Be inches apart, somehow maintaining good elbow room (9,5)
I believe the answer is:
breathing space
'elbow room' is the definition.
(breathing space is a kind of elbow room)
'be inches apart somehow maintaining good' is the wordplay.
'somehow' indicates anagramming the letters.
'maintaining' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'good' becomes 'g' (abbreviation).
'be'+'inches'+'apart'='beinchesapart'
'beinchesapart' is an anagram of 'breathinspace'.
'breathinspace' going around 'g' is 'BREATHING-SPACE'.
(Other definitions for breathing space that I've seen before include "room" , "relief" , "Brief respite" , "might give one an opportunity to relax" , "chance to relax" .)