[Short story] Changes and Headaches

Odaise Gaelach

3998 words long. Sorry about the length.


Changes and Headaches

It was a hot day, even for summer.

Her bedroom window was open. She was leaning on the windowsill with her arms folded across it and her head resting in her arms. Her eyes were half-shut.

The air was warm, mingled with the smell of fumes and dust from the street below her apartment. There were only a few people about. Everyone else was in the shade.

Beatrix glanced back at her laptop. It sat on her desk-slash-dresser among papers and pens and half-empty makeup bottles. A Word document was on the screen.

Beatrix Granier
Curriculum Vitae

The cursor was blinking on a blank line below “Personal Qualifications and Achievements”. She had sat in front of it for ages wondering what she could put down for it. Stared at the screen like a writer might waiting for an idea to hit her. None came.

Yet there had to be something she could say. Everyone has achieved something by the time they’re twenty-five, no matter how minor. Getting published, playing a gig, winning a competition. Something. So why couldn’t she think of anything?

She was only twenty-seven. Far too young for a mid-life crisis she told herself with no conviction. She felt weary, like her spirit had left her. But it had left her a long time ago.

Back in college she was full of energy. Her mind was bursting with new ideas and many ways of thinking. She could focus on anything and accomplish it, no matter how difficult. Her subject was perfect. And she had a boyfriend that adored her.

And then she began to change. She found that her interest in things was disappearing. A fatigue started to set in. She grew distracted. She loved her boyfriend to bits, but there was no spark for her anymore. Life had become monotonous.

She tried to re-invigorate herself by emigrating. She packed almost nothing, determined to start from scratch and find herself in her new life. But instead she found herself in a new country, in a strange city that she didn’t know and didn’t know her. Her hopes died, except now she was lost and alone.

She sighed and stared out over the city. She had lived here for two years. Sometimes she dreamed of going back home again. But she couldn’t. If she went back it would be admitting that she was hopeless. And she couldn’t do that. Not yet.

Beatrix pulled herself from the window and sat back down at her laptop. She stared at the cursor. The cursor winked back. Mocking her.

She typed:

I won a raffle when I was five.


When she couldn’t stand it anymore she printed out her CV and brought it to anywhere that had a position open. Beatrix doubted that her degree in Mathematics and experience as a waitress would count for anything, but at least she was trying.

Outside an office building her mobile phone rang.

“Hey there Beatrix.”

“Hi Susanna. How are you?”

“Not too bad. Are you still coming down to Escobar tonight?”

Blast, I’d forgotten. “Yeah, I’ll be there. Is Stephen’s band playing tonight?”
“Yeah. He’s expecting us to support him.”

“As long as I don’t have to do anything, he has my undying enthusiasm.”

Susanna laughed. “See you there at eight then.”

Beatrix looked at the time. It was 7:17PM. She wouldn’t have enough time to go home, clean herself up and still be punctual.

Just don’t bother going.

I made a promise.

“My head hurts,” she whispered. That settled it. First she’d go home and have an aspirin. Then she’d make up her mind.


It was only a quarter past eight when Beatrix reached the Escobar nightclub. It was a dark but spacious place that boasted live music every weeknight. Beatrix discovered that some bands were excellent, and others were not so. Stephen’s band, the Space Monkeys, were somewhere in between.

Beatrix found Susanna on her own near the bar. She already had a drink so Beatrix got one for herself.

“Did I miss anything?” she asked.

“No,” Susanna said.

The band was still struggling with their equipment on the stage. Stephen was setting up the microphones. Laura their keyboard player was heaving an amplifier across the stage. Their drummer was nowhere to be seen.

Stephen noticed them and jumped down off the stage. Beatrix groaned.

“Glad you’re here,” he said. “Could you help with the equipment? Rob’s not here yet and we need to be set up and playing by nine.”

Over his shoulder Beatrix could see Laura slumped over the amp. She looked like she had passed out.

“Sure.” Beatrix followed Stephen up to the stage. She relieved Laura to go get a drink and began shifting the amplifier to the corner of the stage.

“Not there,” Stephen said. “Put it at the other side.”

Beatrix’s face flushed. Her back protested. She had made time to have a quick shower and now she was sweating. She’d stink by the end of this. At least she didn’t have a headache.

She dragged it across the stage and positioned it where Stephen was satisfied. He thanked her and told her that there was nothing else for her to do.

“My pleasure,” she growled softly and went back to the bar. She gave a sympathetic nod to Laura as they passed.

“Aren’t you meant to be meeting David tonight?” Beatrix asked Susanna.

“Yeah, but he’s not out of work yet.” She sounded annoyed. “I dunno why he doesn’t leave that stupid security job. He hates it, and so do I…”

“Pay’s good though.”

Susanna grunted. “Have you found a new job yet?”

“Not yet, but I’ve applied for a few places. One of them is as a secretary.”

Susanna grinned. “Ah yes… nothing like an office romance, m’dear.”

Beatrix opened her mouth to reply when Susanna’s phone rang. She ordered both of them another drink.

“That was David,” Susanna looked delighted and dismayed. “I’m sorry Beat but I’m gonna have to leave you now. He’s just off his shift; we’re going back to his place instead. You don’t mind me leaving you here on your own, do you?”

“Nah, of course not. Don’t let me get in the way of your office romance.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” Susanna promised.

And Beatrix was left on her own at the bar. Up on stage Rob the drummer had just arrived and Stephen was giving out to him. Beatrix decided to make herself busy, just in case Stephen caught her alone and gave her something to do.

There was a guy sitting by himself at a table near her. He had his head propped up on one hand. He looked depressed.

Beatrix took the bottle of beer that she’d bought for Susanna and walked over to him. She put it down on the table by his hand. He snapped out of his daydream.

“Cheer up,” Beatrix said. “Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad.”


“She understood,” Susanna explained to David as they climbed the stairs. “She didn’t mind being left on her own. It might be good for her, actually. She could do with opening up and meeting other people.”

“I still feel bad about dragging you away from her. If I’d known you were with someone...”

“I’ll tell you next time, I promise,” Susanna said. “Anyway, offer to buy her lunch and she’ll forgive you anything.”

They walked down the corridor to Beatrix’s apartment. Susanna lifted her fist to rap on the door and paused.

“Listen...”

They could hear voices inside the apartment. Loud voices, one Beatrix’s accent and someone else… they didn’t recognise him.

“Doesn’t Beatrix live alone?” David asked.

The door swung open. They jumped back.

A man was shoved by Beatrix out of her apartment. He was wearing nothing but briefs and socks. His clothes were bundled in his arms. Beatrix was only wearing a white t-shirt that was much too big for her. It covered her hands and stretched down her bare thighs, nearly to her knees.

“No! Leave me alone!” she snarled.

“You’re not even going to let me get dressed?” the man asked.

“Oh, I’m sorry, where are my manners? Get the **** out of here!”

She gestured at Susanna and David to come inside and slammed the door shut.

“Give me a minute,” she told her visitors. “I just want to get changed and brush my teeth and take something for this headache…” And a morning after pill; she had a couple left.

She returned to her bedroom. Susanna and David, still standing, exchanged nervous glances. This was the first time they had witnessed something like this with Beatrix. They hoped she wouldn’t be too angry with them for dropping in without warning.

A minute later Beatrix emerged. She was dressed in a normal-sized t-shirt and jeans, looking much better.

“You can sit down if you want,” she told them.

They did. Beatrix smiled at them but her face winced with pain.“So what are you two doing here so early?”

Susanna hesitated a moment. “It’s nearly half twelve, Beat.”

“Oh…” she swore. “I’m sorry you two had to see that. He just wouldn’t leave…”

“Are you okay Beatrix? You look pale,” David asked.

“Late night last night, and I’m pretty hung over. Anyway, what can I do for you?”

David suddenly felt that his apology for taking Susanna last night and leaving Beatrix on her own was now a little inappropriate.

“Umm, I haven’t seen you in ages,” he invented. “I thought the three of us could go out for lunch today. But if you don’t want to…”

“Nah,” Beatrix shook her head, then stopped with the pain. “I want to, I just forgot. But I need a shower first. You don’t mind waiting, do you?”

“No, we can wait,” Susanna said.

After Beatrix had locked the bathroom door David turned to Susanna:

“She forgot? We never arranged it with her in the first place.”

“She’s a little forgetful,” Susanna answered. “Maybe she just thought she forgot. And she’s not exactly… well, she’s a little distracted this morning.”
David frowned.

The warm water soothed Beatrix’s aching body and her headache was evaporating. Her thinking cleared and she felt better, then ashamed.

What am I doing?

It was another thing that had changed within her. She would never have had a one-night stand before she emigrated. She had too much self-respect. But now… it was just one of those things that she did. She gained no pleasure from it. Relationships didn’t interest, her, sex didn’t interest her. It had turned into a routine for her.

Not a good routine to get into.

She stepped out of the shower and dried herself. Her pale skin was radiant. At least she looked clean.

“So what’s the plan again?” she asked David and Susanna when she was ready.

“Lunch?” David suggested. “I’m paying.”

Beatrix began to grin.


“Find a job yet?” David asked.

“Nope,” Beatrix replied, sitting opposite David and Susanna and sipping a mug of coffee. “How’s work with you?”

David groaned. “The quicker I can find something else, the better.” They chatted a little more until Susanna went to the bathroom. David leaned in towards Beatrix and whispered, “I’ve quit. I’ve got another job as a tutor in the college. Hours are great. Pay’s even a little better…”

He took another cursory glance around and added:

“I’m gonna marry her.”

Beatrix choked on her coffee. “Jesus! Congratulations! But… have you asked her yet?”

“Not yet… I’ve been saving up for this.”

Under the table he passed a tiny box into Beatrix’s hand. She opened it. It was a beautiful little ring of white gold with red and clear stones set in it.

“Oh, God,” she gasped, “that’s beautiful…”

“Try it on,” David urged. “I think you’re both about the same finger size. Just to make sure.”

Beatrix took the precious little thing from its box and put it on her finger. It was gorgeous.

“She’ll love it,” she said, then froze. Susanna was coming back.

Beatrix pocketed the box and kept her left hand under the table.

“So what were we talking about,” Susanna asked as she sat down with them again.

“The Space Monkeys’ performance last night,” said David.

“Yeah, were they any good in the end?” Susanna turned to Beatrix.

“From what I stayed for, they were pretty decent. Nothing special though.” From what I remember.

She tried, as discretely as she could, to take the ring off her finger. It wouldn’t come off.

“I’m sorry I missed it. Are they playing again soon?” asked Susanna.

“I’m not sure. I wasn’t talking to Stephen after the gig.”

Her phone started ringing. The Caller ID read David. He had his hands under the table and was staring at Beatrix.

She twigged his plan and answered the call.

“Hello…? Yes, this is Beatrix Granier.”

She mouthed an apology to David and Susanna and left them. When she was safely outside the café she ran back to her apartment. She tried squirting some washing up liquid onto her finger. All that managed to do was rotate the ring, not get it off.

C’mon… I woke up with a stranger, I didn’t marry him…

Her heart was throbbing. Her headache was coming back. She pulled at the ring, not afraid of dislocating her finger, just wanting to get the damn thing off.

It stayed on her.

Suddenly she felt sick. Sick of its humble beauty. Hated the fact that David and Susanna should get married, that David should find another job, that Stephen should have his band and that Beatrix should have her one-night stands, headaches, and an engagement ring on her finger that wasn’t hers.
She fell into her bed, buried her face into a pillow, and gave up.


She woke up a few hours later. It was dusk outside and her phone was ringing.

“…Hello?”

“Beatrix, did you get the ring off?” It was David.

She looked at her finger. It was still there.

“Nope, not yet.”

David groaned. “Keep trying. I promised Susanna I’d spend the day with her. If you do get it off, we’ll be down in Escobar later on tonight. I’ll get it from you then.”

“Sure.”

She felt lethargic but there was no hope of her falling back to sleep. It was just after seven o’clock. She laid in bed for a little while longer before deciding to go for a walk.

It had just stopped raining a few minutes before. Beatrix loved walking outside after it had just rained. The air was clear and fresh and the dusk light bathed the streets in blue. There was quiet, save the sound of water trickling down drainpipes or a car somewhere splashing through a puddle. People were just starting to come back outside again.

It was something she’d loved from when she was a child. It awoke something of her former self here, yet somehow still out of reach. Faraway, and so close!

Beatrix walked for an hour, feeling much better after it. Despite her ease here she kept her hands jammed in her pockets in case anyone would come up to her and congratulate her, which of course no one did.

She stopped outside the Escobar. She suddenly felt like a drink.
Stephen and Laura were both inside at the bar. Stephen stopped her and waved her over.

“Hi Beatrix, want a drink?”

“Yup, I’ll have a whiskey.”

Stephen obliged and he started talking about the performance last night. He was happy with it despite the late start. Beatrix took a drink of her whiskey and asked about their next gig, and they began chatting and drinking. Laura was spirited away by some friends. She looked glad for the escape.

“Was I interrupting anything?” Beatrix asked.

Stephen shook his head. “Actually, I was glad that you came.”

He took Beatrix’s hand and squeezed it. She squeezed back and smiled, her headache numb and thinking blurred from the whiskey.

“Want another drink?” she offered.

“Sure…” and he stared at her finger. “What’s that?”

A little while later David and Susanna came into Escobar. The first person they spotted was Beatrix, now with her arms resting on Stephen’s shoulders. He was holding her at the waist.

“Wow,” Susanna said. “That’s a turn-up for the books.”

David hummed in agreement. He wondered how he was going to get his ring back from Beatrix now.

“D… is she wearing an engagement ring?” breathed Susanna.

Beatrix, you idiot!


“I’ve liked you for a long time,” Stephen was telling her. “I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know…”

Beatrix began to feel sick. Her headache was returning.

“I like you too,” she replied.

And then a strange thing happened inside her head. It felt like something shifted and a great pressure dissolved. It tingled her skin and made her light-headed, like a tiny electric current. Her headache vanished. She felt like she was waking up.

“What do you like about me?” she asked, wondering what these sensations were.

“I like your hair,” Stephen stroked her head, sending pleasant shivers down her back. “I like your smile. I like your nose. I...”

He stopped and his brow knitted. Beatrix blinked and tilted her head to one side.

“You like my what?”

“Don’t blink,” Stephen said. His hands tensed on her. His gaze darted from eye to eye.

Then Beatrix felt a cold pinprick inside her skull. It flowed around in her head and began filling her. Everything started spinning. She lost feeling to her arms.

“What’s wrong...” she whispered to herself.

“Your right eye is dilated,” said Stephen.

Beatrix realised what the coldness was. It was the life bleeding out of her.
She heard Stephen shout: “Christ! Call-”


“-an ambulance!”

Her body seemed to turn into water and she clattered to the ground.


The doctor introduced himself to Stephen, Susanna, David and Laura. His name was Harold Barrows. He was a short man with black hair and a quizzical frown. His stethoscope hung around his neck.

“You’re Beatrix’s friends? Does she have any relatives nearby?”

“No, she’s an immigrant,” Susanna said.

“Right... well, I’ll be frank. Your friend is very sick. She has an epidural haematoma on the right side of her head, and it was caused in turn by an aneurysm. Basically she had a blood clot in the outer area of her brain and it burst.”

Susanna wrapped her arms around David and they buried their heads in each other’s shoulder. Laura and Stephen went pale.

“Now, the bleeding was restricted to the area between the dura matter and the brain,” Dr. Barrows continued. “She’s in surgery to drain the bleeding and excise the aneurysm. She was brought here very quickly, so we’re hoping for the best, but we won’t know what condition her brain is in until she regains consciousness.”

Susanna let out a sob. Stephen had his hands over his face and tears trickled between his fingers.


There were little glimpses of what happened next. Flashes from different times: people looking down at her. An intense, bright light behind them. She couldn’t make any sense of it. She couldn’t even try.

A pale white tube that stretched down past her toes, like the mouth of a strange monster. Punt punt punt punt punt it went, for some reason.

And then, for a long time there was nothing. And the line between consciousness and oblivion had been blurred; she didn’t know whether she was awake or not.

Or even where she was.

Sometimes she would think she was awake, until she realised she was actually dreaming instead, and the thought would jar her into weary consciousness. Where the only thing left to do was sleep again.


Beatrix woke up with a headache and reached over to her dresser to take an aspirin. But neither the dresser nor the aspirin was there. And neither, she realised, was the headache.

Her left arm didn’t move properly. She reached out to grab the edge of the bed and gripped only the bed sheets a few inches short.

Something’s wrong she thought. But she was in a hospital; she was being taken care of.

There was something else about her left hand that was strange but she couldn’t remember what it was.

Even though it was the middle of the night she called for a nurse. It took a few minutes to get the sound right. When one game she brought a glass of water and helped her drink it. Beatrix asked her what was happening but the nurse didn’t tell her.

She drifted to sleep and woke up in the late morning. This time the doctor explained about the aneurysm and operation. She’d need physical therapy and rehabilitation. He told her that she was living in a different country: she remembered that, but she couldn’t think as to why.


Susanna and David visited her soon afterwards. Beatrix recognised them, and that really made them smile. Both were trying not to burst into tears. So was she.

As they were talking Susanna started fiddling with her hands. Beatrix remembered that she’d woken up without their engagement ring.

Susanna wasn’t wearing it now. Beatrix decided not to ask.


A week after leaving hospital Beatrix decided to migrate back home again.

Susanna, David, and a miserable Stephen all helped her pack her things, even though she didn’t need them to. She didn’t have much to begin with.

They were finished in a few hours and they went out for something to eat. Beatrix had booked a flight for the next day. She was sorry to go; it felt like she was seeing the city for the first time. Now she was seeing it with the same youthful soul that she came to find. The doctor attributed her personality change over the past few years to the blood clot in her head.

Beatrix didn’t want to think about that. She was herself again, and that was all that mattered.

After dinner they walked her back to her apartment. Susanna and David said goodnight but Stephen lingered behind. Beatrix invited him in.

“Don’t leave,” he blurted before she even had the door closed. “Don’t go back. Stay.”

Beatrix sighed, knowing that this had been coming. She’d rehearsed this in her head many times today.

“I can’t. No, wait,” she interrupted him. “I haven’t been myself for… the past five years, maybe. I wasn’t myself even before I came here. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to... feel these feelings again.

“But the person you’re in love with, Stephen, that wasn’t me. That was barely half of me. The woman you see before you now is Beatrix Granier, whole and true. I’m not the same person you held that night in Escobar.” She blushed. “Who nearly told me he liked my eyes.”

Stephen went red too.

“God knows I love you, Stephen, I really do. If I were to stay now, we’d be lying to ourselves. I can’t do that to us.”

Neither of them cried. Stephen’s face was stone. They embraced each other, not wanting to let go. Eventually they did.

Beatrix kissed him just once on the cheek.

“Thanks for saving my life.”


“Well, this is it.”

Stephen, Laura, Susanna and David faced Beatrix. She had a rucksack on her back and a woolly hat on her head. She was about to pass though airport security and leave her friends behind. She was sad to be going, but happy to be returning home again.

“You’ll come back for the wedding, right?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” she grinned at David and Susanna and the rings each were wearing.

Everyone hugged one last time, Stephen first of all. Then she turned and passed through security, not looking back. Security gave her a few funny looks with her shaved head but Beatrix didn’t care.

She hadn’t had an aspirin since she left the hospital. Above her the sky was clear.

cobsie

Hey there
It's not bad but it's sort of bland. The inner drama of Beatrix is not really expressed - too much is left between the lines so that it reads as a series of disconnected events rather than a cohesive narrative building to a climax and resolution. The characters are not sufficiently distinguished from one another and it's a problem that there are so many of them in such a short space of time. It would be better to be more focused, to keep the narrative action very tight with a stronger sense of Beatrix's inner life, taking place over no more than 24 hours or so. It's not a crime to be more straightforward with the reader, sometimes. Not everything has to be smoke and mirrors - sometimes a good story tells itself, if you let it

Hope that's helpful!

Odaise Gaelach

Aye, I can see what you mean, and I think you're right. It does need tightening up in a lot of ways.

Cheers for the advice.

iguana

I suggest switching who the doctor speaks to about Beatrix' aneurysm for two reasons. The first is that a doctor would never, ever give that kind of detail to non-relatives. It's completely illegal and they risk losing their license. The second is that we should be present for Beatrix finding out what happened to her, that's where the emotional impact of the story would be.

SarahMs

I like it