Some Day I'll Find You

by Richard Madeley

  There was no room in these fantasies for a husband, or a male partner of any kind, come to that; still less children. So Diana could not understand why, at the most unexpected moments, she was suddenly possessed by a raging desire to have babies, as many as her body could produce. This fierce passion could descend on her without warning, and consume her wordlessly, an instinct so primal and powerful that it overwhelmed her senses and left her unable to think coherently for minutes at a time.

  But again, these experiences (which Diana wryly described to herself as ‘my atavistic attacks’) had no male component to them at all. They never included even the vaguest, shadowy image of a man who would be necessary to the business. Diana felt almost embarrassed after the blazing flames of maternal passion had flickered and died. ‘When it takes hold of me and burns me,’ she confided to a friend, ‘I feel like some kind of towering, fiery goddess with powers to create life all by herself. Afterwards, the whole thing just seems silly – completely ridiculous, in fact.’

  But there was a third Diana; the one which unsettled her the most, and about whom she confided in no one. This Diana was erotic, carnal and quivering with sexual curiosity. This Diana, she sometimes thought, her cheeks growing warm as her heart beat hard and fast, was capable of the kind of recklessness and animal lust that, later, when she remembered her dark fantasies, astonished her. The images that caused her to catch her breath never materialised when opportunity was at hand – at a college ball, or on a date with an undergraduate – but only later, in the darkness and solitude of her room. Then, this Diana hungered for a sexual experience that had so far been denied her. Or, to be more accurate, she had denied herself.

  7

  James Blackwell was the quintessential scholarship boy. Unapologetic elitism had been the making of him since, at eleven years old, he won the Mayor of Hackney’s Junior Essay Prize, was plucked from grimy Dalston Lane Primary and installed, on a full governors’ discretionary bursary, at the Stones Company Grammar School in Garnford Square, Whitechapel.

  Stones Company was a trade school established in the late sixteenth century, just a few years after the Spanish Armada. By the twentieth century it had become a ladder which East End boys might scale to escape London’s most economically stunted and deprived community.

  Stones, for those able to rise to its academic challenge, was a way you could drag yourself out of the pit.

  And James Blackwell wanted out. His father was a faint memory – a coalman who had left forever with a, ‘So long, Jimmy!’ when James was five – and his devoted mother was an usherette at the Whitechapel Odeon, who smuggled her son in to see the silent films of his boyhood and the ‘talkies’ of his teens. It was about the only frivolous pleasure of his childhood. An usherette’s wages were barely enough to clothe and feed the two of them.

  But James’s mother compensated for her son’s pinched existence with the extravagant praise she heaped upon him as he grew up.

  ‘You can be anything you want to be, Jimmy,’ she told him firmly as she dressed him for school. ‘You’re clever and handsome and the best boy that ever was. You could be Prime Minister or an explorer or a film star . . . you’re special, James; really special. You’ll see. One of these days you’ll surprise the world, just you see if you don’t. You’ll amaze everyone. And you’ll have beautiful, beautiful ladies – princesses, I shouldn’t wonder – who’ll give anything to be your wife. Mark my words.’

  James believed she was telling him the truth. Why wouldn’t he? But he also knew that much of what he watched, open-mouthed, on the Odeon’s dazzling screen was pure, bewitching fantasy. He gradually realised that the newsreels were much closer to reality – closer in every sense. Many of the glamorous premières, parties and soirées they highlighted offered tantalising glimpses of lives being extravagantly enjoyed just a couple of miles from where James sat in his flea-pit stall. They called it ‘the West End’.

  By the time he was sixteen, James Blackwell had worked it out. He had drawn himself a map to the glittering world that pulsed less than an hour’s stroll from his own poverty-stricken corral.

  But he wouldn’t be walking or even driving to it.

  He was going to fly there.

  8

  ‘A place at Cranwell? I hardly think so, Blackwell,’ the headmaster murmured as he poured himself sherry from his study’s sideboard. ‘I gather that a lot of RAF chaps pay for their own flying lessons before even joining the service. Cranwell’s a sort of finishing school for them, really. I very much doubt there are any suitable places available. I’ll check, of course.’

  He took a sip of his sherry, then resumed: ‘Anyway, why the RAF? No history to speak of; no regimental traditions – why d’you think they call it the junior service? Because that’s exactly what it is. Now, I have some connections in the Guards. I could—’

  James stood up.

  ‘I’m sure you have, sir,’ he said carefully, ‘but I’ve looked into all that, actually. It’s kind of you but I think we both know that someone with my background would hardly have a meteoric career with any of the old regiments, let alone get accepted in the first place. There’s only so much that elocution lessons can achieve. I’m grateful for the ones you arranged for me, but there’s a limit to how far they’ll take me socially. Certainly not to the rarefied heights of the Guards.’

  The headmaster sighed. ‘Ever the realist, eh, Blackwell? Well, I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘No, sir,’ said James. ‘You’ll do better than that.’ He produced a sheet of paper from his prefect’s blazer pocket.

  The headmaster raised an eyebrow. ‘I beg your pardon? I’m not sure I like your tone, boy.’

  ‘I’m not sure I care either way, sir,’ replied the teenager. He placed the form on the desk between them. ‘This is a typewritten reference from you to the commanding officer at Cranwell, explaining that I am ideal officer material, based on my exemplary record with the School Cadet Corps. It also gives details of my School Certificate results this summer, with special emphasis on my excellent examination score in mathematics. An 88 per cent mark, as I recall.’

  The headmaster sat very still.

  ‘Blackwell, you are barely competent in mathematics.’

  The boy smiled, and waited. After a long moment, the man opposite him shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  ‘Look, I’m very fond of you, Blackwell – James – you know that, but I’m not signing this. You simply can’t ask it of me.’ He picked up the letter and tore it carefully in half.

  James smiled again. ‘You’ve got it all wrong, sir. I was your star cadet and I did exceptionally well in maths. You must have me muddled with another boy, I think. But you have a habit of doing that, don’t you, sir? Do you remember when you called me Thomas instead of James? You were very apologetic. Mind you, you were rather worked up at the time, as I recall. I put it down to over-excitement.’

  The headmaster’s voice, when he finally spoke, was barely above a whisper. ‘You little bastard. You fucking little bastard. I’ve done so much for you. I paid for lessons to stop you talking like a barrow-boy, I—’

  ‘But sir,’ James interrupted. ‘You told me you liked me to talk like a barrow-boy. Have you forgotten that as well?’

  The headmaster sank back into his chair. ‘You wouldn’t dare. You wouldn’t dare say a word. We’d both go to prison.’

  James inclined his head. ‘No, sir, I wouldn’t go to prison. I’m much too young – especially when we . . . how did you used to describe it? When we had our . . . “special lessons”. But you, sir? You certainly would end up in clink; there we are in full agreement. And of course, there’s the rather nasty business of corrupting a minor, too. That’s got to deliver some hard labour into the bargain, I should imagine. But what do you think, sir?’

  Frightened, shrunken eyes met those of the brightest blue.

  ‘I think – I think you had better write me another letter to sign, you little tart.’

  ‘Ah.’ Ja
mes stood up. ‘Now, just for that, you can stick that one back together again, sir, and copy it out in fair hand. I wasn’t all that happy with a typewritten version, to be honest, any more than I was happy with our . . . well, transactions, as I suppose we should consider them in hindsight. Anyway, recommendations of this kind are so much more intrinsically personal when they’re handwritten, don’t you agree? And you have such lovely copperplate, sir.’

  The headmaster’s eyes closed for a moment. ‘Get out, just get out. You’ll have your filthy letter in your pigeonhole in fifteen minutes. Then you can go back to your pigsty of a home and your scrubber of a mother, and never come back here. Term finishes next week anyway. If I see your face at this school again I’ll call the police and bring charges for blackmail. I swear I shall.’

  James Blackwell walked calmly to the study door. He opened it and turned back.

  ‘No, you won’t. You’ll write my letter and then you’ll shut up. Don’t bluster, sir. It demeans you even further, if such a thing were possible. Goodbye, sir.’

  9

  James Blackwell may have manipulated his way into Cranwell, but once there he found himself struggling to keep up with the other trainee officers. Standards were dauntingly high. With mounting dismay he watched candidate after candidate quietly asked to leave the college after flunking academic or practical tests. His own grasp of mathematics was shaky at best. What would happen when navigation classes began?

  Socially, he stood out. His carefully enunciated words fooled nobody. One night in the Prince Rupert, Cranwell College’s pub of choice in nearby Newark, as he broodily nursed a beer in an unlit corner, he overheard a Kensington-born trainee pilot in the adjoining booth deliver a damning verdict.

  ‘Blackwell? The ghastly man’s a fraud, and common with it. He only got in in the first place because this is the RAF. Anywhere else and the bloody little oik would have been barred at the camp gate. Just wait until we’ve finished theory and start getting up in the air. He’ll be kicked out of here faster than a lance-corporal who’s wandered into the Officers’ Mess. No rank. No class. No class at all.’

  Later, lying on his iron-framed cot smoking cigarette after cigarette in the dark, James came to a decision. He couldn’t make it through Cranwell on his own. He needed back-up, support. Someone with standing who would, by association, enhance his own and offer some social protection, even advice.

  In other words, a well-placed friend.

  A friend. James smiled faintly to himself. He’d never wanted, nor solicited a friend in his whole life. He wasn’t entirely sure how to go about it.

  But he wouldn’t have to worry, as things turned out.

  John Arnold found him first.

  10

  ‘Honestly, Di,’ John murmured to his sister, keeping his voice low in case his parents and his friend at the other end of the room overheard. ‘James was really up against it at Cranwell, poor bloke.’

  Together they poured cognacs from the drinks trolley for everyone. John was amused to see that his sister had put on fresh lipstick during the party’s move from dining room to drawing room, and changed into new stockings after he’d whispered to her that she had a slight ladder in one of them. He was half-surprised she’d not gone the whole hog and put on a different frock; he was sure she’d been tempted. But she’d returned downstairs in the same dark red woollen dress which she knew showed off her figure at its best.

  ‘I hope James appreciates your efforts, sis,’ he murmured, nudging her conspiratorially.

  ‘Steady,’ warned Diana, as she slopped a little of the brandy over the tray. ‘This might have to last. Everyone’s saying the war will be over by Christmas, but that’s exactly what Daddy says people thought last time, and it was four years. I’ve already told Mummy to go easy on the tinned salmon.’

  Five balloon glasses were placed on the tarnished silver tray.

  ‘Anyway, never mind me,’ said Diana. ‘Go on. What d’you mean about James being up against it?’

  ‘Not here,’ answered her brother, glancing across the room. ‘Fetch some cigarettes and I’ll smoke one with you on the ha-ha. I’ll tell you all about James there.’

  John had never seen class snobbery at work until Cranwell. It made him deeply uncomfortable. His own public school, Hedgebury, had operated a generous system of scholarships and assisted places. Most of the boys there were sons of professional men – lawyers like his own father, businessmen, doctors, politicians. The school was run on modern lines as an uncompromising meritocracy. Assumptions of superiority by birthright were frowned on.

  True, there had been occasional bouts of trouble with ‘town boys’ when older Hedgeberians found themselves at a loose end in the local High Street on their half-days off. But these run-ins were relished by both sides, and had more the flavour of sporting fixtures than class war.

  John found the patronising of James at Cranwell unpleasant. His own public-school background had taught him that it was usually best to let others fight their own battles, but even so, he looked for a way to offer quiet support.

  The chance came after an afternoon’s navigation instruction. James went straight to the room he shared with three others and sat alone, surrounded by textbooks on navigation theory. John passed the open door in time to hear a deep sigh coming from within.

  He hesitated, then rapped on the doorframe. ‘Everything all right in there? Not too much doom and gloom? Nil desperandum and all that?’

  James looked up from the page. ‘Fuck off, mate. Don’t give me all that cheery balls. It’ll take more than a Latin tag to get me through this lot.’ He gestured at the books. ‘Trigonometry I can just about cope with. It’s these bloody equations that have me floored.’

  He rose and moved to the doorway, hand outstretched, to introduce himself. ‘James. James Blackwell.’

  ‘John Arnold.’ They shook hands. ‘Actually, I’m not really John at all – I’m Robert. Don’t ask. It’s a sort of family tradition. We all change our names. I have no idea why.’

  James laughed. ‘Well, I’ve always been James, though right now I wish I were someone else altogether. Someone who could understand this stuff.’ He gestured towards the books. ‘If I don’t crack it soon, I’ll be out on my arse like those other poor sods.’

  John sat down in a battered leather armchair and swung one knee over the side. ‘I could help, if you liked,’ he said. ‘I don’t think we’ve got the best of navigation instructors, as it happens. He rattles too quickly through everything. But I’m lucky – it mostly comes pretty naturally to me. I could go over things with you more slowly until it sticks. You’ll get it eventually.’

  The other man stared at him. ‘Why would you do that? We hardly know each other.’

  John stood up and stretched. ‘It’d be one in the eye for those braying idiots who think being born into high society makes them better than chaps like you. Or me, come to that. They’d love to see you booted out of Cranwell; it would confirm all their ghastly prejudices. Let’s give them a kick in the pants, shall we?’

  Diana drew thoughtfully on her cigarette in the darkness. ‘You must be a bloody effective teacher, brother,’ she said. ‘Too effective for your own good, perhaps. He’s ended up a flight commander and you’re a humble pilot officer.’ She giggled and poked John in the ribs. ‘You should show him some respect. Why haven’t I seen you salute him or call him “sir”?’

  Her brother’s glowing cigarette end arced over the ha-ha as he flicked it into the little stream beyond. ‘Oh, James isn’t interested in any of that nonsense,’ he said. ‘Obviously on base we observe the proprieties, but not here. We’re friends. It was a real stroke of luck that our first posting after Cranwell was to the same squadron. Anyway, I haven’t finished telling you about him.’

  11

  James Blackwell, thanks to long hours of private tuition from his new friend, scraped through his navigation exams. The frightful condescension directed at him by Cranwell’s self-styled social elite eased
somewhat, but that had nothing to do with the exams. John was popular among the other trainee pilots and his friendship with James conferred a degree of social acceptance on the other man – enough, at least, to mute the more contemptuous comments about him behind his back.

  ‘But here’s the thing, sis,’ John continued. ‘He’s actually got more blue blood in him than the lot of them. His mother used to be in service. James won’t tell me the name of the family, but I get the impression they’re not just well-connected – they’re the kind of people half those chinless wonders at Cranwell would give the family silver to be connected to.

  ‘Apparently, the young Miss Blackwell got herself into a compromising position with Lord Whoever-it-was and the upshot was James. She was chucked out without references, ages before the birth – the usual story – and ended up waiting on tables in London. She married a no-good who walked out on her and she had to bring James up alone.

  ‘Now she works in a cinema in Mile End or somewhere. James won a scholarship to a good school and dragged himself up by his own bootstraps. Until he got his commission he didn’t have two pennies to rub together. I really admire him.’

  Diana frowned. ‘But I thought he’d come here for a few days because his parents are in Canada. That’s what you told Mummy on the phone yesterday.’

  Her brother took her arm and began walking them back to the house. ‘That’s because James has discovered that telling the truth about his background – well, his real father’s family, anyway – usually backfires. People think he’s making it all up and either laugh at him or steer well clear from then on. He still won’t reveal his father’s identity to me and God knows, he knows he can trust me.’

  Diana looked up at her brother in the near-total dark as they reached the Dower House’s French windows, and prepared to slip inside the blackout curtains that she, Lucy and their mother had hastily put up that morning. ‘Yes, but how do you know he’s not making it up? You seem to have taken an awful lot on trust, John. And why lie to Mummy about that Canada business? Why not tell her, and Daddy, what you just told me?’