Paul Is Dead

by C. C. Benison

  It’s the sound of no going back.

  The acid bile now runs out of Dorian—it can’t be stopped—a torrent pouring from his gut into the grave, burning a hole in the back of his throat. He collapses on the verge, groaning. Lydia weaves her way to the Petit Trianon where she knows her father keeps shovels among the gardening tools. The summer evening deepens into darkness, and they, weakened by dread, horror, exhaustion, spend the hours filling the pit with the soil left by Dirt Guy.

  “That’s the same shovel,” Dorian says, astonished and horrified. “But where’s the other one?”

  “Dorian, you can’t do this.” Lydia wipes the line of perspiration along her hairline. The late afternoon simmers. The airless storage room of the Petit Trianon blazes. She hates being sweaty. The small space, crammed with lawnmower and weed whacker, old paint cans, old garden hose, plywood sheets to cover the cottage windows in winter, cobwebs, stinks of gasoline. A cloud of flies zips past her face.

  “You could bring another shovel from the city. Or I could buy one up here.”

  “But you would need a pick, or something, wouldn’t you? … An axe? A chainsaw? The trees … it’s not an easy job.” God, is she falling in with this plan? Yes, reopening the grave, exhuming the body—she can barely countenance the words—could resolve their … she can’t think of a potent word … their predicament, their plight, their crisis. But it’s unimaginable—the doing of it. Oh, she can imagine it: the rhythm of the blade in and out and in and out of the earth—the scrape, the scrape—the thunk when the shovel hits something other than soil, the glimpse of blanket, rotted, faded, the smell of corruption, the … She watches Dorian root through the old tools. She fills with a horror so deep, her legs turn to jelly, the air before her eyes fizzes. She grips the doorframe to steady herself. A sliver of wood pierces her palm, but she barely feels it. Kitchen gloves. He would have to wear kitchen gloves. There’s a pink pair in the kitchen. A hazmat suit. Where would you buy a hazmat suit?

  “No,” she says again, struggling to speak, her voice coming to her from far away. “No, you can’t do this. It’s impossible.”

  “Have you got a better idea?” Dorian turns to her. She sees a mania in his blue eyes. The same stare as when he shaved his head in high school, when he dressed as a flasher that awful Halloween, when he dragged her into roles in Death in Life and And No Birds Sing. And, in truth, Dorian feels like he is snapping. He would love a drink.

  “But the … remains, Dorian. What about the remains?”

  “The lake.”

  “How?”

  “We have boats on the Morningstar Cove set.”

  “But … this property, Eadon Lodge—it’s not as isolated as it once was. There’s only one empty property south of this one. People walk by all the time.”

  “Cover of darkness, Mrs. Peel.”

  “What about your friend?”

  “Mark? He leaves Friday. There’s no filming next weekend.”

  “You’re saying you’ll do this next weekend.”

  “We’ll do this. I can’t do it alone.”

  Lydia struggles for consciousness. I have six days—to change his mind, to change my mind, to sell, to refuse to sell, to abandon buying the Lincoln Street house, to confess to Ray, to Erin, to Misaki, to…

  Only a drawl behind her head brings her back to bracing reality.

  “And what is it”—Mark’s voice intrudes—“you can’t do alone?”

  25

  Dorian and Briony are together in Dorian’s Beetle rattling south through Loney Beach toward town, Briony with shopping list in hand. She has groceries to get at Tip Top, bread and buns to get at Central Bakery, and a new clothesline to get at Golko’s Hardware, to replace the one severed by the shotgun. She feels faintly irritable, tired—signs she recognizes as portent of a migraine, the curse that heralds the curse. Magically, at thirteen, when menses and migraines arrived in tandem, she thought that if she were very very good in all things, at home, at school, at church, she could stave off the headaches. Now she tries to think of the debilitating headaches as less her cross to bear and more a manifestation of the first of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths: life is suffering. She’d give a thought to the last three Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, but the prodrome has an insidious way of lifting the hatch to thoughts less than pure of desire, hate, and delusion—which will keep her lashed to the karmic wheel.

  For instance: Lydia suggested to her—to her, not to Dorian—that they take their time in town, and Briony, who had a glimmer as to why, asked why nevertheless, bringing the cool and confident Lydia to a rare blush, a secret smile, and no reply—and Briony to a not-so-rare blush, a thin smile, and an averted glance to the shopping list.

  Briony will do her bright-starred friend’s bidding, but now, in the car, she gives herself over to thoughts less charitable—to finding some excuse to force Dorian to turn the car back to the cottage, to catch Lydia and Paul in flagrante delicto. Her jealousy sits like a stone in her stomach.

  As for Dorian, he’s mostly annoyed at being Briony’s chauffeur. Couldn’t she have taken Lydia’s car to town on her own? What’s he needed for? Maybe if Paul had come along … but he said he’d cut the grass or maybe get a start on filling in that old outhouse hole.

  Dorian has the radio cranked up. “Get Back” is funking along, Paul McCartney’s voice admonishing someone—Jojo—to get back to where he once belonged. Dorian would like to get back, get back, get back—to the city. If he is going on this wild adventure to California with Paul—and he is, absolutely—he wants to pack and be well down the road before Dey and Nan’s return from Coney Island and their inevitable attempt to stop him. And yet Paul seems inclined to linger. I love the sun here, he said this morning, stretching himself on the bed and shooting him a teasing smile. There’s sun in California, Dorian pointed out, weakening. My arm’s still sore, Paul countered, yet pulling Dorian closer with that same arm. And it’s copasetic now that Alan’s fucked off—with Alanna. Somehow, despite the lovemaking, executed with quiet finesse given the Petit Trianon’s thin walls, Dorian feels, as he barrels down the road, that something is sort of Hamletingly out of joint, but he hasn’t time for much more thought because, annoyingly, Briony has turned the radio down. Still, she has to raise her voice above the air gusting through the open window:

  “I think they want us out of the cottage.”

  “What?” Dorian says.

  “Your cousin and Lydia.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you think, Dorian?”

  Dorian makes a dismissive noise as they make their way to the Gimli Theatre where Lydia suggested they scope out the coming attractions. And yet Briony has planted the proverbial seed of doubt: Lydia, freshly showered, in the Chinese dragon dressing gown of her mother’s, scribbling out a grocery list at the dining room table, saying to him, “your turn,” as if he hasn’t been contributing financially to the holiday, which he hasn’t, and “take Briony,” as in, you males don’t know how to shop properly. Paul, staying behind, a convert—suddenly?—to good works: He offered to cut the grass now the sun has burned off yesterday’s rain.

  No.

  No, no. It’s not possible.

  Yes, he’s noted Lydia’s glances Paul’s way. Covetous? Is that what they are? But, no, Paul’s a new element in their midst. Why wouldn’t the others appraise him? Yes, Paul’s flirted with Lydia—the dancing the other night, the horseplay during the skinny-dip. But, no, he knows Paul’s nature. It’s the same as his own.

  And yet Lydia is beautiful. And Paul is wild.

  No. It’s bullshit.

  He pulls up by the theatre—a small-town affair. Glass cases out front contain posters of the current and coming attractions. Easy Rider is playing at seven and nine.

  “Looks cool,” he says, glancing past Briony’s shoulder.

  “It’s about two guys who go a
cross the States on motorcycles. I read a review in the Trib.”

  “Really?” He notes Peter Fonda’s name. Never heard of Dennis Hopper.

  “They die at the end.”

  “Thanks a lot, Briony. Now you’ve wrecked it.”

  “I hate it when people die violently at the end.”

  “Good god. Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet—”

  “You and Paul go, then. It doesn’t look very nice.”

  Dorian puts his car in gear, hops out, and lifts a brochure from the wooden box next to the front door. He presents it to Briony.

  “This is for what’s on in September, idiot,” she says. “We won’t be here.”

  Dorian is a little startled at the unBrionylike vehemence.

  “It’s very white.”

  “So?” Dorian glances over Briony’s shoulder at the package in her hand. They’re in Golko’s Hardware. The place smells of sawdust and new plastic.

  “The old clotheslines had gone grey. They do. Bibs will know this is new.”

  “Why would he care?”

  Briony shrugs. “Dr. Eadon is sort of … peculiar, don’t you think?”

  “He’s not a barrel of laughs. But, Jesus, Briony, it’s only a clothesline. It’s not an heirloom. Is Lydia actually worried about this?”

  “I guess she’s wondering how she’s going to explain needing a new one.”

  “It’s old! It wore out!” Dorian is growing impatient. He wants to get back, get back, get back to the cottage. “I don’t know why you didn’t just reknot it or something.”

  “Tried. Didn’t you hear the squeaks from the pulley this morning?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it was too short. What do you think? Fifty feet? A hundred feet? Two hundred feet?”

  “Fifty?”

  “It has to wrap around twice, remember.”

  “A hundred then.”

  “Maybe two, just in case.”

  “Fine, two. It’s cheap.” He glances at the covering of the tightly looped line. Eighty-nine cents. “We can use what’s left over to hang cats with.”

  “Dorian!”

  On the way to the till Briony fumbles in her bag and pulls out a dollar bill. “I’m not sure why I’m paying for this.”

  “Didn’t Lydia give you some money for it? It’s her family’s cottage. Anyway, Alan’s the one who should pay for new one. He shot …” Dorian lowers his voice as they pass some other customers. “…he shot the old one down.”

  “Your cousin started it.”

  “Not that again.”

  “Do you think there are no accidents?”

  “I think accidents are ordained by the universe for our education.”

  “Do you?” Briony turns to him, her freckled face glowing.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Dorian can’t stop his heart tripping in his chest as he and Briony approach the cottage. The seed Briony planted earlier has germinated into an unfamiliar anxiety and he would much prefer to tiptoe down the crude path through the trees from the car park, but tiptoeing’s best on a carpet of wool, not a carpet of leaves, and not only is Briony scrunching the grocery bag she’s clutching to her chest, she’s nattering on about something she heard on the radio like a women determined to keep bears at bay. He’s barely listening to her. His eyes rove the side of the cottage for flashes of movement by the window, for the sound of scurry and rush: door closing, feet padding, taps running, but the cottage squats in the high sun of early afternoon, the only movement an insipid puff of smoke rising from the chimney, the last gasp of the morning fire, the only sound, besides chatty Briony, that of geese. Dorian looks up to the chevron in the sky. It’s heading south, damn. Autumn is coming. He and Paul must get going. Dorian’s eyes descend to the lawn. No evidence of grass cut. His heart thuds. Paul was to cut the grass.

  As they step into to the kitchen, Briony calls in a too-loud voice, “we’re baaaaack.”

  Dorian drops his bag on the counter, steps into the dining room, and takes a quick glance through the open double doors into the shadowy living room, the wall opposite thinly lit by a small curtained window. He looks left, where he sees a portion of the first bedroom, Lydia’s bedroom, where the cover, the purple HBC blanket is drawn up, the bed made.

  “Lydia?” Briony calls again, dropping her bags next to Dorian’s. She notes his body language, his stockstillness.

  They both strain to listen. A page snaps loudly, like a rebuke. “I’m reading,” comes a vexed voice on the other side of the wall.

  Dorian glances at Briony, who returns a wan smile.

  “The bakery was already out of cinnamon buns,” she calls. “I got some vineterta.”

  “What about bread?” Lydia calls back.

  “We got the Icelandic brown kind.”

  “Good.”

  Dorian abandons his grocery bag for the living room. He sniffs the air for some telltale aroma, but only the morning smell of wood ash lingers. He peers through the gloom to the tiny pool of light cast over the couch by a lamp on a wall shelf. He sees Lydia stretched out, her hair a crown of light, a halo, her face barricaded by a book—which she doesn’t lower, though she must, Dorian thinks, sense his presence. Truly gripped by its content? His eyes roam the room. All cats are grey in the dark.

  “Yes?” Lydia says after a moment, lowering the book. The pages shine in the light, but, backlit, Lydia’s face falls into shadow.

  “I thought Paul was going to cut the grass?”

  “The mower wouldn’t start. Apparently.”

  “Oh … Do you want me to look at it? The mower?”

  “Doesn’t your grandfather use a lawn service?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Then, Dorian, what do you know about lawnmowers?”

  “Not much, I guess.”

  Lydia returns the book to face barricade. Dorian detected no artifice in her voice. His spirit lifts.

  “Still on that Nabokov?”

  “Nearly finished.”

  “Where is Paul, by the way?”

  “At the beach, I think.”

  “Then I guess I’ll join him.”

  “Did you get the clothesline?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you mind putting it up first? I’d like to wash a few things.”

  “Oh.” The bloody towels from the shooting, he thinks. “All right.”

  “And there’s still that pit to fill, remember. The earth’s been there a few days.”

  Lydia puts on her Marion voice—bossy, wifey, naggy. She doesn’t mean it, but she means it, and that’s okay. All is well. While Briony unpacks the groceries, Dorian puts up the new clothesline. It’s easy. He whistles while he works.

  Dorian looks back on that afternoon—Saturday, August 30, 1969—as the last in his life of undiluted joy. It’s a lousy thing to think, and he doesn’t think it often, especially since he’s sworn off the sauce, but when he does, he’s riven by a yearning nostalgia

  And this Sunday, August 3, 2008, it returns unbidden—the memory of it, triggered by some mnemonic, the soft air, the sunshine, the blue sky, the waves as he and Mark take their leave of Lydia and Eadon Lodge, and perhaps it’s that grief slipping past the mask that makes Mark pause and ask him suspiciously, “Are you all right?” as they pass down the path to the car. “What is it you can’t do alone?” Mark asked a little earlier at the Petit Trianon. “Wash a cat,” he’d replied.

  Briony made sandwiches, but she turned down taking hers to the beach, as had grown the habit. Dorian might have picked up on the clues: he knew, as their circle of friends did, that Briony suffered migraines, but he was too filled with anticipation to notice what Briony’s earlier prickliness presaged. She said she’d rather stay in the cottage and have her lunch; her “Celtic skin” had had too much sun already. Lydia calle
d from the living room, where she hadn’t budged from the couch, that she would do the same. She, too, had had too much sun.

  Groovy, said Dorian’s inner voice. We will be alone together, Paul and moi, on a crescent of golden sand under a golden sun. And when he walks down the path through the arbour gate to the beach, the purloined camera in hand, he is overtaken suddenly, unexpectedly, by a surge of … what’s Briony’s word? Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s word? Bliss? … yes, bliss. This is bliss. It must be. It’s like a new sun being born in his abdomen (solar plexus!) sending its radiance fluorescing along his nerves, up through his limbs to blaze in his head. Like a string crescendo, twenty-four bars, I’d love to turn you on. It’s unaccountable, this feeling. It’s animal, in its way. Not exactly lust. A little lust. Turn you on. More like some universal well-being, a gift bestowed on him in this moment by some smiling god. Turn you on. A sign that all will be well and all will be well.

  And all will be well. They will head back to the city tomorrow to begin their California adventure and the rest of their lives. Paul will agree. They will be turned on to the world and the world, of course—how could it not?—will turn on to them.

  Dorian sees first the purple blanket like a magic carpet on the sand. On it is a towel, suntan oil, sunglasses, a coil of the old clothesline, and an unopened book. He twists his head to see the spine. Dead Men Tell No Tales by E.W Hornung. He smiles. The book isn’t for reading. He looks up: Paul is standing hip deep in the water, gazing out toward the pencil-line mirage of the far opposite shore, under a canopy sky so blue it is almost dizzying. He sees the dark hair curling down the nape of his neck, the slim, taut V of his tanned back disappearing into the band of his pale swimsuit. But, no, that’s no swimsuit covering the mounds of his buttocks, he realizes with a surge of delight. Paul is naked, at the beach, in the afternoon. But where is his suit?