Some Day I'll Find You (42 page)

Almost as soon as she arrived at the Dower House, Diana decided she would not go back to Nice. There was no need to rush through a divorce from Douglas, but it was clear to her
that the marriage must be dissolved. She would admit her adultery, if Douglas allowed her to. Knowing him, he would insist on shouldering the blame.

In September, her daughter was enrolled into the same public school that her mother had attended. The girl calmly accepted the news that Diana and Douglas were to separate. She was genuinely
fond of her stepfather, but he simply hadn’t had enough time to properly establish himself in her world.

Within weeks of returning to Kent, Stella had comfortably slipped back into her old life with her mother and grandparents. In fact, she was even becoming a little bored, and so was thrilled to
be told she was to begin a new adventure in the autumn.

For the first time in years, Diana had found her thoughts returning to Girton. Women had at last won the right to read for full degrees at the university, and Diana decided there was now a point
in resuming her studies, if her old college would have her back. She wrote a tentative letter to Girton, and to her astonishment received an enthusiastic reply almost by return, suggesting she
enrol the following month, the start of the new university year. With Stella away at boarding school, Diana felt there really was nothing to stop her completing her degree. She wrote back,
accepting the offer of a place.

So it was that a few weeks later, on a sunny October morning, Mr Arnold’s big green Humber swept under the familiar gate-house and past the neo-Tudor red brick and terracotta
façades around Girton’s grassy quadrangles. The car pulled into the same space that James Blackwell’s battered sports car had occupied on a snowy day so long ago.

‘Think you’ll finish this time?’ Oliver asked his daughter, smiling to show her he was not being serious.

Diana smiled back at him. ‘I think so. Anyway, I’ll have to set an example.’ She nodded towards another new arrival who was stepping from her own parents’ car.
‘Look at her. I’m practically old enough to be her mother. I’m certainly dressed as if I were.’ Diana looked ruefully down at her new tweed jacket and skirt, and plucked at
the cuffs of a dark red woollen polo-neck.

Mr Arnold laughed. ‘You look extremely stylish, my dear, as always – but yes, you’ll probably end up being everyone’s mother hen and unofficial tutor.’

Something in her face gave him pause.

‘Of course.’ He shook his head in amusement. ‘I should have guessed. You’re planning to stay on here when you’ve got your degree, aren’t you?’

Diana nodded. ‘Yes. I’m going to study for my doctorate. I want to lecture here. With any luck I’ll have my PhD by the time Stella’s ready to go to university herself.
It’d be wonderful if she came here to Girton.’

‘Well, it’s a good enough plan to be going on with,’ he told her. ‘Come on, let’s get your bags and find your room.’

They got out of the car and almost at once Diana gave a little cry.

‘My goodness – it’s just struck me! This is the exact spot where James parked his car when he came to see me here.’

Her father, about to heft two heavy cases from the boot, paused and squinted at her in the bright autumn sunshine.

‘All right, Diana? Bad memories?’

‘No, not at all,’ she said firmly. ‘I hardly ever think about him any more. Not since he . . . not since you . . .’

Oliver waited.

‘In fact,’ she went on, ‘I realised the other day that my memories of him are getting fainter all the time. It’s almost as if they’ve been drawn in vanishing
ink.’

Mr Arnold hauled the big cases out and handed her a third, smaller one.

‘How curious that you should put it like that,’ he said. ‘I thought more or less exactly the same thing, only the other day. He’s just fading away, isn’t he? I
wonder why.’

They began walking together towards the building’s entrance.

‘I think I know,’ Diana replied. ‘It’s because he never really existed, did he? Not as we thought we knew him.’

Father and daughter walked under the stone arches that led into her old familiar home.

She looked around her. ‘This is real. You and I are real.’

The college clocks began to chime the hour.

‘But James?’ she continued. ‘There’s a poem, isn’t there . . . how does it go? Oh, yes:
The other day upon the stair, I met a man who wasn’t
there.

‘That was James Blackwell, wasn’t it? A man who never was.’

The two of them went to find her room.

Richard Madeley was born in 1956. He worked on local newspapers before moving to the BBC. He met Judy Finnigan when they both presented a news programme on Granada TV. Their
eponymous TV show ran for seven years and was an enormous success. His first book,
Fathers & Sons
is a moving account of three generations the Madeley family.
Someday I’ll
Find You
is his first work of fiction. Richard Madeley has four children and lives in London and Cornwall.