It’s 1994 and I’m seventeen. I’m one of the oldest in the
lower sixth and I’m ready to take my driving test before most of my classmates
are old enough to get their L-plates. I make no secret of my superiority – In
your face, bus wankers! I would say had The
Inbetweeners been about four floppy haired losers who terrorised the
nineties. Instead, I have to rely on my own unique brand of smuggery and never
miss an opportunity to tell my land-dwelling, leg-relying, parent-taxied
friends about the exotic lands I plan to traverse. I’m an astronaut in
training. I’m off to the moon. At least you’d think I was for all the fuss I
made.
I’ve bought a car. I sit in it and play my Nirvana tapes
until the battery’s dead. I have friends over to sit in it as if it’s my house
and they’ve popped in for coffee. I hold the steering wheel as if I’m driving
and count down the days to my test.
And then it arrives and I’m so excited that I may explode.
I’m a great driver; my driving instructor told me so. I’m going to be on the
road by lunchtime. I’m the duck’s nuts. But as the examiner strolls towards me
on that fateful day, I get the first sense that all of my gloating may have
been a little premature. Why didn’t anyone warn me about the nerves?
“Okay, Miss Sherman, can you just read the number plate over
there?”
He’s a friendly guy, young, seems supportive, so why is
there suddenly sand in my throat? Where are the words? I give a little cough
and put together the seven digits in a way that’s half audible and half
dribble, at least that’s how I remember it, and where has the drumming come
from? Has my heart actually moved into my right ear? That can’t be right.
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“Okay, Miss Sherman” – every sentence starts this way –
“let’s hit the road.”
And then I know that I should have kept all of my wild tales
of the road to myself as I reach down to the ignition key and my hand has
clearly turned into a saucepan. They both have, right there before my eyes and
there’s nothing I can do about it. And they’re both enormous. I have no idea
what’s happening to my feet; they’re becoming jellies and the car now has more
pedals than a church organ. Nothing is familiar; the steering wheel is
reptilian to the touch, its scaly skin breathing in and out, in and out, tiny
then huge, tiny then huge, in time with the heart in my right ear. In and out,
tiny then huge, and the gearstick is a sticky lolly that attaches itself to my
saucepan hands so that I can’t move. The seatbelt creeps around my neck and
won’t let go, holding me in a seat made of itchy jumpers and drawing pins.
“Okay, Miss Sherman, if you’d like to start the car.”
Somehow I do. I manage to combine the unruly assortment of
limbs and instruments until the car screams and the examiner makes the first of
many marks on his score sheet. And then we’re moving, rolling at first and then
flying (maybe to the moon). Which one’s the brake?
“Okay, Miss Sherman, right at the end.”
I try and tell myself it’s going well, but as I turn we’re
thrown by a series of bumps as the front and back wheels mount the pavement.
We’re on the pavement! It’s the first turn out of the test centre and we’re on
the pavement! But I keep going and we’re soon back on the road. I take a peek
at the examiner to see if he’s noticed. He doesn’t mention it, so I start
humming to normalise us and don’t stop until the test is over.
“Okay, Miss Sherman, right again here.”
I’m a little smoother on the turn this time, but I’m aware of
the screech of brakes and someone tooting their horn at me. Another sneaky look
at the examiner. Has he noticed that I pulled out in front of that car and we
almost had a crash? He doesn’t mention it.
“Okay, Miss Sherman, if you’d just like to pull up here.”
“Anywhere here?”
“Yup, anywhere here.”
Must be time for the manoeuvres. I’m shit hot with the turn
in the road.
“Okay, Miss Sherman, I’m going to walk back to the test
centre now and I would like you to wait here for your instructor … No, I’ll
take the keys … No, unfortunately you haven’t passed this time … No, I’ll take
the keys.”
And as I watch him getting smaller and smaller in the
rear-view mirror, walking away from the shortest test in history, I can’t stop the appalling flood of tears at my appalling
display of drivery. What am I going to tell everyone? I’m such a prick. And
then I pull myself together and tell myself that it’ll be different next time.
I’m ready now. I know how this feels. I wipe my eyes and I’m not quite ready to
give up the dream. It will be different next time! How wrong can one person be?
Diazepam for Sale, the debut novel by Hayley Sherman, is now available on Amazon
Time travel as a cure for depression, the Mods and Rockers on the West Pier, a vengeful Sat Nav lady, a seagull-stalked Frank Sinatra and Diazepam for sale...
A fairytale for a prozac nation...
Fiction for a world that doesn't behave the way it should....
www.hayley-sherman.co.uk
