Tuesday 29th of June 1999
Today was an eventful day to say the least: I had my driving test, your father got his last payslip from Ladbrokes and your grandma Linda went back to Manchester.
The day started very early, at 6. My test was at 8:40 and I was to have a lesson beforehand. Your father got up and brought me a coffee, trying to get me out of bed. I smoked a few cigarettes, as I was nervous. I had a lesson last night and it wasn’t too good, and my driving instructor seemed to be losing his patience with my stupid mistakes. I was driving much better two weeks ago and it’s just been going downhill since then. I just accepted the fact that I was going to fail my test today. To make matters worse he decided to change cars, and it was pouring down with rain. I never drove in the rain before! I kept telling myself I could beat the odds though, and as my horoscope said ‘wear velvet for luck’ (again, I don’t believe in it but there’s no harm trying), I did.
So we set off, under the pouring rain, but my driving wasn’t too bad, except for the fact that we got stuck behind a rubbish truck for about 5 minutes, as I was hesitating and the traffic was a bit murderous. When we got to Winchmore Hill (where the test was), I did my manoeuvres, and I parallel parked straight away, did my reversing around the corner on the second try, but there was no time to do a practice U-turn. While I was doing the manoeuvres, the car window got a bit steamed up, so I went to clean it with my hand. Roger just went berserk saying that I’d leave grease marks on his window like that, blah blah. I just swallowed my anger and ignored it. But I won’t forget that for a long time as there was no need to be such a prick. Anyway, after that he calmed down, as he probably sensed that he went a bit too far.
A woman examiner came to get me, and I thought it would be nicer doing the test with a lady. She was over 6 feet tall and pretty intimidating, but she was a woman. Even so, I was just getting more and more nervous every second, my heart was racing, I was shaking inside. I can’t remember feeling so pumped up with adrenaline for ages! So, we sat in the car and I had a quick check of handbrake and clutch, but I didn’t do it properly… As soon as I turned the engine on the car jumped! The clutch had been left up (even though I remember putting it back to neutral… maybe Roger did it on purpose? Maybe he wants to keep as many students as possible). I could have dug a hole in the ground and vanished. That was as bad a start as it can get. Anyway, with my heart pumping mad and complete fear written all over my face, we set off. Things were going ok, I did the parallel parking fine. Then she asked my to do a U-turn. Only I heard ‘reversing around the corner’, probably because that was what I was expecting to hear. I started doing it, she looked at me and said I was supposed to be doing a U-turn, not reversing around the corner.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! What the hell was wrong with me? Anyway, I did the U-turn, and just before I finished it, a car came out of nowhere and I signalled for it to go (as I was going to be a while…), at that point I forget to put my handbrake on… Another fault! Off we went, at some point I think she asked me to turn right and I went left, but I’m not sure, in any case she didn’t say anything if that’s what I did. I hesitated really badly in an uphill junction, froze, and someone let me through eventually. I just knew it was going really bad, but I didn’t want to give up or loose it, so I was carrying on as best as I could. We got into a really narrow two-way street, and there was a van coming towards us, so I went to get into a gap on the road for it to go past us. Next thing I know the examiner grabbed my steering wheel and jerked it to the right and screamed “What are you doing?” This time I felt I real rush of adrenaline, a bit like an electric shock. The last time I felt like that I had been caught shop-lifting in Mexico at the age of 7, and was being pulled out of the shop by my hair by some nasty Mexican shop owner.
Apparently I hadn’t cleared the car before the gap and was too close to it. I wouldn’t have crashed into it but she seems to think that I would have done so. The British are so inflexible! That was the tightest two-way road in the world (well, nearly) and I had to get real close to the car. Anyway, if I hadn’t failed before I had done it now! We drove around another while. I think she was trying to get us back to base but I had no idea where in the hell I was. We got to a roundabout where I had to turn right, I got in the right lane, the road was very busy and at that point I asked if I really had to go around it. She said yes as there was traffic waiting and we couldn’t sit there discussing what to do next, we just had to go. So I went and we parked again. She said she was sorry but I had failed. I couldn’t contain my surprise! I just said I knew I had failed and she asked me if I wanted her to go through my report. I said yes, she did and then she left.
When Roger came back I told him I had passed. But then I said I hadn’t. He said he didn’t think I had passed given the face of the driving examiner when she came back. She wasn’t happy. It was quite funny, throughout the test, she got less and less friendly… I have to go now, you are screaming your head off, I don’t know why. Your dad is trying to settle you down, with no joy… Oh, wait, he’s given you the bottle and there is silence.