{"id":8972,"date":"2017-12-16T20:54:14","date_gmt":"2017-12-16T19:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=8972"},"modified":"2017-12-22T18:31:14","modified_gmt":"2017-12-22T17:31:14","slug":"shared-room-on-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=8972","title":{"rendered":"Shared Room on Union"},"content":{"rendered":"

They were parked on Union, in front of her place, their knees locked in conference around the stick shift, Janna and Justin talking, necking a little, the windows just beginning to steam. We\u2019d better stop, she said. I should go now. It was one a.m., a Thursday night turned Friday morning. Squads of drunken students were on the town. So far nobody had passed the car. Hey, take it to a Travelodge, man!<\/em> Nights like this, that sort of thing could happen\u2014one time a rigid hand had rammed the hood, another time someone had smacked the passenger window a foot from her ear, Justin\u2019s fingers in her hair stopping dead.
\n            I won\u2019t miss this part, he told her.
\n            I really should go, Jus.
\n            Friday was her \u201cnightmare day,\u201d a double shift at the upstyle caf\u00e9\/bistro where she was now manager. Thursday nights she insisted on sleeping at her own place, alone. Sleep wasn\u2019t really the issue, he sensed. This seemed to be a ritual of independence, and he knew she would maintain it strictly, having declared she would, until they moved in together in the new year. Other nights of the week they slept at his place or hers. They would be moving into a storm-worn but solid Victorian redbrick bungalow, three bedrooms, hardwood floors, in a druggy neighbourhood now being colonized by bohemians and young professionals. Justin and Janna were somewhere on the chart between those categories. In March they planned to fly, tongues somewhat in cheeks, to Las Vegas to get married.
\n            These separate Thursday nights, this symbolic vestige (as he saw it), tore him up in a small way. He could never take in too much of her. He had never been in this position before\u2014the one who loves harder and lives the risk of it. It hadn\u2019t been this way at first. Then it was this way, then it wasn\u2019t, and now it was again, but more so. This must be a good thing, he felt\u2014this swaying of the balance of desire\u2014and he would try to work out in his mind why it was a good thing, and the words \u201creciprocal\u201d and \u201cmutuality\u201d would pop up from somewhere, and the idea of a \u201cmarital dance,\u201d which he thought he had probably read somewhere, yes, definitely . . . and his mind would start to drift, unable to concentrate on the matter for so long, and he would simply want her body next to his again. For now, no excess seemed possible.
\n            OK, he said. I know.
\n            I\u2019ll see you tomorrow, Jus.
\n            Great.
\n            From somewhere the remote, tuneless roar of frat boy singing. Possibly the sound was approaching. One of the ironies of existence in this city of life-term welfare and psychiatric cases was that the student \u201cghetto,\u201d on a weekend night, could be as dangerous as any slum north of The Hub or in the wartime projects further up. She tightened her eyes and peered through the misty windshield. She had a vertical crease between her brows and it would deepen when she was tired. That one hard crease; otherwise her face was unlined.
\n            What\u2019s that?
\n            The boys seemed to be receding, maybe turning south toward the lake. Then another sound\u2014the flat tootling ring of a cellphone, as if right behind the car. Still in a loose embrace they looked back over their shoulders. Someone was there, a shadow,
\nas if seen through frosted glass, standing by the right fender.
\n            What? Yeah, but I can\u2019t talk right now. Right, I\u2019m just about to. What\u2019s that? Yeah, I believe so.<\/em>
\n            I\u2019d better go, she said.
\n            I\u2019ll walk you in.
\n            It\u2019s OK, she said. She didn\u2019t move.
\n            Call you in five minutes<\/em>, the voice said in a clumsy, loud whisper. Me you, not you me, okay?<\/em> The shadow wasn\u2019t there by the fender. There was a rapping on the driver\u2019s side window, a shape bulking. Justin let in the clutch and pinched the ignition key but didn\u2019t twist. With his free hand he buffed a sort of porthole in the steam of the window. That middle-class aversion to being discourteous, even to a lurking silhouette at one in the morning.
\n            Open it<\/em>, the voice said roughly. No face visible in the porthole. Justin twisted the key.
\n            Don\u2019t!<\/em>
\n            Jus, he\u2019s got something, stop!
\n            It\u2019s not a fake\u2014open the fucking door.<\/em> The man clapped the muzzle to the glass. Behind the pistol a face appeared: pocked and moon-coloured under the sodium streetlights, eyes wide and vacated. A too-small baseball cap, hair long behind the ears, dark handlebar moustache.
\n            Justin got out slowly, numbly, and stood beside the car, his eyes at the level of that moustache. The man put the pistol to Justin\u2019s chest. An elongated, concave man. Some detached quarter of Justin\u2019s mind thought of an extra in a spaghetti western\u2014one of the dirty, stubbly, expendable ones. A hoarfrost of dried spittle on the chin.
\n            Janna was getting out on her side, he could hear her.
\n            Just give him the keys, Justin.
\n            There.
\n            And your wallet, the man said. Nice keychain. And your bag, ma\u2019am. Come on.
\n            Ma\u2019am<\/em>, he\u2019d said. Justin dug for his wallet. His fingers and body trembled as though hypothermic. The night wasn\u2019t cold\u2014mild air was lofting up from Lake Ontario and Justin smelled the vast lake in the air, a stored summer\u2019s worth of heat. The pupils in the man\u2019s pale eyes were dilated with crystal meth, or coke, Justin guessed, aware again of that aloof internal observer\u2014that scientist\u2014though actually in his life he was impulsive to a fault, and in his work he progressed by instinctive leaps instead of careful, calibrated steps. He lacked focus but he had energy, good hunches. Two years past his Ph.D. he was in medical research at the university, assisting in a five-year study of fetal alcohol syndrome. No shortage of study subjects in this city.
\n            The pistol looked small to him, maybe a fake, but his knowledge of weapons was vague. He gave his wallet and then, with a sudden instinct to politeness, reached across the roof of the car and received from Janna her olive suede handbag\u2014to pass it to the man. Janna\u2019s crease was sharply incised, her green eyes tight and stony. No plea for heroics there. She looked dazed and indignant, he didn\u2019t know at whom.
\n            The man got into the car. Justin, as if waiting to be dismissed, stood by the door as it was pulled shut. Your door too, the man told Janna\u2014the voice gone thinner, higher. She shoved it to, the door bouncing back open\u2014the seatbelt buckle. Don\u2019t slam it that way! he yelled, a man now sustaining an affront to his property. She got the door closed. Frozen, Justin and Janna meshed glances over the roof. The man was trying to start the car. Something wrong there. On stiff, stilt-like legs, Justin edged around the back of the car toward Janna\u2014Janna retreating, as if from him, though more likely toward the door of her building.
\n            The man swung open the car door and shouted, What kind of vehicle is<\/em> this, man?
\n            It\u2019s a Volvo. Volvo 240.
\n            I mean what\u2019s its problem<\/em>? The man sprang out of the car and stood teetering by the door, across from them now, eyeing them with ice-clear but unfocused eyes. Possibly drunk as well. He flapped the pistol in the air as he talked in his breathy, squashed tenor. Justin glanced around. The streets were empty.
\n            I don\u2019t know, Justin said. It\u2019s a standard. You don\u2019t drive standard?
\n            His assumption that a townbilly would know how. Pickup trucks and so on. The man\u2019s brow clenched, as if at some inward struggle. Drunk too, yes.
\n            Why didn\u2019t you tell<\/em> me?
\n            Well, Justin started. The word soaked up whatever breath he had.
\n            I can\u2019t drive fucking stick!
\n            Oh, Justin said, eyes on the wagging pistol. I\u2019m sorry.
\n            I hardly ever drive, the man said, quieter.
\n            It\u2019s all right, Justin said.
\n            Just leave the car, Janna said, monotone, a digital voice on a recording. You\u2019ve got our stuff.
\n            The man\u2019s cellphone went off like a siren.
\n            Stay there, both of yous.
\n            The pistol aimed vaguely at the space between Justin and Janna. Justin wanted
\nto bridge that space and at the same time move as little as possible. The man had the cellphone to his ear. Janna was rigid. She was a quick, fidgety type\u2014frozen that way she was not herself, a wax replica.
\n            Right, but I said I\u2019d call back. How\u2019s that? I don\u2019t know why the fuck the thing hasn\u2019t come, you call them back yourself! I know, I know, that\u2019s why I said don\u2019t use them anymore, didn\u2019t I? Yeah. That\u2019s right. And pineapple on just half this time, right? And don\u2019t call back. I might be longer, there\u2019s no car now. No, I don\u2019t want to now. I\u2019ll deal with it.
\n            He jabbed the cellphone into his jacket. He looked to either side.
\n            Into the trunk, both of yous.
\n            What? Justin said.
\n            The man flicked the key over the roof of the car. It slid off the near side and plinked down among the leaves and rotting oak mast along the curb.
\n            Hurry up!
\n            Just take our stuff, you don\u2019t need to\u2014
\n            Panicking, the man trained the gun on them over the roof of the car, straight-armed, both hands on the grip, a cop at a police car barricade. They might be dead in a second and the afterimage Justin would take with him into oblivion would be from prime-time television.
\n            Open the trunk!
\n            Okay.
\n            I\u2019ve got to fucking walk<\/em> now.
\n            Still thinking and seeing with weird clarity, Justin bent down for the key and as
\nhe stood up he studied the keychain in his hand. A tiny plastic bust of Elvis. A gift
\nfrom her, last Valentine\u2019s Day. He walked to the trunk and opened it. This was all right, though. There would be people passing, and the trunk was spacious, as trunks go. The guy wasn\u2019t taking them into an alley and shooting them. And though Justin had forgotten his cellphone tonight, he knew that she had hers, she always did, and maybe it wasn\u2019t in her handbag now, sometimes she kept it in her jacket.
\n            I\u2019m not getting in there, Janna said.
\n            Get in, the man whispered.
\n            No, I can\u2019t, please.
\n            Janna, please.
\n            Stop! she hissed in a private way, straight at Justin, her eyes round with rage.
\n            The man\u2019s skinny arm pushed her toward the trunk and she gasped. Justin, flat-palmed, shoved at the caved chest under the denim jacket\u2014did it without thinking. The man swung the gun and the butt cracked Justin in the side of the head. He saw a screen of blue light, heard a fizzing sound like static or a can of beer being opened, as he sat back into the trunk. A sick, cold feeling, nausea in the bones, plummeted down his spinal column to his toes. Beaten, he tucked up his dead legs and curled obediently into the trunk. She was making a faint blubbering sound as she climbed in after him. No, I won\u2019t, she said as she climbed in. I can\u2019t. Please.
\n            Get in, Justin and the man said at the same time. Now just move your foot, the man told her, his voice still quiet but in a different way, maybe appeased, maybe appealing for a sort of understanding. The trunk was deep. It snapped closed and after a second there was a sound of steps running off. The sound-space between the strides was long and Justin had an image, projected on the sealed darkness around him, of the man loping away up Union, long arms dangling, almost simian, mouth slack and panting under the droopy moustache. In their politically civilized circle, people didn\u2019t use words like \u201ctrash\u201d or \u201cskag\u201d about the distressed elements\u2014addicts, parolees, the generationally poor\u2014who made the city\u2019s north side seem more like a slum in Jackson, Mississippi, than part of the old limestone capital of Canada. But now in his anger the words occurred to him. And what he should have done. What he would be doing mentally for weeks to come, rewinding the scene, re-cutting it.
\n            Fucking yokel. Cops will have him by tomorrow. Are you all right?
\n            No. She expelled the word on a faint puff of breath. He was groping in the dark for her shoulder. He found her breast instead and she seemed to recoil, though there was no room for that. In the deeps of the trunk, furled on their sides in mirror image, they lay with knees pressed together, faces close. Her breaths, coming fast, were hot, coppery, sour.
\n            Janna? He found her shoulder and she didn\u2019t move.
\n            She said, Could air be running out already? I feel like it is.
\n            No, no way. And the car\u2019s ten years old. We\u2019ll get some air in here.
\n            I don\u2019t feel it.
\n            Breathe slower, he said. Do you have your cell?
\n            In my bag. It\u2019s gone. I didn\u2019t want to get in. Why did you just get in?
\n            I didn\u2019t. You saw, he smacked me. I was out for a second. He would have shot us. My head is\u2014
\n            I can\u2019t be in<\/em> here, Justin. I can\u2019t! You knew that, too. That I\u2019m claustrophobic.
\n            He\u2019d never seen her this way. Even in private she was always capable, composed,
\nprofessional, as though feeling herself under constant scrutiny by some ethical mentor. Too much so, he sometimes felt. How she would never miss a day\u2019s workout in the spring and summer while training for her annual triathlon, whatever the weather or her, their, schedule. How she would talk of getting \u201cmore serious\u201d about the sport next year, maybe doing more events. Even her recreation\u2014nights out, parties, vacations\u2014she undertook in this same carefully gauged manner, pacing herself. Only so much fun. Only this much frivolity and no more. As if she was afraid of some tipping point.
\n            Till now he had not let on to himself how her discipline\u2014what he had so long lacked and craved\u2014was coming to irk him.
\n            I\u2019ve told you I\u2019m claustrophobic. Why didn\u2019t you tell him?
\n            He probably wouldn\u2019t have known the word. Christ, my head.
\n            Of course he would know it.
\n            And I didn\u2019t know<\/em>. I mean, I thought you were just saying that before. Everyone says they\u2019re claustrophobic.
\n            I don\u2019t even like when you pull the quilt over us!
\n            To make love, he thought, in an exclusive cocoon, cut off from the world.
\n            I\u2019m sorry, Jan, he said. The throb in his head was worsening and something was gouging into his hip. Maybe a tool? Something useful here? Of course there were no tools in his trunk. He felt the thing, an old ballpoint pen. His mouth was parched.
\n            And I really have to pee, she said.
\n            That\u2019s just nerves, he said. His own guts were wheeling. But it calmed him somewhat, being the one in control like this, consoler and protector.
\n            What\u2019s that?
\n            A car revved past, humping out a heavy rap number, the octave dropping as
\nit receded, as if in sadness or fatigue. Justin realized that he\u2019d shouted\u2014both of them had
\nshouted for help, though at the last moment somehow he had tightened the syllable to Hey<\/em>.
\n            You forgot your cell, didn\u2019t you? she whispered.
\n            There\u2019ll be more cars.
\n            They can\u2019t hear<\/em> us, Justin. You always forget your cell! I knew it.
\n            People\u2019ll be going by.
\n            Not till the morning. I feel like there isn\u2019t, there won\u2019t be enough air.
\n            Don\u2019t worry, there will.
\n            And I really<\/em> have to go.
\n            She\u2019d never sounded so much like a small girl. Or girly woman. And sometimes he\u2019d longed for that, for a small, unshielded part of her to give itself over to his chivalry and guardianship. But this went too far. Her stomach (invisible now, though as he jabbed the LED on his watch, 1:22 a.m., he got a subaquatic glimpse of her nestled form)\u2014her stomach had a washboard look, tanned, much harder and stronger than his own. She was crying, whimpers mixed with convulsive little intakes of breath, like a child post-tantrum. Finding her hands he held them close between their chests. The trunk seemed to be rocking slightly as if from the adrenalin thump of his pulse, their hearts together. Spending the night together after all. He\u2019d studied murky ultrasound images of curled fetuses, and one time twins\u2014soon to be FAS siblings\u2014the victims of ignorant, careless or despairing parents. Entombed in their toxic primordial sea, the two had seemed to be holding each other in a consoling embrace.
\n            Help, help, she was calling weakly.
\n            Another car passed, slower. Again he yelled involuntarily, aware of a swelling
\nnode of panic he was compressing under his heart.
\n            Might have let us go if you said I was claustrophobic.
\n            Okay, Janna. He tried to speak normally. A laryngeal whisper came out. Let me think.
\n            I mean, he won\u2019t want us to die in here! He doesn\u2019t want to go to jail for that!
\n            You\u2019re going to be fine, Jan.
\n            How the fuck do you<\/em> know if I\u2019m going to be fine! You didn\u2019t even remember I\u2019m claustrophobic!
\n            Janna.
\n            You\u2019re supposed to be a doctor!
\n            I\u2019m not a doctor, you know that. Jesus.
\n            You\u2019re crushing my hands<\/em>, Justin!
\n            Her whine seemed to split his head. This felt like the most savage hangover\u2014worse than the worst he had undergone in university and grad school, before he met Janna and set his life on a stabler footing. A student of booze, he had been. My years of research, he would quip.
\n            Jesus, Janna, calm down.
\n            Why is no one walking past? Most nights I lie there and it\u2019s, it\u2019s. It\u2019s like an endless parade of people walking past. Yahoos shouting.
\n            Someone will. Don\u2019t worry. We\u2019ll call. I\u2014
\n            I just knew<\/em> you wouldn\u2019t have your cell. How can we call if\u2014
\n            Shut up! I mean call<\/em>.
\n            This just fuelled her. She wrung her hands free, panting in the tight space. No,
\nno, you\u2019re not<\/em> a doctor and it\u2019s lucky. You\u2019ve got no\u2014no\u2014you can never just be together<\/em>,
\ncan you, Justin? Why can\u2019t you just arrange<\/em> yourself for once? It makes me crazy! You\u2019re always\u2014
\n            I\u2019m telling you, enough.
\n            Oh, your bedside manner.
\n            Her breaths were shallow, the sour smell filling the trunk.
\n            You\u2019re going to hyperventilate, Janna. That\u2019s the only way you won\u2019t get enough air, if you hyperventilate.
\n            I can\u2019t help it! Get me out of here, Justin!
\n            What are you doing?
\n            Okay. Okay\u2014I\u2019m on my back, I\u2019m pushing up with my feet. You do it too.
\n            Janna\u2014Like a leg press. I\u2019m strong. It\u2019s an old car.
\n            Ten years isn\u2019t old for a Volvo. This came to him from somewhere\u2014a line from some ad? His father, years ago? She was grunting, doing her press. At the fitness centre she used a personal trainer and was toying with the idea of becoming one herself. After a few seconds he rolled onto his back and tried it. It was tight, the angle too acute.
\n            Come on, she breathed out, please please please please. Come on, come on.
\n            The only motion, a slight flexing of the metal. Then more of that suspensioned rocking, below. A passerby might think lovers were in the back seat of the car.
\n            I hear something, he said. He wanted to cover her panting mouth with his hand. Listen.
\n            Oh God, it\u2019s someone. Help! she said, but with no breath in it.
\n            Hello! he yelled, amazed at how the enclosure, and somehow the darkness too,
\nseemed to stifle the shout. He squirmed out of his leg-press crouch as steps approached. This move involved shoving contortions, Janna crying out weakly, cursing him as his knee met her shoulder, he guessed. He didn\u2019t care now. This was the point in the old film
\nwhere the hero slaps the hysterical woman and she gets a hold of herself, grateful, admiring, won over.
\n            He got his mouth up against the crack of the trunk, near where it latched. Hello! Help!
\n            The footsteps stopped.
\n            In here, please! We\u2019re in the car!
\n            The trunk, Janna whispered.
\n            We\u2019re in the trunk!
\n            Footsteps approached. They sounded heavy, solid. A good thing.
\n            Someone in there?
\n            Yes.
\n            Yes! Janna called with a sob. Her breathing was slower, though still shallow.
\n            What, there\u2019s two of you?
\n            Yes.
\n            What are you doing in there? A faint slur yoked the words together. The voice was low and throaty\u2014older. Actually, the voice sounded a bit tickled.
\n            We got locked in. A guy robbed us.
\n            No way! What a fucking drag! I never seen anything like this.
\n            Please, Janna said.
\n            Can you just open the trunk? Justin said. The key might be in the lock there. Or maybe on the ground somewhere.
\n            Hmm. Not in the lock.
\n            Or just call the police. My fianc\u00e9e is claustrophobic.
\n            Yeah? The wife, she\u2019s got that too, as a matter of\u2014
\n            Have you got a phone?
\n            What\u2019s that? Oh yeah, at home. Let me see if I can see a key around here.
\n            The keychain is of, uh…it\u2019s Elvis, his head.
\n            Not having much luck here. The man started to whistle softly, in tune. It\u2019s now or never<\/em>.
\n            I think I\u2019m going to pee, Janna whispered.
\n            Hold on, Justin said. Would you please hurry up, mister?
\n            Hey, I\u2019m doing my best for you, chief!
\n            Maybe you should just go call the cops.
\n            No! Janna said. The key has to be around here!
\n            He might\u2019ve just stole it, the man said. It\u2019s not on the road here.
\n            I don\u2019t see why he would have, Justin said stubbornly, hoping the words into truth.
\n            Why didn\u2019t he take the car? Nice car. I like these European cars.
\n            He tried, Justin said, reaching to hold Janna\u2019s quivering shoulder. He couldn\u2019t drive standard.
\n            A momentary silence, then the man burst out in snorty guffaws. Oh, now that\u2019s too good! he said finally. Guy couldn\u2019t drive standard!
\n            I can\u2019t hold it, Janna said. Oh God.
\n            It\u2019s all right, Justin whispered.
\n            Oh God<\/em>, get me out<\/em> of here, please<\/em>!
\n            Go call the cops now, please! Justin yelled.
\n            All right, yeah, I will so. I will now. But I was just wondering something first…
\n            What?
\n            Got nothing but shit for luck these days. Never the luck, the wife says. If you know what I\u2019m saying. Could you give me a little retainer?
\n            A what?
\n            You know, a retainer. It\u2019s legal talk, like on TV. A fee. He paused and then said, firmly: Slip me out some money, whatever you got. I need it. Then I\u2019ll call the cops for you. There\u2019s a payphone up the street.
\n            I told you, we were just robbed!
\n            Justin, wait.
\n            We don\u2019t have a cent. How the fuck can you ask\u2014
\n            Justin!
\n            Now hang on a minute, chief\u2014I told you, I\u2019m broke, and I\u2019m going to be doing you a favour. I mean, I prefer not to have anything to do<\/em> with cops if it\u2019s up to myself. This is going out on a limb for me. It\u2019s not like you can\u2019t afford it. Look at this car. This fucking Volvo<\/em>.
\n            But we\u2014
\n            It\u2019s okay, Janna said, I have something. Some money.
\n            What? Justin said.
\n            Just slip whatever you got through the crack, here by the latch. I can pry, maybe.
\nI got some keys here.
\n            My keys, Justin said. Janna, what are you\u2014
\n            I always keep a twenty separate, she said, in case.
\n            Of course, Justin whispered.
\n            What?
\n            Of course you do, he told her, and now in his mind he saw, not with doting
\namusement but a stressed rage, Janna opening doors with her hooked pinkie, or with the same fey digit keying in her PIN at the automatic teller. This although, as he\u2019d told her, on any given day a person encountered a dozen infectious agents which, if you were weakened enough, could make you ill or worse. But she was strong\u2014probably all the more so for her years of working with the public at the bistro, where she also did the pinkie thing. Where it must be seen as a stylish or campy affectation, not another symptom of her leery, meticulous nature.
\n            A twenty is good, the man said. Try to slip it through here.
\n            No! Justin said. Put the money away, Janna. He was groping in the dark, flashing the LED, trying to find her hand.
\n            Justin, for God\u2019s sake, I\u2019m going to get us out of here. Someone has to.
\n            Let her give me the money, asshole. The voice was closer now, the man kneeling, it seemed. I think you can slip it out here.
\n            How do we know you\u2019ll even help us, Justin said, if we give you the money?
\n            It\u2019s like you got a choice here? The voice was sneering. Justin inhaled sharply. Then the man added, Duh!<\/em>\u2014and this, for Justin, was the end. This soft little duh<\/em>.
\n            Fuck you! You can take our keys and your phone call and your\u2014shove them
\nup your ass, if you know how to find it. And I\u2019m going to find you tomorrow! The cops are going to\u2014
\n            A horrific slamming beat down on them from above, then it seemed to emanate
\nfrom all directions, a pummelling they felt inside, slower and steadier than their bolting hearts, as the man hammered the trunk with a fist or the flat of his hand. It could have been a street gang smashing the car with tire irons, bats. Justin rushed his hands to his ears and then to Janna\u2019s ears, to protect what was left of her nerves. Stop! he cried. The slamming went on, Janna making a steady high whine of pain or terror. He tried pushing up on the trunk with his fist to absorb the vibrations. He rammed his palm upward once, a feeble counterblow the man nevertheless must have felt, because now he whacked the metal harder and faster. Justin curled on the floor of the trunk, clamping his palms over Janna\u2019s ears, then over his own, back and forth. Though their bodies were jammed together at many points, in this extremity he was fully alone. She must feel the same. He guessed she must feel the same. The beating ended. Heavy footsteps stalked away. The night was quiet again. She was breathing slower\u2014small, sobby catches of breath coming at longer intervals. There was a smell like ammonia and he thought he felt dampness through the right knee of his jeans. He rested a hand on her hip. She seemed to be drifting into a kind of sleep, or a gradual faint, her nervous system, he guessed, no longer able to take the stress.
\n            Now that he didn\u2019t have a conscious Janna to coax along, the full weight of his own fear and anger returned. He sobbed for a moment, no tears, eyelids clamped on dryness. Not for the first time he wondered if they actually could suffocate in here. Maybe that was why she\u2019d lost consciousness. His breathing felt tight, but that could just be fear. The trauma of his head blow. A car passed, then another, and he made no effort to cry out.
\n            After a time, soft footsteps approached.
\n            Hello! Please help us! He tried to shout gently, afraid of ripping Janna from her stupor.
\n            Is someone in there? A soft tone, a sort of eunuch voice\u2014the vocal equivalent of the footsteps. Justin explained things, trying to sound calm, murmuring through the crack through which he felt, just once, a cool breath of air. The man listened with a few faint sounds of encouragement. He seemed to be kneeling close to Justin\u2019s mouth. The man was an orderly, he said, on his way to the hospital to start his shift on the maternity ward. It was almost five a.m. He would flag down the first car he saw, he said, and get somebody to phone the police, or he would find a payphone, or call from the hospital if all else failed. That would be ten minutes from now. He would run. The odd, adenoidal voice trailed off, and soft steps\u2014rubber-soled, Justin guessed\u2014jogged away into the night.
\n            Justin left his head against the cool of the metal, his mouth as near as possible to the crack from which that one clean breath of air had seemed to seep. As another draft reached him, tears surged into his eyes with a wide-angle shot of great vapourless skies and fenceless emerald meadows…like a tourist still of the prairies, although he could smell the fields. There would be air enough, at least. The police would come soon.
\n            Surely, whatever happened, they would live differently now.
\n            A car was nearing slowly. It cruised past\u2014perhaps the police, searching for the Volvo they had been told to look for. But the car didn\u2019t double back. Another passed, then another. The sparse traffic of early dawn. It was 5:12. In the eerie light of his watch, her sleeping face was peaceful except for the abiding crease between her eyes. Now she was nestled hard against him in the cold, his arm tight around her, his hand splayed wide on her back to cover as much of her as he could. Were old married couples ever buried in the same coffin? he wondered. He had never heard of it, but surely it happened. Or was there some law against it? Another half-hour passed and the little pre-dawn rush hour seemed to end. Why was he not mystified, or at least puzzled, by this latest lack of help, or by its slowness? He felt just numb. There was never any telling. Now and then other cars came from the west or from the east, but none slowed or stopped. Real help would come eventually, of course\u2014the sidewalks would soon be thronged. Another hour or two. Three at most. What was another hour or two in a lifetime together? <\/p>\n

A curious thing he noticed in the years after: in company, he and Janna would often discuss that night, either collaborating to broach the story on some apt conversational cue (which they would both recognize without having to exchange a glance), or readily indulging a request from guests, or hosts, to hear it for the first time, or yet again. And even when passing through a troubled spell in their marriage, they would speak of each other\u2019s actions that night only in proud, approving ways. Janna with her granite will, he would say, had faced a claustrophobic\u2019s worst nightmare and remained the more rational of them throughout. She\u2019d probably have got us out of there hours earlier if I\u2019d just listened<\/em>. Justin, she would insist, had been competent and forceful the way she had always wanted him to be and had kept her from totally \u201closing it.\u201d Justin would then profess chagrin at how he himself had lost it, screaming at their potential saviour, though in fact he was partial to the memory of that recklessly manly tantrum\u2014and on Janna\u2019s face, as she watched him replay the scene, a suspended half-smile would appear, a look of fond exasperation. But when the story was done and they left to drive home, or their guests did, a silence would slip between them\u2014not a cold or embarrassed silence, but a pensive, accepting one\u2014and they would say nothing more of that night or its latest rendition. When they were alone together, in fact, they never spoke a word of it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They were parked on Union, in front of her place, their knees locked in conference around the stick shift, Janna and Justin talking, necking a little, the windows just beginning to steam. We\u2019d better stop, she said. I should go now. It was one a.m., a Thursday night turned Friday morning. Squads of drunken students […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[347,346],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nShared Room on Union - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=8972\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Shared Room on Union - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"They were parked on Union, in front of her place, their knees locked in conference around the stick shift, Janna and Justin talking, necking a little, the windows just beginning to steam. 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His novel Afterlands (Penguin, 2007) was cited on best of year lists in the UK, the USA, and Canada, where he lives. He also translates poetry, and he reviews fiction for the New York Times Book Review. His most recent book is a novel, The Nightingale Won't Let You Sleep.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?author=237\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Shared Room on Union - The Manchester Review","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=8972","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Shared Room on Union - The Manchester Review","og_description":"They were parked on Union, in front of her place, their knees locked in conference around the stick shift, Janna and Justin talking, necking a little, the windows just beginning to steam. 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