Dark Avenging Angel Read Free Page A

weren’t the most popular and kept very much to themselves. But they had a comfortable home which, unlike anyone else in their respective families, they were buying, not renting from the local council.
    Like me, my father was an only child. I’d like to think that’s the only thing we had in common, but we had at least one other. I never heard him speak of any schoolfriends. In fact, like me, he never had many friends, even though if you met him, you would have thought him affable and quite charming. But, then, you didn’t have to live with him.
    Christmas 1966 was particularly traumatic.
    He’d stopped calling me a dunce when I passed the selection examination, then known as the Eleven Plus. I must have done quite well because I secured a place at the school my parents had chosen as their number one preference. Needless to say, I had no influence whatsoever on that decision.
    Fortunately, it worked out well. The school had an excellent academic reputation, and, at last, I started making real friends. Not only that, my results were good. Except in one area.
    Arithmetic had given way to the dreaded “maths”—or math, if you prefer—and now added algebra and geometry to the jungle of numbers. For some bizarre reason, algebra made sense to me. Maybe it was because letters were involved instead of numbers. But geometry left me bewildered. It didn’t help that the headmistress was in charge of delivering the subject.
    Life with my father—the ultimate authority figure—had left an indelible mark that transferred itself to anyone holding a position of control over me. I never misbehaved in class. I was too damned terrified of the teachers! My fear of the headmistresses was magnified ten times at least, so Miss Torrance had the best-behaved, worst-performing geometry student imaginable.
    My father wasn’t amused. He had now decided I would study to become a doctor. He had wanted to be one, but the opportunities hadn’t been there, or so he said. Mum told me he just wasn’t good enough. She had gone to a highly regarded school, while he had only managed to secure a place at a lower-ranking school for less academic pupils.
    The end of the winter term in 1966 brought me excellent exam results and an outstanding report. Out of a class of twenty-seven, I was top in biology, top in German, second in English, fourth in French. My algebra was good enough to place me in the top five and even the dreaded arithmetic had improved. But there, like a giant, flapping albatross, stood the specter known as geometry, with a damning C minus and a lowly twentieth position. It dragged me down to seventh in the class overall and was the only subject on my father’s mind as I stood there in the dining room while he railed at me.
    Up came the inevitable toothpaste-selling career, when I should be good enough to become a doctor. Well, that would never happen, would it? Doctors needed good math results. No point being top in biology if I couldn’t handle a set square or master the angles on the different types of triangles.
    The trouble was I saw no earthly use for geometry. I didn’t understand why I had to learn it. It made no sense to me, however hard I tried. Not that I was alone in this. One of my new friends had a similar aversion toward it. The difference was, her father didn’t insist she stand in their dining room while he verbally abused her.
    I no longer stared at my shoes these days, I stared at the sideboard. This ugly piece of postwar utility furniture stood along one wall, its only saving grace being the solid wood and quality manufacture that may not have earned any awards then, but was far superior to the cheap plywood that blighted many sixties homes.
    The wood in this sideboard had an interesting grain. One door looked as if flames fingered their way upwards. I used to think of it as “the fire in the wood”. The other door had a less distinct pattern but, again, during these endless paternal tirades, concentrating on