NANCY
had forgotten herself. She had not been counting. Her rhythm might not match
his. She took her mouth from the tube and the sigh vacating his lungs spooked
her. He was taking her breath.
In
the gloom she could not discern colour, but his skin had darkened – her oxygen.
She took cautious hope. Was his system taking her air on a mechanical level?
Was he at best artificially alive?
Was
he in fact brain dead?
Nancy
decided she would continue to breathe into the tube until someone found the
limo. She would do so all night if she had to. The cab swooned as she took a respite.
Movement snagged the corner of her vision. Nancy didn’t understand what she had
seen until she spotted the twitch. His pulse. She waited. His chest continued
to descend before falling still. She dare not blink. Seconds became an
eternity. And as she prepared her next breath, he took his own. She closed her
eyes and lowered her head as though in prayer.
Her
knees had stiffened in the chill. She planted her hands upon the seat beside
him and her hair cascaded in clumpy festoons. Adrenaline burnout rendered her
arms into rubber tubes. On her ponderous crawl, she observed how the fascia’s
headway had rucked up Vince’s trousers. Within, his right kneecap had been
pushed out of alignment with his thigh. His left knee had been compacted. For
his sake, she hoped he wouldn’t regain consciousness in the cab.
Once
clear, she straightened up and a weariness sank into her. She shuffled
clockwise and planted her tailbone onto the seat next to Vince. She wedged the
soles of her feet against the fascia, locked her knees and braced. A resistance
likening a granite wall came to mind. Leon’s seat had been driven backwards and
was likely bolted to a sliding mechanism.
She
could keep trying but suspected all efforts would prove futile.
Still…
She
could…she could keep warm by resting up against him. She could settle her head
upon his chest and enclose them both beneath his overcoat.
If
he came to, would he let her?
The
Glebe Hollow inside her scoffed. She lifted his overcoat by the collar and
spread it across his abdomen. Vince’s disdain had tempered to nonchalance. He
lay perfectly still, his head rolled back, aloof, proud and once again,
oblivious to her existence.
Without
warning, all muscles tone evaporated from her shoulders. She keeled over and
her nose rebounded against her thigh. The edges of her lips turned up in sickly
glee at the limo’s greatest stunt. It had skidded in a great big fishtail on an
overpass. It had then toppled off a bridge. Tears seeped into her dress. A
long, long tumble. Long tumble down. Nancy’s thoughts were travelling at the
speed of light and her physical self was trailing behind. The words in her head
were ricocheting in nasty echoes and now she could see a weird granular
landscape looming ahead.
In
a flicker, Nancy found herself lying fetal on the floor and her skull was
reverberating. She pushed against the carpet and looked up in a swoon.
Fractures on the window pulsed in mother of pearl.
A
cacophony pushed into her senses. A clash of sirens seared the air, strobes of
electric blue bleached out the cab. Nancy clambered to the window which now
exhibited a roil of luminous shapes. Her knees juddered beneath her. The
screeches gave way to the hush of collective engines. She grasped the door
handle and levered herself onto the seat. A measured rap turned her head. A
misted face peered in from Vince’s side.
‘Can
anyone hear me in there?’
Nancy
gawped in a stupid trance. She could no more respond than Vince, who remained
locked up within his slumber.
The
figure, a female paramedic, retreated from the window.
Nancy’s
door handle rattled. The woman had scuttled to Nancy’s side. Nancy wanted to
tell her the door was jammed but everything within her closed up. Fluorescent
stripes amassed at Nancy’s door. The handle rattled again. Nancy slipped
Vince’s overcoat from his body and allowed the soft cashmere to swamp her form.
Vince wouldn’t be needing it any longer.
‘Move
away from the window,’ someone called out.
Nancy
fastened the buttons misaligned. She stuffed her handbag into one of the front
pockets. She donned her useless stilettos and removed her earrings. Her ropey
hair tumbled over her vision. She felt like an animal gone feral.
