The Woman on the Beach

by Julia Roberts

Genres: Women's Fiction; Siblings

Synopsis

I was so sure I saw Sophie on the beach that day. But it couldn’t be her. Sophie’s dead…

Ever since we locked fingers and swore to be best friends at school, Sophie was there for me. When she married my brother, we became family. We laughed together and cried together. We never kept secrets from each other.

At least, that was what I thought…

And then she was gone. The terrible accident that took her life devastated me. Without her I had no one to turn to, and I had to take a break.

Now I’m standing on the beach we visited when we were younger and there’s a woman with long blond hair a few metres away, playing with a dog in the sunshine. She turns, and I see Sophie. Heart racing, I struggle to my feet, but before I can reach her she’s vanished, leaving only footprints in the sand.

It can’t be Sophie… But if it is, why did she disappear? What was she running from? And if the answers change everything I believe about the people I love, will I ever be able to forgive her?

A heartbreaking emotional read about the ways we lie to ourselves and how love and hope can heal us. Fans of Amanda Prowse, Kate Hewitt and Susan Lewis will absolutely love The Woman on the Beach.

See what readers are saying about Julia Roberts:

‘My first read of 2021 to reduce me to tears… A page-turner and a tear-jerker. I didn’t want to stop reading… I loved every word.’ The Book Lover’s Boudoir, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Beautiful and heart-rending… I was enthralled… You will smile through your tears… Beautiful, engrossing and captivating… I was sorry when it finished.’ Sibzz Reads, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Wow!… One of the saddest and most heartbreaking reads I've encountered… My gosh! This book should really come with a box of tissues because believe me, you are going to need them!… I found myself turning the pages with such a speed of “just one more chapter” until the very end… I loved this book.’ Confessions of a Bookaholic, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘I picked this book up at 3pm, and less than 8 hours later, despite having to navigate tea and bedtime for the kids and logging back on to work, I had finished it… Addictive, gripping and emotional.’ @iheartbooks1991

‘Another amazing 5-star read and another used up packet of those handy little tissues, or is it two? – Who knows how many tears this one has made me shed!… an author who held me captive in the palm of her hand… Took me on quite a personal journey on, oh! so many fronts.’ Fiction Books, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Truly emotional… Will make your heart break… There were definite tears leaking.’ Jen Med’s Book Reviews, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘This book broke me…

Release date: August 19, 2021

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 350

Sample

My hands are trembling as the border guard checks the passport I have just offered him. He glances down at the photograph and back up at me. I have my head slightly bowed, so my hair is falling forward over my face. He seems to be taking longer scrutinising me than some of the other travellers, which adds to my nervousness. Eventually, after what seems like several minutes but was probably only a few seconds, he hands the passport back to me and nods for me to pass through into the departure lounge.

I’m early for my flight to Guatemala City, but I’m cold and tired after the nightmare drive to Madrid from Denia in the torrential rain. In England, we’re used to rain. That’s not the case in Spain. The drainage channels at the sides of the motorways were overflowing, leaving excess water lying on the road surface. Despite driving slowly, I could still feel the car tyres losing contact with the tarmac from time to time. The irony of feeling out of control for a few seconds isn’t lost on me. I’ve felt that way about my life for almost two years.

Once through passport control, I place my hand luggage on the conveyor belt. For one heart-stopping moment, the belt comes to a halt. Did the border guard radio ahead that there was something suspicious about me? There’s nothing illegal in my bag, I tell myself, but it doesn’t make me feel any better and it doesn’t prevent me from looking as guilty as hell. Then the small case restarts its journey, trundling along without a care in the world, and I pass through the body scanner without setting the alarm off. It’s a relief; I think my legs would finally have turned to jelly if I’d had to endure a pat-down.

I get myself a cappuccino and find a seat in a blissfully empty corner of the departure lounge. The cappuccino was a mistake. With the first sip, I’m transported back to Javea two nights earlier. Despite the rain, we sat outside under a canopy with the patio heaters on, reminiscing about our enduring friendship to the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks just a few metres away. And now she’s gone and it’s all my fault.

As the flight departure time edges closer, I reach into my bag for the laptop. The lounge is filling up now and I shrink further into my corner, anxious to avoid getting into conversation with anybody.

The television screens which have been blank up until now flicker into life. It’s the news channel and the camera crews are live at the scene of the deadly train crash on the Denia to Benidorm line. I want to scream at them to turn it off. I don’t need to see live coverage. All around me, people have stopped chattering and are staring in morbid fascination, some crossing themselves, grateful that they have not had their lives cut cruelly short. Across the bottom of the screen, a crawl is saying that there were only two survivors, but I know they are wrong.

I close my eyes, breathing in deeply through my nose and out through my mouth to try to calm myself.

‘Are you okay?’ a woman’s voice asks.

‘I’m just a bit of a nervous flyer,’ I reply.

‘You’ll be fine. Flying is one of the safest forms of transport – much safer than the roads, or the railways for that matter,’ she says, glancing at one of the TV screens. ‘Those poor souls. I guess if your number’s up, your number’s up!’

I close my eyes again, trying to block the sound of screaming and metal grinding against metal from my mind. My heart is thumping so loudly, I’m almost certain the woman can hear it.

‘Oh dear, you’ve gone even paler,’ the woman says. ‘I was only trying to help, but it seems like I’ve done the exact opposite. If it makes you feel any better, I’m feeling pretty confident my number’s not up yet, so you’ll be okay if you stick with me.’

At that moment, the announcement comes to start boarding.

‘That’s us,’ the woman says. ‘Do you need any help?’

‘I’ll be along in a moment. I just need to send a quick email.’

The woman gets to her feet and joins the queue forming to board the Airbus to Central America.

My hand is shaking as I hover the cursor over the icon that ironically resembles a paper airplane.

I hit send. This is it; there’s no going back.

I love the solitude of the beach first thing in the morning, when the tide has washed away all trace of the people who enjoyed it the previous day. It feels like a new beginning; a chance to start over and see things through fresh eyes. That’s exactly what I need, and one of the reasons I’ve come to Mexico.

As with every other day of my week-long stay, I was up before dawn to walk along the water’s edge, leaving a trail of my footprints in the wet sand until the final ripple of each wave reached stealthily to erase them behind my back as though I was never there. I’ve loved watching the sky turn from inky blue through shades of orange until finally the sun broke the horizon to light the sky in a vibrant shade of azure blue.

There were a few feathery clouds when I walked today, which was disappointing, as it’s my last day, but I can’t really complain. The weather has been glorious for the most part. And anyway, by the time I return from breakfast to the sunbed where I spread out my towel at half past six this morning, the scattered clouds have evaporated. There is now a wide expanse of unbroken blue as far as the eye can see, and there’s already heat in the sun.

My room has been a total joy. What a pleasant surprise it was to be upgraded to a beachfront suite on arrival as their more modest rooms were overbooked. They’re not exaggerating when they say beachfront; my ground-floor room opens directly onto a small private deck area, just big enough to house a table and two chairs, which in turn leads straight onto the beach, with the sea a few metres away. The sound of the waves breaking on the beach has been my constant companion, the only one I’ve had since I got here. I’ve deliberately avoided eye contact with other hotel guests if they’ve greeted me. I didn’t want to invite conversation, which is most unlike me.

It’s the first time in my life that I’ve holidayed alone. For the past few years, I’ve always been with Jamie, and before that it was family holidays with my mum and dad and brother, Tom. Even when I went travelling during my gap year before university, it was with my friends Sophie and Grace. It’s weird to think that all those years ago we three girls stood together a few hundred yards further down this very beach, our toes sinking into the soft sand as the waves washed over them, just as mine are now, and looking out to the same horizon. We had so many plans and hopes and dreams, but life had other ideas.

Grace and I were already drifting apart when she moved to Spain, but Sophie made an effort to stay in touch with her, never forgetting the promise we made when we met on our first day at senior school: friends for life.

I booked the trip to Mexico because I wanted to feel close to the best friend a person could ever have had. My life is in crisis and Sophie’s ended far too soon. Two days ago, it would have been her thirtieth birthday, if she’d lived. The three of us had been celebrating Sophie’s nineteenth birthday in a beach bar in Tulum when fate stepped in and changed the course of our lives. I miss my confident, beautiful friend. She was the closest thing to a sister I’d ever known.

It could be the dazzling sparkle of the sun reflecting off the sea that’s making my eyes water, but I suspect not. Not wanting to draw attention to myself by dissolving into floods of tears, I turn away from the ocean and head for the sanctuary of my sun lounger. I reach into my beach bag for my book, mobile phone, and a tissue to wipe my eyes. Hating myself for doing it, I check my phone for messages. There are none, which is both unsurprising and disappointing.

When my husband Jamie had suggested a trial separation a couple of days after Christmas, saying, ‘You’re not the person I married,’ I was not only shocked, but also more hurt than he will ever know. At least it made me stop and take a long hard look at myself. He’s right; I’m not that girl anymore and never will be again after what happened, but I can’t let tragedy come between us. I love my husband, and I won’t give him up without a fight. The past four weeks of separation have given me time to think about what is truly important in my life, and top of that list is Jamie. Getting back what has gradually been eroded over the last three years won’t be easy, but at least I’m now certain that it is what I want, and I’m prepared to do whatever it takes.

In case I doze off in the sun, I set my alarm for midday when I’ll need to go inside and shower before starting my journey home. I lie on my front and undo the ties of my bikini top to avoid getting strap marks. Opening up the book I’ve borrowed from the hotel’s beach library, I give myself a virtual pat on the back; I’ve paced myself beautifully, so the end of the book will coincide with the final few hours of my holiday. It must be the Virgo in me.

The sound of a dog barking wakes me. For a moment I panic, thinking that maybe I’ve slept through my alarm, but a glance at my phone reveals it’s only just past 11 a.m. Lazily, I turn onto my side and prop myself up on my elbow while carefully holding my bikini top in place with my other hand to protect my modesty.

The dog barks again and I can now see it’s a handsome golden retriever. He’s sitting on the sand some fifty yards away, next to a pile of clothes, looking out to sea. I follow the line of his pointed nose and see two heads bobbing in the water, moving away from the beach. From this distance, it’s impossible to tell if they are male or female, but both are strong swimmers.

As soon as they are in line with the end of the jetty, they turn left towards it, and as they do, the dog starts to trot along the beach as though tracking their movements. If he gets ahead of them, he sits for a few moments waiting for them, his tail flicking sand as it wags from side to side. As the swimmers approach the jetty, the dog races to the end of it, where he stands barking at them, his tail still wagging furiously. For a moment, I wonder if the dog is going to jump into the water, particularly as the two people have stopped swimming and are embracing, but then one of them points to the beach as they turn to retrace their path and the dog is off again, racing back in my direction.

I’m not the only one watching and, like me, no one seems concerned by the dog not being on a lead. He is obviously well trained and probably repeating actions he has carried out many times before. Once he is at the pile of clothes and his owners are on their way back towards the shore, the retriever alternates between impatient whining and excited barking. As his humans haul themselves to their feet, the dog can wait no longer and rushes into the water to greet them.

I can now see it’s a man and a woman; she has waist-length blonde hair, while he is dark. Both are very slim and tanned, but what really strikes me is how happy they seem to be. I can’t really see their faces among the tangle of hair and dog, but their body language speaks volumes.

A sharp pang of jealousy stabs at my chest. I close my eyes briefly; what I wouldn’t give to be as happy and carefree as them. It’s not too late, I tell myself, it’s only a trial separation. Jamie and I can still make it work.

When I open my eyes, the couple have their backs to me and are pulling on clothes over their wet swimming costumes, hindered by their dog, who seems to see it as a game. As the woman reaches her arms above her head to allow the bright red sundress to fall over her slender frame, I catch my breath. She has a large tattoo taking up the whole of her forearm from her wrist to her elbow. My throat tightens. Lots of people have tattoos, but unless I’m mistaken, I was there when the ink was applied one painful needle after another for hours on end.

‘Sophie?’ I call out. ‘Sophie, is that you?’

The woman doesn’t turn, but I’m fairly sure I see her shoulders tense.

I roll onto my front, fumbling behind my back to tie up the strings of my bikini top with fingers that feel as fat as sausages. Even so, it can’t have taken me more than a minute to do, but when I’m finally able to get to my feet, the couple and their dog have gone.

Frantically, my eyes scan the beach, hoping for a flash of bright red fabric or the swish of a golden retriever’s tail. My heart is pounding in my chest. They can’t simply have disappeared into thin air.

‘Excuse me,’ I say to the woman on the sun lounger closest to mine. ‘Did you see which way the couple with the dog went?’

She looks at me blankly before shaking her head and saying, ‘Sorry, no English.’

I stumble over to where the couple were dressing moments earlier. There are footprints and pawprints visible, but the trail disappears into the soft powdery sand almost immediately.

Turning to face the ocean, I take some deep breaths to calm myself. I must be mistaken. I must have wanted to believe it was Sophie because I’ve been thinking about her so much this past week. Maybe coming back to Tulum wasn’t such a good idea after all.

The sound of a mobile phone alarm going off breaks into my thoughts, getting louder with each repetition. Realising it’s mine, I hurry back to my sun lounger to turn it off. My hands are shaking as I tap the screen.

I sit down and rest my hands on my thighs to steady them while continuing to take deep breaths. Whoever the woman in the red dress was, it couldn’t have been Sophie. She died in the train crash more than three years ago.

The assembly hall of Birchdale School was already full of Year 13 students when Sophie, Grace and Olivia pushed open the doors to be met by a sea of faces and a wall of sound. Some of the expressions were anxious, worried that maybe they hadn’t performed to their full potential in their A level exams, while others were happy and smiling, confident that they had.

Taking the lead as she usually did, Sophie pushed through the crowd to the table where Mr Reardon and Mrs Jessop were handing out envelopes containing the all-important exam results.

‘Good morning, Sophie,’ Mr Reardon said, dropping his gaze to leaf through the envelopes in search of hers. ‘How do you think you’ve done?’

‘Pretty sure I’ve aced it, sir,’ she replied, smiling. ‘If you pick the right subjects and put in the work, I can’t see why anyone would be nervous.’

‘Natural ability plays a part too, Sophie,’ Mrs Jessop said, her voice gently reprimanding. ‘Not everyone is blessed with the same brainpower and aptitude for learning. Which is not to take away from how hard you’ve worked. I hope you get the grades you need for your first-choice university. Cambridge, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but I’m deferring for a year. Me, Grace and Liv are taking a gap year to go travelling.’

The three girls had been friends from their first day at Birchdale School after Liv had asked Sophie and Grace if they were sisters because they looked so alike.

‘Don’t you know about the birds and the bees?’ Sophie had laughed. ‘My birthday is at the end of January, so it’s virtually impossible for us both to be born into the same school year. When is your birthday, Grace?’

‘May the fifth.’

‘And you, Olivia?’

‘Please call me Liv. I only get called Olivia by teachers and my parents. I’m September the third, so it would just about be possible for me to have a brother or sister in the same school year.’

‘Good point. You haven’t, have you?’ Sophie had asked, looking around as though expecting to see someone with the same mass of dark brown curls.

‘No. I’ve got a brother, Tom, but he’s about to start at university. How about you?’

‘I’m an only child,’ Sophie had replied. ‘I guess my parents decided they couldn’t improve on perfection. I am joking,’ she added quickly, not wanting her new friends to think she was conceited. ‘Mum had loads of miscarriages before me, so once they had a healthy baby, they decided not to push their luck.’

‘I’ve got a younger brother,’ Grace had said, her beautiful face momentarily clouded with a frown. ‘Once Toby arrived, my parents lost interest in me.’

Liv and Sophie had exchanged a look before each linking an arm through hers.

‘Well, you’ve got us now,’ Sophie had said. ‘We’ll always make you feel wanted, won’t we, Liv.’ She crossed her arm over her chest and said, ‘Friends for life, deal?’

‘Deal,’ the other two had agreed, each raising their arms to mimic Sophie’s action.

‘How exciting for you all,’ Mrs Jessop said. ‘I wish my parents had let me take a gap year, but things were a bit different in the 1970s. Here you go, Olivia,’ she added, handing over her results.

‘Thanks, Miss,’ Liv said.

‘Are you as confident as Sophie that you’ve got the results you need?’

‘No one’s as confident as Sophie,’ Liv replied, digging her friend in the ribs, ‘but fingers crossed I’ve done enough to secure the place I’ve been offered.’

She stepped aside while Grace got her results from Mr Reardon.

Envelopes in hand, the three friends battled their way back through the crowd and out through the double wooden doors.

‘Come on,’ Sophie said, ‘let’s get ourselves some privacy.’

Grace and Liv followed her up some concrete steps and over to a wooden bench that had been their favourite after-lunch spot for most of the last seven years. It overlooked the playing fields and had been a perfect vantage point from which to admire their latest crush or complain about girls who were outside their close-knit circle. Since February, it had more often than not only been Liv and Sophie chatting on the bench as Grace was preoccupied with her boyfriend, Gary.

‘Ready to rip?’ Sophie said, her finger wiggling into the envelope. ‘One, two, three… go.’

There followed the sound of paper tearing, then rustling as three pairs of hands eagerly withdrew the results sheets.

‘Yes! Straight As… Cambridge here I come,’ Sophie said, punching the air.

‘Phew!’ Liv sighed, letting out the breath she’d been holding. ‘Straight As for me as well. Looks like I’ll be coming with you. How about you, Grace?’

The two of them turned to look at their friend, whose face was as white as the paper she was holding.

‘My parents are going to kill me.’

‘Stop messing about,’ Sophie said. ‘Have you got As too?’

Grace shook her head. ‘I’m not messing, Sophie. Two Bs and a D. I don’t know how I’m going to tell them.’

‘There must be a mistake,’ Liv said, taking the letter out of Grace’s hand as though looking at it would magically change the grades. After checking, she raised her gaze to her friend’s eyes. ‘I don’t understand. You were predicted As and Bs like me. What happened?’

A tear trickled out of the corner of Grace’s eye. ‘Gary happened,’ she said, sniffing miserably. ‘I’ve spent so much time with him, doing the things he wanted to do, that I guess I just let my schoolwork slip. Oh God! What am I going to do? My grades are nowhere near good enough to get into any decent university.’

‘Listen,’ Sophie said, ‘it’s not the end of the world. You’ll just have to say you’ve not been feeling well lately and ask to do retakes in January. I’m sure Cambridge will hold your place if you explain it like that.’

‘Do you really think so?’ Grace asked, looking unconvinced.

‘Yes,’ Sophie replied confidently, although she had no way of knowing if her confidence was justified. ‘You can’t be the first person to not get the grades you need at the first attempt.’ She linked her arm through Grace’s and waited until Liv had done the same on the other side. ‘Come on, let’s go and talk to Mrs Jessop and see what your options are. It’ll be fine; stop worrying.’

The girls were walking back towards the school buildings when Grace stopped abruptly.

‘But if I have to do retakes, I won’t be able to go travelling with you two.’

Liv and Sophie exchanged a quick glance.

‘We’ll work something out. If you still want to come, maybe you could join us after your exams.’

‘Why wouldn’t I want to come? We’re friends for life, remember? We’ve got each other’s backs.’

‘Of course, but we weren’t sure you’d want to be away from Gary for a whole year,’ Sophie said.

‘He’s cool about it. He said we could have a non-exclusive relationship while I was away.’

Sophie wasn’t sure how happy she would be with a boyfriend who’d suggested being non-exclusive, but she kept her thoughts to herself.

‘Then that’s sorted,’ Liv said. ‘There’ll still be plenty of the world to see when you come and join us in February.’

‘And we promise not to have too much fun without you,’ Sophie added, laughing.

‘Hmmmm, as if! Seriously, though, thanks for making me feel better about the mess I’ve got myself into. Now all I’ve got to do, apart from retaking my exams, is break the news to my parents. One more failure by their useless daughter, highlighted by Toby winning an effing scholarship to Whitgift School. Maybe if they’d showed me a bit more love, I wouldn’t have had to look for it elsewhere.’ Grace sighed.

Sophie couldn’t help thinking she had a point. Throughout their schooldays, neither she nor Liv had ever been invited to a sleepover at Grace’s, despite the numerous times she had stayed with each of them. Hard as it would be for them to accept, Grace’s parents were partly responsible for her underachievement, although it wouldn’t make telling them any easier.

‘Well, we love you, don’t we, Sophie?’ Liv said, putting her arm around Grace.

‘Absolutely,’ Sophie replied, joining in with the group hug. ‘We’ve got this.’

‘Is everything all right, Grace? You don’t seem your usual self.’

Luis is back early from his shift at the animal shelter where he helps out three afternoons a week. He’s walked in on me taking a shower before I head off to the Pilates studio to teach my two evening classes. It’s not the first time he’s done this and won’t be the last, but today I’m not in the mood. Normally I have no problem with him getting into the shower with me for a few minutes of passion, so I’m not surprised by the look of disappointment when I push him away. His expression is like one of the puppies at the shelter when they’ve been passed over for adoption.

‘I’m fine,’ I lie. ‘I’m just running a bit late. I promised to show Josefina some of the new exercises I’ve been learning online before class tonight, but now I’m not sure I’ll have time.’ I reach for my towel and wrap it around my dripping body to make it clear to him that there will be no lovemaking before I leave for work.

I’ve been on edge all afternoon s. . .