I have been toying for some time now with the idea of Learning to Drive.
Actually, I have been toying with the idea for two decades.
Make that three: How time flies.
Truth to tell, Ive always had a funny relationship with cars.
But for years it didn’t occur to me to actuallydrive.And why on earth would it?
Oh, dear me, no.
But there are happy memories, too.
I felt that I might have been getting somewhere.
Now running a driving school of his own, he came to meet me at my front door.
Finally I did pull away, frantically trying to remember which pedal was which.
Delivery bicycles sped toward my windshield in acts of brazen provocation as yellow cabs impertinently nuzzled my rear end.
Be in control, said Attila firmly.
The car has no brain.
By the time Attila dropped me at my door, my shirt was drenched but my spirit was high.
But following the spooky pattern, he too was spirited awayreturning to Istanbul for an extended holiday.
And then, dont ask me how it happened, but Shanti came into my life.
Her telephone manner was far from lulling.
Do you know how to drive?
she barked down the phone, a question I thought surprising under the circumstances.
No, I told her, thats why I want to take lessons.
Jeee-eez, whistled Shanti.
No more balmy visions ofyalisand Topkapi here, thought I.
You’ll make me beat you up now!
You’re focusing more on the landmarks than the light.
Don’t pay no mind to the big, ginormous bus.
That was a Kodak moment right there.
(A Brobdingnagian juggernaut had just cut across my path.)
You should have seen your face.
Shantis colorful monologues, meanwhile, took me to a whole new world.
But you gotta play big to win big.
Meanwhile I was coming along in leaps and bounds.
For the first time, the prospect of the test loomed real.
But first there was another hurdle.
BecauseVoguewas thinkingbig.Formula One big, to be precise.
THE McLARENS DOORS FLY UPWARD LIKE A PTERODACTYLS WINGS.
It is all very, very far from a three-point turn in a dead-end street in Spanish Harlem.
The drivers seat is custom-molded to Jenson’s shapeand needs to be rebuilt accordingly if his weight fluctuates.
Its not unusual for a driver to faint when he climbs out of his car.
(I suspect I would faint simply getting into it.)
A month later, Jenson and I are clambering into fetching McLaren jumpsuits on a blistering California day.
An inky McLaren MP4-12C Spider waits menacingly on a deserted runway.
Jenson owns one of these high-performance street cars in whitebut he also drives his girlfriends Smart car.
Im Miss Daisy on the road, he assures me.
The McLaren’s doors fly upward like a pterodactyl’s wings.
This car is quite powerful, he adds in a masterpiece of understatement.
Its got the full ammofour times the power that you’d be used to.
So apply the throttle gently.
The throttle pedals on the right, the brake pedal’s on the left.
Lets do it, teammate!
Hes upbeatbut double-checks that I have a license.
Actually, not quite.
Surreally, this will suffice.
Its so much easier to learn, isnt it, at an early age?
Do you have any adult friends who cant drive?
I ask him, hopefully.
Well, a few say they can drive, he tells me, but they definitely cant!
It does naught to 60 in, I think, 2.9 seconds, he says unreassuringly.
Its easier than the car you learned in.
What am I looking at?
Which is the brake?
I ask, blind panic nudging in.
I do so, and the car moves forward of its own volition; I am not applying gas.
Its all right; the cars not worth a lot.
Its, like, $350,000, Jenson says, chuckling.
I like this speed!
I can get out and run!
I am genuinely concerned that we might end up ramming a low concrete wall on the far horizon.
Ill show you what fast is in a minute, he says ominously.
Doing something when youre out of your comfort zone is great, he says.
Its good for the soul.
I spend my whole life doing this, and youve just started.
I am clinging to the wheel for dear life.
Shanti would not be amused.
(Ha- meesh, behave!)
Shes growling at you.
The sound is indeed very sexyand deliberately so, Im told.
It was reengineered to give it a more convincingly James Bond-ian timbre.
For Jenson, that seductive engines purr is an essential tool.
You know exactly how much power to give it from the engine’s sound, he tells me.
You are like a ballerina.
You have to be on tiptoe, so gentle with everything.
It starts well enough and then, with a twinkle in his eye, he applies the gas.
Then slows, then races again.
Jensons control is dazzling, and profoundly reassuring.
I have never known anything like it in my life.
I am screaming blue murder.
I can almost sit back and enjoy italmost.
But frankly it has been the most exciting roller-coaster ride of my life.
Its freedom, says Jenson simply.
I call Shanti to book my driving test.
