Charmaine did try for a comforting note: “Let’s concentrate on the things we have,” she’d said into the moist, stinky darkness of the car. “We have each other.” She’d started to reach her arm from the back seat into the front, in order to touch Stan, to reassure him, but then she thought better of it. Stan might take it the wrong way, he’d want to get into the back seat with her, he’d want them to make love, and that could be so uncomfortable with the two of them squashed in together because her head would get jammed up against the car door and she’d start to slide sideways off the seat, with Stan working away at her as if she was a job he had to get done really fast, and her head going bump bump bump. It was not inspirational. Also she can never concentrate, because what if someone snuck up on them from the outside? Stan would be caught bare-assed, scrambling over into the front seat and trying to start the car while a gang of thugs bashed at the windows, trying to get at her.
