Paul Is Dead

by C. C. Benison

  Lydia eats the last slice of orange. Stickiness adheres to her fingers and stickiness is intolerable. She pushes back her chair, rises, and pushes through the swing door to the kitchen, with the plate, to remove the ick.

  She told Ray about the bones—Lits’s. She told him late that afternoon of her birthday, in this kitchen, by the refectory table, as he pumped a balloon inflator, before Helen and Joe and other friends arrived. She wept as she told him about the bones unearthed by the storm, about the RCMP request for a DNA sample, about her horror and shame, which had begun to overwhelm her, and which she understood—but did not say—was nothing more than a release for horror and shame too rooted to expose. And Ray, as usual, was wonderful—understanding and puzzled and relieved, all at once. This, too, he thought, is what’s been gnawing at my wife’s mind, as she has been gnawing at her own flesh. And he laughed as he dropped the balloon inflator and held her in his arms, because what else could you do but laugh? It happened so long ago and it had nothing to do with them and he didn’t believe in that sins-of-the-father thing anyway.

  Lydia washes her hands and takes a fresh towel from the rack under the wall calendar to dry her hands, averting her eyes, as she’s done since January, from the calendar’s upper part, from the artwork. For Ray it observes the work of German illustrator Heinz Edelmann. For most everyone else, it observes the Beatles’ animated musical, Yellow Submarine, a film she has never seen, never wants to see. Ray told her when he tacked the calendar up (because he remembers that collegiate madness forty years ago, too) that the eponymous song supplied another “clue.” According to the nutty conspiracy theorists, in the nautical voice section of the “Yellow Submarine” John Lennon says, “Paul is dead, dead man, dead man.” Ray offered to put the CD on. No, thanks, Lydia shuddered then, shudders now. Three more months and the noxious reminder can come off the wall. Ray’s already bought 2010’s—twelve months of Arthur Rackham’s illustrations.

  Much better.

  Lydia’s eyes land on the calendar’s lower part, however. It’s September 22. “Autumn begins” the text box informs her. A British calendar, though she’d already gathered that from the absence of text boxes for Presidents’ Day and Memorial Day. Here, in the U.S., autumn is called “fall.” “Fall begins.” The thought resonates, not pleasantly. She reflects on the manuscript she is editing. Milton describes another kind of fall.

  Enough of that.

  She turns back to the dining room, recalls suddenly the mail, the tiny treat of her freelance days, and turns instead to the stairs. The smell of new construction grows more intense as she descends to the door, but the air outside, when she pushes open the door, is sweet and cool, the last of the morning fog burned away. The green border of Golden Gate Park across the street shimmering in the sunshine draws first notice. But something nearer catches the corner of her eye—a sweet little dumpling of a bird lifeless on the tiles. Did it hit the window above? She didn’t hear it. Her heart contracts with pity, but a kind of dread follows swiftly. She can’t bury it. God, no. She can’t touch it. She can’t bear it. A dead bird holds an old memory; Briony thought it a portent all those years ago at Eadon Lodge. She’ll interrupt Ray. He won’t mind.

  Quickly, as if the dead thing might come alive, she lifts the mailbox lid on its rusty hinges, reaches in, pulls out a bundle, and shuts the door behind her. Relieved now, she glances at the top item, her copy of the New Yorker, and as she climbs back up the stairs fingers through the rest—the flyers, a Lands’ End catalogue, the Amex and PG&E bills, something official looking with a Japanese stamp for Erin, a realtor’s brochure. Her eyes fall on a handwritten return address on a letter peeking from behind a Chinese take-out menu. She stops. She’s reached the landing now. She pulls the envelope out. It’s addressed to her in a hand that reminds her vaguely of her father’s, strong, cursive, masculine. Puzzled, she pivots the letter a little, because the writer has placed the return address along the short side.

  Matthew Rafiel, she reads, returning to the dining room and dropping the rest of the post on the table. And the address—in Palo Alto, not far. She fingers the envelope, feels the first twitch of unease. The paper is heavy, linen-based, stark white against her raw pink thumb, still healing from protracted gnawing. She tilts the envelope to the window light. The sheen of the ink suggests a fountain pen. The postage, ninety-five cents, reflects its weight. The letter is hefty. It’s plump.

  It’s important.

  But it’s the first name that stirs her consciousness and loosens her memory, focusing her vague anxiety into an admixture of dread and excitement. Did she write her chosen name, “Matthew,” down on some form at the hospital all those years ago? Did Helen mention it to the social worker, to a nurse? Was it somehow conveyed to the young childless couple that left with her baby? Or did they simply pluck it from the air, as she did, only to learn later it was one of the most popular names for newborns of the day?

  It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter

  Her heart is tripping now. She can’t quell it. She’s had dreams and nightmares and fantasies about this moment for forty years and yet never in her waking hours has she known what she will do, how she will act, how she will react. The spectre of Huntington’s disease has intruded on her thoughts since Dorian’s disclosure. Should she begin a search for her lost son? But what could she do for him? What difference would it make? On this, she’s powerless.

  She turns the envelope over, runs a trembling finger over the sealed flap, brushes the thin seam which lies between her and certainty, between her and doom, between her and joy. Her heart pounds in her chest as if some small animal were trapped inside. What should she do? She’s frozen in indecision. She wants to cry, but she can’t, not now. She needs a private hour, two, three. And when will she next get those? When Erin and Misaki are visiting Erin’s mother in San Mateo this weekend. When Ray’s teaching his Saturday class at Fort Mason. And—oh, god—she can hear him in the kitchen, pottering around, pouring a last cup of coffee, cutting some piece of fruit. What if he comes in? The bird! The bird on the tiles outside. It’s the poor dead bird that is upsetting her, that is making her pale and weepy.

  And he is coming in. Ray is coming in. He is near the door.

  And her phone is ringing.

  She shoves the envelope quickly under her style guide. Her eyes dart to the screen.

  It’s Dorian.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Paul is dead, but as of September, 2018, the following are not, and for their assistance in various ways, I am most grateful: Neila Benson, Lorne Bunyan, David Carr, Dean Cooke, Karen Haughian, Michael Phillips, Lesley Sisler, Paige Sisley, Lewis St. George Stubbs, David Stackiw, John Whiteway, and Snolaug Whiteway.

  The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the Manitoba Arts Council and the Winnipeg Arts Council.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  C.C. Benison has worked as a writer and editor for newspapers and magazines, as a book editor, and as a contributor to nonfiction works. A graduate of the University of Manitoba and Carleton University, he is the author of seven previous novels, including Twelve Drummers Drumming, Death at Buckingham Palace, and Death in Cold Type. He lives in Winnipeg.

  www.ccbenison.com