Chapter 30

David returned from the striking competition feeling great. He had not known that Archie was now ringing for the Portsmouth Cathedral band.

Whilst having invited Archie to his recent birthday party on the River Wye, David had not managed to talk to Archie and catch up. If he remembered rightly, Archie had had to leave in a hurry for some urgent issue. Well, in his view, that had just been rude.

David thought back to his birthday. It had gone well. The time spent Canadian canoeing on the River Wye had meant that he could spend more quality time with many of his friends, and that included the special time spent with Emma. David had grabbed the sleekest looking Canadian canoe and insisted that Emma sit in the front. David took the helm and enjoyed the view downstream, which then just happened to include Emma. Emma and David laughed and joked and struck up good conversation, even if David did like to talk about himself.

Originally, their friendship had started playing mixed hockey and this had developed over the last full year, during their time as students. It was only recently that Archie had met Emma and that had been a shame, David thought.

David was a natural sportsman. He had been at secondary school with Archie in East Anglia and they had both decided to go onto Portsmouth University. Whilst Archie had read oceanography, David had always been interested in how things worked, how they were made up and therefore he naturally fell for engineering. He had gone straight into a hall of residence on the seafront and joined all of the sports teams that he could. Competitive and with a will to win, he continued to excel at hockey but also played football and was a strong swimmer, competing for Portsmouth in the water polo team.

Surprisingly, David had had a difficult past and he kept this under wraps. There were very few people, apart from Archie and a couple of his previous teachers, who knew that David was brought up in a foster home. Both of his parents had died in a small plane crash when he was three years old. They had been on a romantic flight to see their local area from above. The grandparents caring for David whilst his parents flew above had passed away soon after and there were no other surviving relatives. Social Services had taken over David’s life.

Passed from home to home, David had suffered. He had found it difficult to confide in adults after earlier bad experiences. Ignored or, even worse, pulled to one side by a specialist counsellor, David just wanted to be allowed to be part of real society, to be free of his bonds, to do what he wanted to do.

There had been a number of other children prepared to play football and David naturally showed enough flair and ability to always be picked by the team leaders. In his young teens, he progressed to usually being one of the team captains. He would drive his team members on until his side won, or slump his shoulders in disgust if they had performed poorly.

He was bright, and despite being passed from home to home with different adults to care for him, David was naturally able. He was awarded a scholarship at the East Anglian secondary school and David was one of the minority of boarders who lived in dormitories at the school. At the beginning, the school saved him. With the opportunity to involve himself in all the sports available, football, hockey, swimming and athletics and enjoy maths, physics and chemistry, David went from strength to strength.

When David was in the sixth form he was allowed to walk into the town centre at lunchtime. He would catch up with the latest album and single releases in the music stores, walk along the river and stroll around the main market square.

It was in the market square that David and a couple of other fellow borders would have a quick smoke, out of the sight of any of the teachers or any other students.

It was also in the market square that he was offered his first real smoke. He was unsure of what he was being offered. David took the roll up and passed over much of his daily allowance. Unfortunately, he also never looked back. Starting with cannabis, David progressed to pills and harder drugs but he was skilled at disguising his hobby. He was sure that Archie did not know and Emma would never find out.