husband of a good friend before now. ‘The problem is, I know this particular husband’s wife.’

  Jess’s mouth dropped open and for the first time throughout the entire conversation, it was no longer impossible to guess what she was thinking.

  ‘I know, I know. Well… I didn’t know, at the time. I knew he was married, but I didn’t know who to.’

  ‘And now you do.’

  ‘I do.’

  Jess sipped at her tea, mulling over Amanda’s revelation. Then her eyes widened, and slowly, she looked up at Amanda. ‘Oh no,’ she said, quietly. ‘It’s a friend, isn’t it?’

  Amanda nodded.

  ‘And you hadn’t realised because you’d not seen that friend for a long time.’

  Amanda nodded again.

  ‘Like… twenty years or so.’

  Amanda put her head in her hands.

  ‘You had sex with Lolly’s husband.’

  Amanda nodded. ‘Shit, Jess, what do I do? I mean… she seems so happy!’

  ‘Well, I guess you stop seeing him. I mean, now you know.’

  ‘Well, of course I stop seeing him. That’s not in question. I’m a sex worker not a heartless bitch. I can’t see anyone at the moment, this morning excepted. I don’t know if I can ever do this job again, in fact. I mean… Lolly!’ Amanda’s eyes filled with tears she’d been trying not to cry. ‘What am I going to do?’

  ‘Should you tell her?’

  ‘By rights, no. I mean, morally, it’s ambiguous, but professionally, his privacy was part of the deal. That’s why he came to me. Or any other of the workers he’s seen. He pays for sex, we don’t tell anyone about it.’

  ‘He does this a lot?’

  ‘The way he was… I know that it wasn’t his first time.’

  ‘Right. I mean, I don’t really understand the business.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So, you can’t tell her.’

  ‘Not really.’ Amanda got up out of her seat, slinging her tea down the sink. ‘Christ, I need something a bit stronger. You want some?’ she asked, offering a glass of wine up.

  ‘I can’t, I’ve got a meeting at three.’

  ‘Benefits of self-employment. I’ve just declared it a bank holiday.’

  ‘Bonk holiday.’

  ‘Now is not the time for jokes, Jess.’

  ‘You’re right. Sorry.’

  ‘What do I do, Jess? How do I get out of this mess?’

  Jess thought. ‘I’m not sure, love. I don’t know.’

  ‘This is A LOT harder than that time I found out Dad was having an affair by skipping school to go to the pub.’ Jess gave Amanda a pitying look because no doubt she could remember how many weeks Amanda had played with the idea of getting herself into trouble to let her mum know her dad was being a shit. Again. For the fourth, or maybe fifth time that they knew of. She’d told her mum in the end and her mum, after an afternoon of sobbing and screaming in her general direction, had decided she would stay with her dad because she loved him. That was the day Amanda knew she had to move out as soon as she was able. That decision was hard, but this was somehow worse. Grown-ups were supposed to be able to cope with bad stuff, but this was Lolly. Lolly and Amanda. She didn’t feel like a grown-up and she’d put money on the fact that Lolly didn’t either.

  So how would she cope to hear the news of her husband, and how on earth could Amanda tell her, without landing herself in it and losing someone she’d only just reconnected with. Someone she adored?

  Jess

  Amanda’s bombshell lingered throughout the afternoon meeting. Jes
s had gazed distractedly out of the window at the river as the tide came in, filling the mucky, dank banks up with salty water that flowed in from the Falmouth Estuary. Boats bobbed and a swan glided past. Jay had nudged her beneath the table, dragging her back into the meeting in which she redeemed herself with a hashtag suggestion that they all loved. By the time their client left, she thought she’d pretty much got away with barely being present.

  Well, she got away with it with the client. Jay, on the other hand, muttered something about how it would be useful if she could be there in mind as well as body, before giving her a curt nod after the client left, and heading straight off home. Things had begun to fracture since Sunday. Or maybe it was Jess that had fractured. She’d been wondering about taking a few last-minute days off. Give herself some headspace. She was always in trouble for not using up her holidays. And she had time in lieu available too. They had Jay, did they need her as well?

  Post work, she’d gone to the local pub. She ordered a wine, glancing over the menu in case anything took her fancy. Except she wasn’t really hungry. She thought about calling Lolly but didn’t want Amanda to feel she was trying to stir anything up. She thought about inviting Amanda over to join her but by the time she’d left, Amanda had talked herself into something of a pickle and Jess suspected she maybe needed her own space too.

  Jess wondered if any of the women had noticed life getting complicated. Or if they, like her, felt it had come all of a sudden. Perhaps over and above the usual complexities of life. Except it didn’t appear that Lolly hadn’t fully noticed it herself. Maybe she was in too deep with the baby stuff. How could Kitt do that to her? They’d been such a tight team over the years, or so Lolly suggested. How long had he been using women like Amanda?

  Women like Amanda. That made it sound so bad to Jess when she thought about it. What did it even mean? When she told her what she did, Jess had fought back every urge in her body to question why the hell she would be doing that. Her feminist instinct was to immediately call Amanda out for selling herself short. For allowing herself to be objectified. For being taken advantage of. And yet, the more she’d talked about it, the more it seemed to genuinely be something she enjoyed doing. It seemed to be something that really did empower her and as much as Jess perhaps didn’t understand how that might be, there was no denying that Amanda seemed happy in her own skin. She was paying her own bills. She was living life her way, using her body the way she wanted to. Wasn’t that the epitome of being a feminist? Jess hadn’t totally rectified it in her own mind, but perhaps it was the last thing to think about at the moment. The main thing to think about was how on earth they were going to tackle this with Lolly. Or even, should they? Was it their responsibility to tell truths that could break her? That could end her marriage? And if it was, how did they do that without it hurting Amanda too? She hadn’t known Kitt was Lolly’s husband, Jess one hundred per cent believed her in that respect. It’s no wonder she went weird on them all if she was getting messages like the ones Jess had seen this afternoon. And if he’d turned up at Amanda’s house, that could have been… God, awful. Jess shuddered at the thought.

  She pulled her phone out, calling Amanda’s number.

  ‘Hey, babe,’ Amanda answered, her tone melancholic.

  ‘Hey. You okay?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Any clearer on what to do?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What if I called Lolly, just to check in? I’ve not spoken to her since Emily and I packed her off in a cab. I could give her a call, see if she had a good time. Find out how things are. Just test the water a little so we know what we’re dealing with, you know?’

  ‘It’s probably not a bad idea. Just, please, don’t say anything to her.’

  ‘Of course I won’t. Not yet. I mean, really, the only person to tell her should be her husband.’

  Amanda let out a low laugh. ‘Yeah, okay. Somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen.’

  ‘Well, no. But maybe he just needs time.’ Amanda let out a noise that told Jess she was unconvinced. ‘Look, I’ll call her. I’ll let you know how it goes. Let’s catch up in a few days. I think I’m going to take some time off work anyway.’

  ‘Oh? You okay?’

  Jess took her wine from the waiter, mouthing a thank you. ‘Yes, I’m fine. Well… maybe I’m having some kind of mid-life crisis. I don’t know, seeing you lot has triggered all sorts of feelings I wasn’t expecting.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  Jess smiled. ‘Christ, I knew I shouldn’t have met up with you all. Bloody pains in the arse. I was perfectly happy in my life before you all came back into it.’

  ‘I can recommend a well-paid alternative if you fancy a career change,’ said Amanda and Jess could well imagine the mischievous glint in her eye as she said it.

  ‘No, thank you very much. You will not now, or ever for that matter, get the chance to be my pimp.’

  ‘Shame. You’d make a bloody fortune.’

  ‘I’m hanging up now.’

  ‘And so domineering.’

  ‘Amanda!’

  ‘I’m going. Let me know how things go.’

  ‘Will do.’

  Jess pushed her phone across the table, letting it sit beside her laptop. She looked around at the people in the bar, a few people in for post-work drinks. A few others on a pre-theatre meal by the looks of it. If there was one thing Amanda had taught her, it was that you should never judge. As Jess looked around, she wondered if there were any other sex workers in the room. Men or women. Amanda was a normal looking woman. She didn’t permanently dress in PVC or wear false eyelashes and plump up her bought and paid for boobs. She was no different to Jess, Lolly or Emily. She was no different to the woman over there, sipping her drink with a coquettish grin. She was no different to the girl behind the bar or the woman who’d just walked in with a newspaper under her arm and a dog by her side. She was normal. Yet, Jess couldn’t help thinking Lolly wouldn’t see it that way if she ever learned the truth.

  Lolly

  Lolly jumped off the bus outside the Museum, sneaking up Swifties Ope on her way to Boots up Pydar Street. She was part giggly and part terrified. Giggly because she just had that feeling in the pit of her belly that this test would be different. It was probably the wrong time of her cycle, but she hadn’t been able to shake off the idea that it needed to be done and buying a test from the chemist at work was not an option. She was then terrified because she rarely came into Truro on her lunch break and didn’t want anyone she knew to see her here either. She just wanted to nip in, get the test, eat one of their lunch deals down Victoria Gardens, then head back to work to lock herself in the toilets.

  With a furtive glance over her shoulder, she grabbed two packs of the Early Detection kits along with a cheese and onion sandwich and a bag of Monster Munch because she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a bag of pickled onion crisps. Actually, she could. It was when she and Kitt went to celebrate their first wedding anniversary in Scotland, about a hundred years ago. She’d eaten pickled onion Monster Munch on the bank of Loch Ness and Kitt said they’d never spot Nessie if she thought Lolly was a monster eater. Or something. It was silly nonsense, back when they were silly. When they had time and space to talk waffle and get away with it. Back when they had no kids at all and… and he had a job.

  She queued up, waiting her turn, remembering how he looked this morning as he left home. She’d told him he didn’t have to pretend any more. That he should take the day off, stay in his PJs, watch some crap on Netflix with his hand down his pants, should the mood take him. He wasn’t having it though. He said something about needing to stay in the game, to keep connected. He had meetings set up. His CV to update again. Lolly hated to see him so skittish about it, so uncertain. And the guilt, she could still sense that even though she’d told him not to feel that way. But he’d always been that way, she could see that now. He always seemed to feel guilt or responsibility for something, and she knew
it was because he was brought up to support and provide for his family, but it wasn’t necessary.

  ‘Lolly?’ A hand touched her arm and her heart stopped. She tried to hide the test as she turned around to see Kitt’s former boss.

  ‘Katy!’

  ‘Hey lovely, how are you?’ She leaned in to kiss her on both cheeks and Lolly wondered at what point she might show any kind of remorse for firing her husband. ‘It’s been so long, how are you?’

  ‘I’m okay. I guess. I mean, you know, all things considered.’ Since my husband is out of work and depressed is what she really wanted to say, but Lolly wasn’t up for making a scene.

  ‘I said to your other half a few days back, it’s been ages since we’ve seen you. We should have you over again, it’d be lovely to catch up.’

  ‘Would it?’ asked Lolly, staggered by how brazen Katy was being. ‘Wouldn’t it be a tad awkward, I mean… considering…’

  Katy looked at Lolly confused. ‘I don’t understand, what do you—’

  ‘Next, please.’

  The cashier looked at Lolly expectantly. Lolly’s palms itched with the pregnancy test clenched within. Katy looked bright and totally normal and Lolly didn’t want to cause a scene. Not here. Not now.

  The automated cashier call played out. ‘Cashier number four.’

  Lolly made her excuses. ‘Oh look, sorry, I’d better…’

  ‘Of course, yes. Okay. Well, maybe we’ll see you sometime, I’ll talk to your hubby.’

  ‘Really! Don’t you think you’d be better off leaving him alone right now?’ Katy’s mouth dropped open. Lolly shook her head in disgust, turning on her heel.

  Shaking, she handed her money over, apologising for needing to buy a bag. She rammed her stuff in the bag and scuttled out of the shop without a backwards glance at Katy. How dare she? How dare she sack Kitt then behave like nothing had happened? Lolly half wanted to turn back round and give her a piece of her mind but she didn’t want to embarrass Kitt and she didn’t have masses of time in any case. Sitting in Victoria Gardens was probably for the best. Let herself calm down. Anxiety and anger wouldn’t be good for this baby… if she was indeed as pregnant as she felt she just might be. That had to be her focus now, her priority.