The Gaps

by Leanne Hall

  Suddenly the priest is calling my name.

  There’s a rustle and a murmur because everyone expects Claire and Milla to speak at the memorial service but no one expects me, and there’s also my new haircut and I’m already sick of everyone making a big deal out of it.

  The walk to the lectern is long and I hope I only feel twitchy instead of visibly twitching.

  I don’t look up as I pull the microphone down towards me.

  My voice starts croaky when I wanted it to be pure and strong.

  ‘Yin was my best friend for a long time, even though our friendship changed in the last few years,’ I begin, reading from paper that’s already wearing thin on the folds.

  I look over at Chunjuan and she’s a mess of tears and snot and puffy eyes and she might be breaking Stephen’s hand she’s squeezing it that hard, but at least she’s not wailing like an animal and she’s also looking me straight in the eye, nodding. She trusts me, she trusts me, she wants me to do this.

  I take that look and I turn it into a reason to do this properly, to not turn away from the task, to do something real for a change.

  ‘Everyone knows that Yin was incredibly smart and a whiz at the clarinet, but the thing that stuck our friendship together was how silly and funny and imaginative she was. She was a good mix of adventurous and sensible and she would rarely turn one of my ideas down.’

  I see Claire look at Milla and smile and it makes me think that maybe I did still know Yin, that she hadn’t gone and gotten a personality swap any time in the last four years.

  ‘She was a loyal friend, and when you told her a secret you knew that she wouldn’t tell anyone, even when it was a juicy one that would have messed with several people and got everyone talking.’

  This gets a gentle laugh but I don’t look up because I can’t stand the thought of how many people are watching me right now.

  ‘She was a much nicer person than me, because she always saw something good and beautiful and worthwhile in everyone. And she was a better person than most of us here because she had goals and was already working towards her future. If she got obsessed with something, you couldn’t stop her from living and breathing it and she would talk about it until you needed her to stop.’

  This is where it gets hard. I gulp down everything and try to stay strong. I imagine I’m drawing calm from my friends. I don’t want to break down in front of this many people.

  ‘This is why I know she would have gone on to do amazing things with her life. And this is why she is the wrong person for this to have happened to. This is why it’s so unfair.’

  I can’t even speak of the anger I hold deep down for the man who did this. I know that you’re supposed to be forgiving in churches.

  I lift my head and look out over the bobbing heads and see that everyone is with me. Some girls are crying, some look in shock. Some are practically climbing into their friends’ laps and burrowing into shoulders.

  Claire nods at me from the front pew. We talked properly for the first time since Yin’s disappearance, in the empty church before the buses arrived. I wanted to make sure that she and Milla were okay with me being the one to speak.

  ‘I won’t ever get over this. I won’t ever forget Yin.’

  My voice wobbles and I sound truthful. I sound like I’m telling everything and I am telling almost all I can. I feel naked enough with my lack of hair and all the truth. But there’s more that I hold back for myself and Yin only, the bits of us that no one else will ever touch or hear about. And I have to do that to survive, I have to keep the precious parts of our friendship for me, for us.

  I breathe in deeply, look up at the high ceilings and there, among the rafters and stained-glass windows, I find something new.

  It was Yin who found other people to hang out with first in Year Seven.

  She was in a form room with Claire and Milla, I was in another. Yin tried to get me to join up and make a group of four with them, but they were all into music and I wasn’t. There was a terrifying lag of a week when I had no friends at all, and then I hit it off with Ally and the rest is history, history with a bad ending.

  Maybe I was a bit cold to her for a while, but it was because I could tell she wanted to move away from me and towards other people, and I was immature and didn’t know how to cope.

  Something lifts off me, something releases.

  I still feel sorrow for her, but now, I’m also sorry for myself. For everything I’ve lost.

  There’s a few more things typed on my crumpled bit of paper, but I’m done.

  Part of me was hoping I would sense Yin’s presence here, that there would be light and colour and whispers somewhere out there, but there’s cold emptiness and that’s okay. All I want to do is go home and lay out the entire contents of our suitcase on my bed and spend the afternoon with her.

  DAY 70

  hi chloe

  quick question: are you interested in being part of a group show? my friends and I are putting on an exhibition at my friend’s warehouse. call me. we’d love to have you be part of it.

  Ax

  ‘Chloe! You called!’

  ‘Uh huh.’ I’m on the line, but I’m nervous as all hell. Adut and I have exchanged a few emails but this is our first time speaking on the phone.

  ‘I’m so pleased you got back to me. Hang on.’ I think I hear a tram bell in the background, air whistling all around. ‘Sorry, I’m getting off the road and putting my headphones in…How are you doing, Chloe?’

  ‘Good, thanks.’

  I realise Adut doesn’t know much about what has been going on. When I told her about my art project I made it sound like an intellectual thing, I didn’t mention what had been happening at school. She has no idea about church services or grief counselling or anything.

  ‘Are you interested in the show? It’s nothing intimidating. I’m part of a collective and we put them on every few months.’

  ‘I don’t think my work is good enough.’ I may as well say it right out. ‘Won’t it look too basic compared to everyone else?’

  ‘Listen we had a meeting last night and we got talking. We’re always thinking about how to improve representation in our shows, you know, identify who doesn’t get traditional space and then give them a platform. And we realised that we’ve never included a teenage artist, which is kind of…we should have our eye on that, right?’

  ‘I don’t know…Is there time for me to make something new?’

  I’m not sure I want to show my photo of Natalia anymore, even in its new incarnation. Everything has been so bleak lately, and now it seems too dark and lonely. I’m glad I finished it, transformed it, but it’s time to move on.

  ‘For sure. I’ll email you the timelines. And it doesn’t have to be photography. We’re open to anything you want to do. How do you feel about that?’

  ‘Nervous,’ I admit.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll help you. We can discuss what you might want to put in. Your work will show where you are right now. Where you are is where you are, and it has every right to be seen. Don’t you think?’

  ‘You’re messing with my head a little, to be honest,’ I say and Adut laughs loudly and genuinely.

  The sky is purple-dark, scattered with the kind of stars that give you hope. We’re halfway through spring and surely it should be warmer than this. Katie, Liana and I lie on Liana’s trampoline and look up at the universe. There are so many people in Liana’s house that this is the only place we can get any privacy.

  I tell them about Adut’s invitation and how I’m not sure I should have said yes. I still have a bundle of schoolwork, I still have to see out term four.

  ‘Whenever you talk about your art these days, babe, your face scrunches up,’ Katie demonstrates, in case I don’t get what she means, ‘like, stress face. It never used to be like that.’

  ‘Remember when I started my YouTube channel and all of a sudden I hated doing my hair and makeup?’ Liana sticks her legs in the air and flexes her feet. ‘T
wo videos a week? Too much pressure, man.’

  I sigh. They’re not wrong. ‘I know I need to get the fun back. I just don’t know how.’

  Adut said everything she could to take the pressure off and followed up with an encouraging email, like she’s the nicest person in the world, but still.

  There’s a round of screams from inside the house. We all lift our heads up in alarm. The glow from the television is visible through the glass doors. Liana’s dad, brothers, nieces, nephews and cousins form animated shadows in front of the rugby match.

  ‘They need to calm down or someone’s going to have a coronary,’ Liana remarks. She’ll only watch women’s sports, that’s her rule, meaning she lies outside on the trampoline a lot on weekends.

  How can I keep art fun but still handle this burning need to say something?

  I’ve been thinking about Natalia’s art pieces, the seventies models with their mouths scratched out. I know she thinks they’re sloppy and a lazy joke, something she did at the last minute to hand in, but they still spoke to me, somehow.

  And the conversation I had with Petra about her chain email has stuck with me too; how she was so scared she wanted to do something to warn us, to help us, to increase our chances, to cope with the uncontrollable fact of Yin being missing.

  ‘There actually is this new thing I want to do, that has me kind of interested…’ I shift about because Katie’s head on my leg has made it go to sleep. ‘It’s kind of an extension of what Natalia and I did. I want to do a new photo shoot, with these girls I know at Balmoral—’

  ‘Do it!’ says Katie.

  ‘You don’t even know what I’m going to say yet.’ I jiggle my leg, making us all bounce. ‘It’s about choosing how you show yourself to the world, like being in control of how others see you. I think.’

  ‘Are you going to use Natalia as your model again?’

  ‘Maybe. I mean, she also makes a good assistant. Her visual sense is great, she’s just too disorganised to do her own thing.’

  ‘Ha!’ says Katie. ‘I can relate.’

  ‘Get her on the phone.’ Liana slides my phone across the bouncy fabric. ‘Do video. I want to actually meet her.’

  ‘Now? Nah, she’s got a lot to cope with at the moment.’

  ‘Yeah, exactly,’ Katie says. ‘Maybe she wants to think about something different for a change.’

  I’m surprised, but I call her anyway.

  When Natalia’s face appears on my screen I say, ‘How are you going?’ because the memorial service was only yesterday.

  ‘Average,’ she says. ‘Where are you?’

  I sweep my phone around so she can see the stars, the trampoline, the Fifitas’ overgrown backyard. ‘With some friends.’

  ‘Hello, Chloe’s friends.’ Natalia sounds and looks tired but at least she answered my call.

  Liana calls out, ‘You’re so pretty!’

  I bounce my way off the trampoline, heading for somewhere quieter, more private. I stand in the back corner of the garden, where moths gather around the security light.

  ‘Do you think you’ll be back at school this week?’

  ‘Not sure…How did I do yesterday?’

  ‘You did well. It was nice to hear more about Yin, from a different perspective. It was really sad, of course.’

  I can see tiny hints of what looks to be Natalia’s bedroom, whenever she shifts about. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that I used to be friends with Yin.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I say and it is. In the last week I’ve thought more about how hard things must have been for Natalia since Yin went missing, all the hanging on and waiting.

  ‘Why did you call me?’ she asks.

  ‘Just to say hi. And Katie and Liana wanted to meet you.’ I leave it at that. She looks even more shattered than I expected, so my new idea can wait until she comes back to school.

  ‘You’re so strange, Cardell,’ she says and I know her well enough by now to take it as a compliment.

  DAY 73

  The only time that Dad and I talk about anything real is in the car, I don’t know why, that’s just the way it is, the words come easier when you’re sitting side by side, when you can pretend the view is fascinating and you’re not talking about something earth-shattering.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Dad taps his fingers against the steering wheel as he drives.

  ‘How do you think?’

  About as good as if I was being boiled slowly in a giant metal cauldron over a slow-burning fire or if I was a little baby deer walking through the forest on my own and there were wolves nearby. And I’m wondering if the psychologist is going to make me lie down on a couch or if that’s just something they do in movies, only I can’t bring myself to ask Dad that so instead I say:

  ‘What was the deal with your nervous breakdown?’

  Dad flinches for real, takes his eyes off the road, briefly. ‘I’m surprised you even remember. You were so young.’

  From one answer-dodger to another I say, ‘I was young enough that no one told me what was going on and no one has talked about it since so that’s why I’m asking you now.’

  Dad throws an exasperated hand up at the driver who has just overtaken us and then cut back in and then he can’t avoid answering any longer. He’s already sweating so much that he has to wipe his forehead with the back of his hand.

  ‘I wouldn’t call it a breakdown, I guess I’d say it was a fairly serious episode of depression.’

  ‘Why were you depressed?’

  ‘There’s not always a reason.’ Pause to think. ‘I had a chemical imbalance in my brain, for sure, and I needed medication to fix it. But it was also more complicated than that.’

  ‘In what way?’

  He sighs loudly and I can tell he’s having trouble keeping his patience and let me tell you I’m having patience issues at having to drag it out of him sentence by sentence. Does he think it’s easy for me to ask him these questions?

  ‘It was complicated, because I was under a lot of stress at the time. Business was bad and I was working punishing hours and not taking care of myself, and I had no tools at all to manage my stress.’

  ‘Huh.’ I think about the medicine cabinet. ‘Do you still take medication?’

  ‘No. It got me through a crisis period and then I focussed on my lifestyle and therapy and after a couple of years I could manage without it. I still have to stay balanced though, you know, exercise, eat well, meditate.’

  I snort. ‘Just because you keep your gym bag on the back seat doesn’t mean you actually do any exercise. Come on, Dad. I don’t think you take care of yourself as much as you think you do.’

  ‘I hear you, Natalia. You’re right, I should keep it in mind.’

  Dad eyeballs me seriously. I wish he wouldn’t take his eyes off the road so much.

  ‘You should do more than keep it in mind. I know you don’t always feel good. I do have eyes, you know.’ My voice sounds ever so slightly choked.

  ‘I don’t want you to worry about me too much, but there’s no miracle cure for depression, you know?’ He’s quiet. ‘It’s more a matter of managing it as best I can. I do have rough patches still.’

  All I remember about Dad’s depression is that he stopped working and stayed home a lot and didn’t do any of the normal things I was used to. And he cried more than usual and lost his temper more than usual too. And I wonder if that’s not how I’ve been these past few months. Like him. The thought scares me.

  ‘How do you not drown in your emotions?’ The questions burst out of me. ‘How do you control your thoughts when they’re going everywhere?’

  How do you know when your brain has gone too far, like it’s gotten too weird in there?

  ‘What kind of thoughts?’

  Dad sticks his indicator on, and when it’s safe, he pulls over by the side of the road.

  ‘What kind of thoughts?’ he says again.

  ‘Everything,’ I say.

  He waits. I don’t want to say
.

  ‘Like, is there anything anyone could have done to prevent what happened to Yin? What did she go through before she died? Was she scared? What was she thinking about? Did she think about her family, or me even? Did she hate me?’

  I stop, because I’m starting to get worked up, the tears creep in from the corners and threaten me. I don’t tell him my strangest thoughts, just the more normal ones.

  ‘That’s a lot to cope with, hon,’ Dad says. ‘But they’re all very reasonable things to think about. I think it’s especially hard because they haven’t caught anyone yet. There’s no closure.’

  I put my head down on the dash in front of me. ‘My brain is so tired. I’m so tired. I can’t get a break.’

  ‘You’ve been so strong.’ Dad pats my hair gently. ‘I know you’re exhausted.’

  ‘What do I do?’

  ‘I can only tell you what works for me. Sometimes I distract myself if I’m overwhelmed, and sometimes I go into the feelings, talk to someone about them. Both things work, at different times. And I keep people close around me, even when I’m not in the mood.’

  I lift my head up. ‘Does that mean you think I should go back to school this week?’

  Somehow I’m stuck on going back to school, even though there’s no real dread in it. I don’t mind seeing that complainer Petra, I’m not scared of any of the teachers, and Claire and Milla and I made our peace at the memorial service.

  ‘Not if you don’t want to. Take all the time you need. But maybe a bit of routine might help. Doctor Radcliffe is going to talk to you about all of this, and I’m always here for you. You’re absolutely not on your own.’

  ‘I already hate Doctor Radcliffe,’ I say with all the passion I can muster.

  ‘I know,’ he says and I suppose he probably does know. He finds a park close to the doctor’s fancy consulting rooms and switches the engine off. He reaches out and we hug extremely awkwardly over the gearstick.

  ‘Love you,’ he says quickly.