On the fourth try, Fulgencio climbs the hospital hill

—Again, Puri. I let the clutch out and the car dies on me on the hill.

—Brake down. Neutral. Start it.

—I know how to start a car.

—On the flat, yes. On this slope you're four stalls in.

—It's my fourth practical lesson, not my funeral. Sign me off as ready and on Friday I'll sort things out with the examiner myself.

—You've spent your whole life on the tractor, Fulgencio Roa, and the dry land has never failed you; but I'm not signing that you're ready if you roll back half a metre here.

—I'm seventy-four years old. I've been driving a tractor along the farm tracks since I was eighteen.

—Without a licence and without ever going out on the road.

—I didn't need a road to take a loaded trailer down a dirt slope.

—Here you're not pulling a trailer and you're not alone on your land. You've got my dual controls underneath: if your foot fails, I press mine. And another vehicle can come up behind.

—Nobody's coming.

—For now. On Friday it could be a lorry. Push the clutch all the way down.

—I am pushing it.

—And stop squeezing the wheel with all ten fingers. It's not going to escape out the top.

—It's a bad hill.

—It's exactly the hill up to the hospital.

—It's not the same one.

—Same gradient, same junction at the top. That's why I chose it.

—The hospital one has more traffic.

—Then this one should feel easy.

—Not with you counting every stall.

—I count because you want me to sign you off as ready right now.

—The bus comes twice a day, at hours that are no use. I get there when visiting time is nearly over, or I have to spend the whole afternoon there.

—The neighbours take you when they can.

—When they can. Not when Consuelo can.

—Tell me about Consuelo without getting angry at the car.

—Consuelo is my wife. She had a stroke in March, she's been in rehabilitation in Soria ever since, and the doctor says every visit does her good.

—What did you take her yesterday?

—Her good glasses. The ones in the green case, because with the others she can't make out the letters in her book.

—And the plums?

—Six from the garden. Ripe, but not soft. She made me leave two for the woman in the next bed.

—Those are things you know how to do. Choosing them, keeping them and arriving with them whole.

—If somebody takes me. The day before yesterday I waited for the blacksmith's son until five. On Monday nobody could.

—That's why you enrolled at seventy-four.

—That's why I need you to tell me I'm ready.

—You need to be ready. That's not the same thing.

—Three examiners have failed me and not one has seen me drive a tractor.

—Tell me about the first.

—He sat in the back with a folder. My left leg was shaking before we even pulled out.

—What did you do?

—I let the clutch out too fast. Stalled pulling away. Then I watched the mirror so much I drove onto a line.

—The second?

—He coughed just as I was about to do a hill start. I thought he was warning me of a mistake, I took my foot off and the car dropped back.

—And the third?

—He said “whenever you're ready”. That was all. Me, a man who has brought a trailer of grain down with mud up to the axles, and I couldn't find first gear.

—So you didn't fail because you don't know what a machine does on a slope.

—I failed because there was a man behind me waiting for me to get it wrong.

—The examiner isn't waiting for that.

—My leg believes he is.

—Your leg learned on a tractor. Let's talk to it in its own language.

—Tractors don't stall because somebody's looking at a folder.

—They stall too if you let the clutch out badly.

—Mine warns me.

—How?

—The sound changes. The seat vibrates. You feel it start to pull before you take the brake off.

—That's what I want you to find here.

—This engine feels like a toy next to mine.

—But it does have a biting point, like your power take-off: the spot where the machine catches. Don't look at your foot. Listen to the engine and feel the nose.

—And the handbrake?

—That will be the chock.

—A chock doesn't come off until the tractor's pulling.

—Exactly.

—You could have put it that way in the first lesson.

—In the first lesson you told me you'd been driving for fifty-six years and only needed to learn the signs.

—I didn't lie.

—You hid the fact that all your experience begins off the road and ends before the asphalt.

—The countryside has junctions too.

—And here the cars come through at ninety.

—Not on this hill.

—Fulgencio.

—All right. Clutch down, first gear, handbrake.

—Now bring it up slowly until the sound changes.

—It's changing.

—Not yet.

—I can hear it.

—Then wait a second and give it a little gas.

—I don't use the throttle like that on the tractor.

—In this car you do.

—It's pulling now.

—Hold your foot there. Take off the chock.

—The handbrake.

—Today it's called the chock.

—Here goes.

—You let it go too soon.

—No.

—Yes.

—It stalled because you pressed your pedal.

—I pressed when you were already rolling back.

—With your dual controls I don't know if I'm driving or you are.

—If I'm driving, we avoid hitting the one behind. If you're driving, we go up.

—There was nobody behind.

—Which is why we keep practising here. Breathe and start again.

—Don't tell me to breathe.

—Then get angry, but with the clutch down.

—I'm a bit too old for you to talk to me like that.

—And I'm your instructor: my job is to get you to Friday alive, not to call you sir while we roll down a hill.

—I don't roll down hills.

—Your car does. Twice in ten minutes.

—Because this handbrake is too far away.

—It's where it was ten minutes ago.

—Consuelo would laugh at you.

—Why?

—Because she talks to me just like that when I dig my heels in and do things my own way.

—I like her.

—You don't know her.

—I know she shares the plums and sends for her good glasses. I already have enough material.

—She also said she doesn't want me going to the test if I'm going to get nervous.

—Have you told her?

—The three fails, yes. Today, not yet.

—Today isn't over.

—There are twenty minutes left.

—Get out of the car.

—What?

—Neutral, handbrake, and out.

—Are you throwing me out of the lesson?

—I'm making you look at the hill.

—I can see it from here.

—From here you see a windscreen full of slope. Out.

—At my age you make me get out in the middle of the bypass.

—We're in the practice lay-by. I'll lock the car.

—I'm out. Now what?

—Stand behind it.

—It looks like less of a hill.

—Because you no longer have it climbing up to the edge of the glass.

—It's still a bad one.

—Look at it the way you look at the track when you're pulling a trailer.

—I'd look at the ditch, the ground and where I can stop.

—Would you look at your boots?

—No.

—Inside, you've spent the whole morning looking at your left foot.

—Because I can't feel the clutch.

—You don't need to see it to feel it. When you're watching a trailer, where do you look?

—At the mirror. I check it's coming straight.

—Get back in. This time, when you find the point, look in the rear-view mirror.

—I won't see the hill in there.

—You'll see the car isn't rolling back. Your foot will do the rest.

—You say that because yours is sitting on the brake.

—I'm going to move it away so you can see.

—Don't do anything silly.

—Now you're the one fearing for my life.

—I fear for the driving school's car.

—Start it.

—First gear in.

—Listen for the change in the sound.

—There.

—A little more.

—Now it's pulling.

—Look in the mirror.

—The edge line isn't moving.

—Gentle on the gas.

—Taking off the chock.

—Take it off.

—We're holding still.

—Keep that foot where it is.

—Now it's going up.

—Let it go up.

—It's climbing.

—Don't change into second yet.

—We're already past the sign.

—Keep going to the level stretch.

—You haven't touched your pedals.

—No.

—Tell me the truth.

—My foot has been on the mat.

—Then this car has a better engine than it looks.

—And you've found this car's power take-off, even though this car doesn't drive any implements.

—The biting point.

—Call it what you like, as long as you don't let it out too soon.

—In the test, the man with the folder will sit in the back again.

—Yes.

—And he might cough.

—He might scratch his ear too. Neither of those things drives the car.

—I'll look in the mirror.

—To check you're not rolling back, not to hide from the examiner.

—Will you sign me off as ready?

—I'll sign you off as able to pull away here once.

—That's not what I asked.

—On Friday I'll sign you off as ready when you can do it time after time, watch the junction and pull out without making me brake.

—There are twelve minutes left.

—Time enough to go back down and do it again.

—Consuelo would say once is enough.

—Consuelo has been waiting since March for you to drive just forty-three kilometres. I doubt she wants to depend on one lucky start.

—It wasn't luck.

—Prove it.

—Turn us round, Puri; I'm not taking Consuelo home on a single climb.