Saturday 17 March 2012

Friday 16 March 2012

Catherine had been screwing herself up for weeks to face today's driving test. 55% fail first time, and however objective the marking system looks on paper, it seems heavily dependent on a subjective interpretation of conditions; eg how to judge whether pausing at roundabouts is cautious, over-cautious, sensible, obstructive, decisive or indecisive. By last night, "There are man-eating butterflies devouring me from the inside out." Today she couldn't eat, couldn't sit still, but went off to college wearing her 'Keep calm and carry on' hoodie and holding to a resolution "not to be one of those people who break down through nerves".

The test was at 12.58pm. From 1.40 I was rigid in the kitchen, ready to pounce on either phone. Nothing happened; certainty of bad news trickled into my gut. At 1.55 I heard her come in. One look.
"Oh, darling, what went wrong?"
In the last minute of the test, coming up to the last roundabout, she had seen a car approach from a junction on the right, but because a van blocked its access to the roundabout Catherine judged it was safe to go on. She has been criticized so often for hanging back, 'dithering', in such situations. The examiner disagreed and slammed on the brakes - automatic failure.
It did seem bad luck, as she had done what any experienced driver would have done in that situation "in real life" as Rik put it - taken advantage of the gap. The blow seemed worse because she had driven an excellent test up till that point, earning only 3 minors and unwonted praise from the examiner, who said she'd been the best of the day's candidates up till then. She was of course upset and angry with herself, and it seems the more frustrating because several friends have passed first time and the college seems full of lads roaring around in uninsured old bangers while high on drugs and testosterone, who must also have somehow passed their test first go. Now we will have to go through the whole nerve-screwing process again, sickened by worse dread of another failure, not to mention the burden of looming IB exams.

It could be that in the long run one gains strength from such setbacks. She went straight upstairs to book a second test. She says herself, "I hate to fail at anything.  I want Dave to give me lots of lessons in our car. I don't know what I will do if I fail again. But I am not going to let it make me fall to pieces."

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