Driving Me Crazy

Teresa Doyle

I didn't feel ready.

I tried some yoga breathing. Drinking herbal tea, I visualised succeeding. I did my best to be mentally prepared.

But I didn't quite believe.

You see it all started with the theory test. I was totally prepared for that. I knew more about driving theory than most drivers on the roads, especially as the theory test was still in its infancy. And I exuded confidence.

Which didn't help me one little bit when I turned up a day late for the test and had to reschedule.

Granted I passed convincingly second time around, but the damage had been done. I was unsettled.

Not having any interest in learning to drive at seventeen, six years later I was braving the tarmac and regretting not doing it sooner. At seventeen, I would have brushed off failure much more easily. The ordeal would have merely been a rite of passage.

Driving was my only option, according to my fiancé. Of course I should have learned to drive at seventeen. Driving creates independence. Nothing else gives you so many options. People who cannot drive are literally going nowhere.

No pressure then.

It didn't help that I desperately wanted to stop having lessons. I'd emerge from the car with a sweat-drenched back, wobbly legs and tension plaguing every muscle of my body. Max, my driving instructor, was a tall, rangy fellow who never quite managed to teach me to relax behind the wheel. His long legs always seemed cramped into his little Corsa and I thought he was an odd fit too for an instructor. But he taught me the basics and I had him to thank for suggesting I was ready for the test. Maybe I was more prepared than I realised. Or maybe he was as anxious as I was to end our arrangement.

Max was tied up with his day job on the day of the test, but he had felt obliged to arrange a substitute instructor to take me out on a lesson immediately beforehand. I won't give the substitute instructor's real name, for reasons soon to emerge. Let's call him Chris.

I waited a long time for Chris to arrive. I practised my yoga breathing. Chris was very late and I was very unsettled.

In the end I telephoned Max's house, knowing full well he was at work and would not be in. His wife answered the telephone. I hurriedly explained that Chris was late, that I had no way of contacting him and that I was waiting for a lesson from him prior to my driving test. She said she would find out what was going on and get back to me.

The time ticked by and I fidgeted. I looked at the clock and I played with my hair. I stared at the phone and tried not to panic.

Belatedly the phone rang.

'Don't worry,' Max's wife told me. 'I am coming to pick you up. Where do you live?'

I gave her my address.

'What's happened to Chris?' I wanted to know.

'Don't worry. The car has been in an accident. I am coming to pick you up and take you to Chris.'

'OK,' I agreed, without having an option. The time for my lesson had come and was half over; the time for my test was nearly upon me.

So Max's wife picked me up. I remember she had two dogs fenced into the boot of her gloomy estate car, pacing as best they could in the small space.

I watched the clock as we drove to meet Chris at Max's work on the other side of town.

'There is another car that you can use for your test,' said Max's wife, unconcerned.

I nodded, unable to voice opposition. What would be, it seemed, would be.

The car ground to a halt outside a local factory and Max instantly materialised. Grabbing open the door, he urged, 'Run!'

I ran after his long legs as they scampered away from me, blindly running after my chance of passing a driving test I blatantly wasn't prepared in any sense for. We arrived at another car. The man in the passenger seat was cradling a damaged, bleeding hand and his face was white.

'You'll have to drive,' said Max. 'By the way, this car is a diesel. Get going or you'll be late.'

My chance of passing the test scooted out the door.

Driving to the test centre, we passed the petrol Corsa I usually drove. Abandoned at a roundabout, Chris had crashed it into a heavy lorry, temporarily forgetting the right of way rules that govern roundabouts. A good thing, then, that I never did get that lesson from him.

I was concentrating on driving so much that I nearly went through a red light on my way to the test centre. I certainly was not concentrating on the man bleeding in the seat beside me.

Somehow I arrived in time to take the test. My driving test instructor was a rather grim middle-aged man in a rather grim suit, which improved my mood no end. In no fit state, I made a hash of it. I gave up the pretence after stalling the diesel car for the fifth time at one junction in particular. The suit was not amused. Soon after that the instructor had to grab the wheel to stop me hitting the kerb. Not my finest moment of driving, but I could claim to have been provoked.

The tears when I was handed my failure notification were real enough. They kept falling as Chris drove me home. He looked much better having drunk a cup of something hot with sugar from the test centre as I was enduring my ordeal, and he seemed to have stopped bleeding. His undamaged hand stuffed some money into mine as he dropped me off and wished me better luck next time. It could hardly be worse.