Free Some Day I'll Find You by Richard Madeley Page B

that if we decide to see each other,
especially when I start flying real operations, not training flights or boring patrols, we might find ourselves wanting to . . . well, speed things up.’
    He sat back, drew a deep breath, and then exhaled loudly. ‘There. That’s the second time tonight I’ve done that.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ she asked him. ‘The second time you’ve done what?’
    ‘Told you something I had no intention of mentioning just yet. First in your room, about how I feel about you, and now this, about how our futures might play out. You’re pretty good
at getting a chap to reveal his inner thoughts, Diana, I’ll give you that.’
    ‘Well, it’s certainly not intentional, I can assure you,’ she said, half-laughing. ‘Mind if I smoke before pudding?’
    He shook his head and, once again, lit cigarettes for them both and waited.
    ‘I think I see what you’re getting at,’ said Diana eventually. ‘The war has changed things. Or rather, it
will
, if you’re right and things start to happen
soon. And in any case, I haven’t been quite fair with you.’
    He raised his eyebrows. ‘In what way?’
    ‘Well . . .’ She took a long pull on her cigarette. ‘You’ve been very honest about what your first impressions of me were, and I’ve told you nothing of mine about
you. My turn, then.’
    ‘OK. Shoot. If it’s a bullet to the heart, I can take it.’
    ‘No, that’s not it.’ Diana was now turning rather pink. ‘You made a huge impression on me at the Dower House. I asked my brother heaps of questions about you after
dinner. He was –’ she hesitated – ‘well, to say “complimentary” would be an understatement. And he told me the truth about why you’d come to stay with
us.’
    ‘The truth?’
    ‘Yes. He said that story about your parents being in Canada was nonsense, and that in fact your mother used to be in service and your father was her employer and took advantage of her.
When he realised she was expecting you, he threw her out. Is that true, James?’
    He took his time, drawing on his cigarette and staring out at the big, wet flakes driving against the window. Then he turned to her.
    ‘Well now, this was something else I hadn’t planned on discussing tonight. But yes, it’s true. And it doesn’t matter. In fact, it doesn’t signify at all. My mother
gave me a good upbringing and I’ve made my own way. It’s irrelevant who my father is. I’m sorry I deceived your parents – and you – but I’ve found that when I do
tell people the truth about my parentage, they usually give me strange looks. They think I’m a liar, or a self-deluding fool, or a bit touched. I find it better to ration the truth. But as I
say, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to start our . . . friendship . . . with a lie.’
    In her own turn, Diana reached for James’s hand. ‘You haven’t,’ she told him firmly. ‘I asked you something and you told me the truth.’
    She smiled at him. ‘I’d call this a very good start.’

21
    Diana’s portable alarm clock went off just before eight o’clock the next morning, as it always did. The Arnold family habit of waking up to the radio news had been
transplanted to her Cambridge bedroom. Diana hadn’t missed the first BBC bulletin of the day since war began more than seven months earlier. Not that there was usually much to report, thus
far. But still, you never knew.
    With a small jolt, she remembered she was not alone in her college bedsit. Over on the little chintz sofa lay James Blackwell, tangled in her spare blankets with his blue RAF greatcoat spread
across the top. His feet poked out from under the coat and covers and way over the sofa’s edge. He looked extremely uncomfortable. But he was sleeping.
    Diana switched on her bedside radio, a battery-powered Roberts the size of a small loaf of bread. While it warmed up, she took her dressing-gown from the chair next to the bed, slipped it over
her shoulders and went across to the