“Dress rehearsal later,” Patricia explained.

“Of course,” I replied, as if I was familiar with the schedule of a theatre, when I had not, in fact, ever set foot in one.

I wasn’t sure exactly which role Patricia would be playing, but whatever it was, it required her to carry a mouth organ in the breast pocket of her shirt and, whenever I completed a manoeuvre or changed lanes without a mistake, Patricia would play a lively tune in celebration.

On another occasion, I had been carefully making my way down a quiet road when I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw a ginger cat sitting upright in the middle of the back seat, looking at me quizzically, its head on one side.

I’d screamed. “A cat’s got in the back!”

“Oh yes,” Patricia said, turning around to look at it and scrunching up her nose affectionately. “It’s just Lady Macbeth. I’m looking after him this weekend and I thought he might enjoy the change of scene. Don’t feel self-conscious though; he’s very unjudgmental. Not at all scathing in manner, like some cats are.”

Lady Macbeth climbed through to the front of the car and lay down in my lap, as if to support Patricia’s point. I completed the lesson rounding corners as gently as possible so as not to disturb him.

*

Patricia seemed to think that my problem with driving was psychological – that I was experiencing some kind of emotional block that was impeding my performance. I thought that all sounded rather fanciful but with every lesson I felt my small fantasy of roaming around the countryside with Fizzy, windows down, radio on, slipping away from me, so I very much wanted her to be on to something. I didn’t object then, when the following week, Patricia announced we were taking a break from the car, took me to a café by the park and said, “I’m going to attempt to unlock you, spiritually.”

The unlocking took the form of a series of short, direct questions, fired at me over the top of her coffee mug.

Did I think about my absent mother? Not often.

Did I have a boyfriend? No.

Did I have any trouble with anyone at school? No, not to speak of.

Did I have friends, people to talk to?

I felt quite sure Patricia had strayed from spiritual unlocking into outright nosiness, but I wasn’t unhappy to have been steered on to the subject.

“There’s Fizzy,” I said, suddenly finding myself unable to meet Patricia’s eye.

Patricia put her head on one side. “Interesting sort of a name.”

I shrugged. “Felicity, I suppose. Officially.”

“And she’s a good sort, is she? This Fizzy?”

I found then that I had an irrepressible urge to smile. “Yeah. Yes. Very good sort, really. Very clever. Mad, sort of, in a way. You know, at Christmas, she went with her family to stay with her cousins. Warwickshire, it was. Miles away. And on Christmas Eve, she turned up at my house in the middle of the afternoon. She’d got the train home on her own – four hours! – just to say hello, she said. To give me my present. Which she did, then she got back on the train and went back again.”