Once upon a time, Sarah was trotting down the road to get her examination results. Since this was in the Old Days of Yore, these did not arrive via the internet or even by post: they were chalked up on the board in the department where she had studied. A gaggle of her comrades rushed towards her, some solicitous, some smirking. This augured ill, especially as she had always been told she was a star pupil. Not so, as it turned out.

“Sarah! You’ve been plucked!” they cried. Now this was an odd word. She was not generally hirsute, and even if she were, she would not have gone down the depilatory route. Best not to look like a trussed chicken. Also, you could be “plucked” away from where you were: but she was too solid and too determined to be plucked from any place she really wanted to be. So what could they mean?

Nothing good. When she got to the blackboard, her name was not there, and she was led into a side room and told in hushed tones that she had failed Old Norse, Anglo-Saxon, Middle English and Linguistics. A grand slam. It was of course her own fault: the classes had been too early in the day (she was always a slug-a-bed), and in the end, she had in desperation learned a bit of a translation of Beowulf  by heart and wrote it down in the exam. But it was the wrong bit.

Like all failures, it was comical, and like all failures it had its compensations. It turned out she had done very well indeed  in Latin, German and English literature, and so she gained a reputation for being uneven, unpredictable and quixotic. Spasmodic was the word. Nothing steady was to be expected from Sarah after that. And that was useful. To be treated like an unexploded bomb was a lot of fun.

Other failures turned out to be beneficial too. She was plucked in her first three driving tests, but ended up having a roaring affair with the examiner, who kept insisting that her rigour in handling the gear lever was symbolic of her handling of something else (it wasn’t). She was plucked in her attempt to enter the managerial echelons at her institution, probably because of her propensity for mischief and mockery. That was a good thing, as she didn’t have a long enough spoon. She was plucked in her attempt to enter advertising, which was a good thing too: it made her understand that consumerism was a con, even though she was very fond of buying new shoes. 

But her most catastrophic failures were on the relationship front. She fell in love with someone who was very tall and very pompous, and this was a bad choice for someone short and sarcastic. Not a mistake she ever made again, making sure to choose swains who were hesitant and of medium height. Then she fell in love with an alcoholic, and found out that boozing led to red noses and incontinence, both to be avoided in the light of day. Then she fell in love with someone who was savagely critical of everything she did. This was more tricky, as the solution was to find someone who thought she was wonderful in every way: and that was quite hard.

All of a sudden Sarah realised, in a coup de foudre, that although plucking and failure could be the royal road to self-knowledge (and that was a stage you had to go through), it was not the path to change and enlightenment. That was like  a gift, and it came roaring in unbidden: that friend who had rare skills that they were prepared to vouchsafe to you, that change in the light which made everything seem meaningful, that book that seemed to fall from the sky and open at the right page,  that person who loved you without stint when you thought all hope of that was gone. To accept these unexpected gifts meant that you had to stop wanting, stop looking, and put yourself in the hands of irrationality, the unexpected and the magical for awhile.  You had to learn to be both open and adroit. So be it, thought Sarah. Bring it on.