Letter From a Stranger

  Shaking her head, her face lighting up with spontaneous laughter, she answered, ‘You could never disappoint me; you never did when you were a little girl. But tell me, what wicked thing was it?’

  ‘I was going to use a photograph of you in an advertisement I was going to take, am going to take, in a Turkish newspaper. It was to announce my new documentary, but I hoped that if you saw your picture, or Anita did, you would contact me.’

  ‘That doesn’t upset me, or alarm me – you ought to know better than that, darling. Nor would it have embarrassed me. Which photo, by the way? I hope it’s a good one.’

  Justine chuckled. ‘I asked Richard to send it to me today by FedEx. I will have it tomorrow… It’s the one you gave me about fifteen years ago, and it was taken at Uncle Trent’s house in Long Island.’ Justine’s eyes suddenly sparkled. ‘And you know what, you’re wearing a blue dress, the same colour as that scarf.’

  ‘I remember that day very well… so you’re making a new documentary?’

  ‘It’s called “Biography of a City”, and it’s about Istanbul, Gran. Originally, I used that story, a ploy really, to get Iffet to work with me. You see, I did come here to find you, actually. Then, in the course of this week, became inspired.’

  ‘It’s a very clever idea indeed. And you’re still going to do it, even though you’ve now found me?’

  ‘Yes, I am, Gran, because it is a great idea, and there is a real story to tell about this place. The documentary I just finished editing is going to be shown in September, and I did several interviews about it. With various papers here, and the English language paper as well. I did them hoping you would read about me, and come and find me at the Çiragan Palace.’

  Gabriele frowned. ‘When did they appear?’

  ‘Earlier this week.’

  ‘Anita and I just got back from Bodrum, down in the south, last night. We were away for several days, and obviously I never saw them.’

  Justine nodded, hesitated, and then asked in a lower voice, ‘Did you know Anita had written to my mother?’

  Gabriele shook her head, and answered sotto voce, ‘Not at first. She did that off her own bat, without mentioning a word. But then when she didn’t hear from Deborah she got upset and eventually confessed to me. I was a bit startled at first. But it didn’t surprise me she hadn’t heard. I have written to your mother many times over the years, and she never responded—’

  Iffet was walking across the floor, and Gabriele stopped and changed the subject. ‘And how did you find Iffet?’

  ‘She’s a friend and colleague of Joanne’s. Oh, my God, I was so excited to find you I forgot to tell Jo! I must call her immediately, if you’ll excuse me.’ Justine stood up as Iffet came to a standstill next to the sofa.

  ‘I’m afraid I will have to leave now, Gabriele… Justine. Anita has kindly asked me to stay for supper, but I think it is better if you are all alone this evening. You have so much to catch up on.’

  ‘But I did invite you to dinner,’ Justine reminded her.

  ‘I know you did. So kind, Justine. But that was before you found Gran.’ Iffet laughed. ‘I still can’t get over it!’

  ‘Neither can I,’ Justine exclaimed.

  Gabriele rose and, turning to Iffet, she murmured, ‘Thank you so much for helping Justine. I can never thank you enough. I think God meant you to be on the Bosphorus this afternoon. I really do believe that. I’ve never believed in the randomness of things… I think there is a grand plan.’ Stepping closer to Iffet, she kissed her on the cheek, and finished, ‘I hope I’ll see you in the next few days.’

  ‘I’m sure you will.’

  Justine said, ‘Come on, I’ll walk you to the jetty… and the boat.’

  ‘Thanks, but you don’t have to, Justine.’

  Justine and Iffet walked together through the garden of Anita’s yali, heading in the direction of the jetty. At one moment, Iffet said, ‘Your grandmother is such a lovely person. And so good looking. Very English.’

  ‘I know. And she’s a wonder. So is Anita, just as attractive as Gran in her own special way. And very motherly.’

  ‘I cannot tell you how excited I am you found your grandmother this afternoon. It is like… a miracle.’

  ‘A fluke. But that’s the way life often is, you know. Full of strange twists of fate, coincidences, accidental happenings that turn out to be blessings. All I know is that she’s found, and I’m not going to lose her again.’ Justine paused for a moment and took hold of Iffet’s arm, and said, ‘I can’t thank you enough for being such a help, Iffet, and for your patience and kindness.’

  ‘It was my pleasure. Will you make the documentary?’

  ‘I fully intend to… Also, I’m still going to do the advert. I think the idea of picking out some Istanbul stories about people and their lives will work well. My plans haven’t changed. And I still want you to work with me.’

  ‘Of course. I would love to, Justine.’

  ‘Oh look, there’s Nuri waving to us from the jetty.’

  On her way back to the yali, Justine paused for a moment and dialled Joanne’s phone number. There was no answer. She tried her apartment in New York, and when the answer machine came on she told her friend the great good news about Gabriele, and clicked off.

  The moment she walked back into the sitting room Justine was aware of a change in the atmosphere. As she glanced around she noticed that Gabriele and Anita seemed more relaxed. Michael was standing at the other end of the room, facing the window, speaking on his mobile.

  Strolling over to the two women, she said to Gabriele, ‘I just tried to reach Joanne but she wasn’t at home. I left a message. She’ll call back. I know she’d love to speak to you, Gran. Is that all right?’

  ‘Of course it is, darling,’ Gabriele answered. ‘I watched her grow up; she’s like part of the family. How is she doing? How is her life?’

  ‘Jo’s the same, always optimistic, like me. You know I can’t stand negative people. She got married, to one of those Wall Street wonders who turned out to be a bad lad. They’re divorced now. They have a little boy, Simon, who’s Daisy’s age. She does public relations for movies.’

  ‘And Daisy? What’s she like, my great-granddaughter?’

  ‘Like you and me, Gran. Blonde, blue-eyed, tall; she’s very precocious without being awful, bright as a button. And adorable, lovely.’

  ‘And her mother?’

  ‘Pamela died two years ago,’ Justine said, her voice suddenly echoing with sadness. ‘She had cancer of the uterus, went very swiftly. Richard took it extremely badly; he’s been coping with a lot of grief and heartache.’

  ‘Oh, Justine, I’m so very sorry,’ Gabriele replied, a look of dismay in her eyes. ‘Poor Richard, poor darling. How heartbreaking. A loss like that is so very hard to bear.’

  Anita murmured a few words of condolence, and then giving Justine a pointed look, she asked in her rather direct manner, ‘And what about you, Justine? Single, married, divorced?’

  Justine began to laugh. ‘Never married, so never divorced. I am single, free as a bird, and fancy free.’

  ‘Is that a fact? Mmmmm, that gives me food for thought, my darling.’ As she spoke, her sparkly dark eyes settled on her grandson near the window, the expression on her face thoughtful.

  Gabriele, her eyes on Anita, began to chuckle, and she said in an amused tone, ‘I can see what’s going through your mind.’

  Justine looked from Anita to her grandmother, then followed the direction of Anita’s gaze, saw how focused she was on Michael. Turning to face the two of them, she spotted the conspiratorial expression on both their faces and, much to her mortification, she felt herself blushing bright pink. She opened her mouth to make some sort of pithy comment, but closed it at once because Michael was turning around, moving towards them.

  Michael was speaking to them. ‘I got out of the dinner. So I’m free as a bird,’ he explained, walking across the room to join the three of them.

  Anita began
to laugh.

  Gabriele’s mouth twitched, but she managed to keep a straight face, suppressing her laughter.

  Justine simply sat down on a sofa, still mortified, and said nothing. She was poker faced.

  Anita murmured, ‘Funny you should say that, Michael.’

  ‘Say what, Grandma?’

  ‘That you’re free as a bird. Only a few seconds earlier, Justine said exactly the same thing. But she was referring to something else.’

  Michael ignored this comment, took a chair opposite Justine, said to her, ‘You have to decide if you want to move in with Gabriele tonight or tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Tonight, of course.’ She glanced at her grandmother and asked, ‘Is that all right?’

  ‘Don’t be such a silly goose – naturally it’s all right with me. Why wait until tomorrow? Haven’t we waited long enough to be with each other again?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Michael answered, before Justine could respond.

  She stared at him, thinking that he certainly knew how to take command of a situation. He gazed back at her, smiled at her with such warmth she felt that odd tightening in her chest again, and quickly looked away, aware of the effect he had on her.

  He said, ‘Do you want me to drive you back to the hotel tonight so you can pack and check out? Or would you prefer to go across the Bosphorus on our boat?’

  ‘Whichever you want, Michael,’ she answered, managing to find her voice.

  ‘The bridge might be very busy, full of traffic,’ Anita pointed out.

  ‘That’s true. Then it’s settled. We’ll go by boat.’ He stood up. ‘Kuri, our driver, will wait for us and bring us back in time for supper.’ Throwing a quick look at Gabriele, he asked in a loving voice, ‘Does that meet with your approval, Aunt Gabri?’

  ‘It does indeed,’ she said.

  SIXTEEN

  Michael Dalton was sitting on the terrace of the Çiragan Palace Hotel, nursing a glass of white wine as he waited for Justine, who was upstairs in her room busy packing.

  He was facing a dilemma, and wondering how to best solve it. Before he and Justine left his grandmother’s yali to come here, Anita had drawn him to one side and told him to take care of Justine’s bill at the hotel. ‘Just charge it to my account there,’ Anita had murmured. When he had demurred, explaining Justine wouldn’t want that, she had become insistent.

  His reluctance was based on his understanding of Justine Nolan. In the several hours she had been at the villa he had realized that she was independent, had a strong character, was very much her own woman.

  It had taken a lot of guts on her part for her to come here without an address for Anita. It also told him how much she cared about Gabriele and that she had been determined to find her. Certainly she had thrown caution to the wind when she had embarked on this venture, not knowing what she would find. The conclusion he now drew was that Justine was not the kind of woman who would want Anita, or anyone else, paying her hotel bill.

  He made a decision: he would play it by ear.

  He laughed at himself inwardly, knowing full well that he liked her so much, was so attracted to her, felt such a strong pull towards her; he did not want to upset her in any way.

  Michael had a weakness for brunettes, and yet here he was longing to grab hold of this tall leggy blonde, so sexually drawn to her he was actually startled at himself. Not his type, yet his heartbeat quickened when she had come close to him in the sitting room, and again on the boat when she had fallen against him as the motorboat had hit a series of wakes from other small vessels crossing the straits.

  He was not a man who was a womanizer, nor had he ever rushed from woman to woman in his younger days, being selective and somewhat conservative in his choices. He had often been alone for long periods of time between romances …and yet here he was tonight, preoccupied with Justine, and he had only split up with Vanessa a few months ago. Vanessa. Justine. My God, they were as different as any two women could be…

  He cut off this thought, and stood up swiftly, as Justine walked towards him, a smile on her face. He noticed at once she had changed, wore a blue silk shirt and navy blue trousers, carried a navy shawl. Her long blonde hair gleamed, and she had put on make-up.

  He smiled as he pulled out the chair for her.

  She sat down, and said, ‘Sorry I took so long, but I decided to change clothes… it gets coolish here at night, I’ve noticed. Anyway, here I am. I left my bags with the concierge, and paid my bill, so everything’s been done.’

  ‘You paid the bill, did you? That means Anita’s going to rap my knuckles.’

  ‘Figuratively speaking, of course.’

  ‘Figuratively speaking, yes. She wanted me to put your bill on her account here. But I must admit, I was hesitant, reluctant.’

  ‘Oh, why?’ Justine asked, staring at him. Now that she was with him again, she realized why she hadn’t stopped thinking about him when she was upstairs packing. There was something about him that drew her to him, made her want to know him better.

  ‘I decided you were the kind of woman who wouldn’t want her tab picked up… that you might be offended or resent it.’

  ‘Neither, but I wouldn’t have allowed you to put it on Anita’s account, because it’s not necessary.’

  ‘So I did the right thing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you like a glass of wine before we cross the straits?’

  ‘One for the water, sure,’ she said laughing.

  He laughed with her, getting the analogy at once, and beckoned to a waiter, ordered the white wine. He said, ‘When is Richard coming to see Gabriele?’

  ‘As soon as he can. He has a good week’s work yet on the installation. He just designed a new boutique hotel in Battery Park. He’s very anxious to get here, though, as you can imagine.’

  Michael nodded. Longing to know more about her now that he had her to himself for a while, he changed the subject when he said, ‘You mentioned the name of one of your documentaries, something about babies with guns? Was that it?’

  ‘That was it exactly. It was called “Babies with Guns: The Child Soldiers of Africa”. I won an Emmy for it… I made it several years ago.’

  ‘Congratulations, on the Emmy, I mean. And I’m sorry I missed it… that subject has always interested me.’

  ‘I’ll get you a copy if you want… and why does the subject matter interest you, Michael?’ she asked, her eyes focused on him intently.

  Before he could answer, the waiter brought the wine. The two of them clinked glasses, and Michael replied, ‘I suppose because I’m often preoccupied with war. All kinds of different wars.’

  ‘Oh, why is that? Are you in the military?’

  Michael shook his head, took a swallow of wine.

  ‘So what do you do for a living?’ Justine probed, surprising herself at all the questions she was asking.

  ‘I run a security company. The main office is in Manhattan. I’ve two others, one in London, the other in Paris. Actually, I studied law and then history, and graduated, but never became a lawyer, much to my parents’ surprise.’

  ‘I can imagine. So your mother is Anita’s daughter?’

  ‘That’s right. Her name is Cornelia, and she’s a lawyer, too.’ He grinned. ‘Well, she studied law at Harvard, where she met Larry Dalton, my father. And she did graduate, but never practised either. Because she fell in love and got married and very quickly had me, then my sister Alicia.’

  ‘And did you go to Harvard too?’ Justine asked, riddled with curiosity about him, suddenly aware that she had a need to know him inside out.

  ‘I did, yes, and I enjoyed it. Fortunately, I realized I wasn’t cut out to be a lawyer. One day I had an epiphany of sorts. I suddenly realized how patriotic I was and that I must join the Secret Service. I had this desire to serve my country. So that’s what I did.’

  ‘You became a Secret Service agent?’ she asked, a brow lifting.

  ‘Eventually, yes. I had to go through a lot of tra
ining at the Secret Service academy in Washington.’

  ‘Did you protect the president?’

  ‘Not until my last year with the Secret Service. Then I got hit by the barrel of a rifle. I was unlucky, I had an accident with my eye. It affected my vision to a certain extent, and obviously I was no good at protecting a president, or anybody else for that matter. So I did the next best thing. I left the Secret Service and I started my own security company, but I’m mostly behind a desk, running the business. Sometimes I travel to my different offices—’ Michael broke off as his cell phone on the table buzzed. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Michael, it’s your grandmother. Where are you? Did the two of you get lost?’

  ‘No, Grandma,’ he answered, laughing. ‘We’ll be there very shortly, just leaving the hotel.’

  ‘Oh, that’s good. Gabri and I… well, we miss you both.’

  ‘See you soon.’ Putting the phone in his pocket, Michael looked across at Justine, a smile still flickering. ‘I think you got the gist of that?’

  ‘I did. And they’re quite amazing, those two, aren’t they?’

  Michael stared at her, nodding. ‘I bet you thought you were going to find two old ladies with walkers, but what you got were two babes in Valentino dresses and heels. Full of piss and vinegar, as Gabriele would say.’

  ‘I did, yes,’ Justine agreed, laughing with him. ‘And was I surprised.’

  There was less traffic on the Bosphorus going over to the Asiatic side, and the water was calmer, so it was a much easier trip. Michael had been asking Justine lots of questions – about Iffet, how she had found her; and what the two of them had done to try and locate Gabriele.

  She had answered him swiftly, with her usual directness, and he had marvelled at the clever ideas she had come up with, and her ingenuity and tenacity. ‘My hat’s off to you, Justine,’ he said, when she had finished. ‘And the idea of the advertisement was quite brilliant. Aside from drawing attention to you, to Gabriele, and alerting Anita you were here, I think asking Istanbulites to tell you their stories of the city was – and is – inspired. I’m sure my grandmother has lots of tales to tell you.’