The Gaps by Leanne Hall (classic literature list .TXT) 📕

Natalia does this thing where she doesn’t type out a full message and send it like normal people do, she types out single thoughts or phrases, and then sends them separately, making my phone go off like a machine gun.

‘How is it going?’

‘Don’t ask.’

I wrap the roti in foil, ready to reheat in the oven. Rendang spice fills our entire flat. Sam’s having a sleepover at his friend Louis’s house and we don’t have to cater to his kid tummy, so Mum is making this thing hot. I cough from the fumes and move further away, to the other side of the bench.

‘I think I need to have a break from it. I’m going to stay home tomorrow and do some practice English responses instead.’

I kick my foot up onto the stool, leaning forward to stretch my hamstring. Ouch. Even a jog with Arnold couldn’t clear my head. It’s like someone is blowing up a balloon inside my brain. It’s pressing outwards and I can’t deflate it.

‘Sounds good.’ Mum tips a tin of coconut milk into the pan and stirs. ‘This will need to simmer for at least an hour. Want to watch an episode of something?’

Once we settle on the couch with a pot of oolong tea I say, ‘Ma, if you promise not to tell me off, can I tell you something?’

She makes that face that means she’s steeling herself about the demonic sex cult I’ve joined.

‘You know Dad was out all today? Well, I kind of had a snoop around his garage.’

‘Oh, Chloe.’ Mum uses her disappointed voice.

‘I was looking for an extra drop sheet! And then I had…a look around.’

‘What were you looking for?’

‘I don’t know. Like, rope or girl’s clothing or something?’

An embarrassed laugh escapes. I felt completely justified while I was poking through Dad’s boxes and tools, but switched to guilt immediately afterwards.

‘It’s just that people at school won’t stop talking about everyone’s dads getting interviewed by the police!’

‘Hon, it’s fine. It makes perfect sense.’ Mum pats my leg. ‘All those rumours are enough to make you do something you wouldn’t normally do.’

‘Well, it wasn’t worth it, because all I found was a major stash of eighties Playboy magazines. And a whole box of Psychedelic Noodle CDs.’

Mum erupts. She actually cries, she’s laughing so hard. Psychedelic Noodle consisted of Dad and Jarrod and a few other friends in bucket hats and furry rave pants twiddling knobs and playing out-of-tune guitars. The whole thing was over by the time I was born, thankfully.

‘Oh my god. How could I forget Psychedelic Noodle? I shouldn’t laugh.’ She leans over and kisses my forehead. ‘I’m sorry, baby. This whole thing is so bleak.’

I put a cushion on my head, hoping it will soak up my shame. I wonder what this term is going to be like, if people will still be gossiping about teachers and parents and conspiracy theories. Or will they have moved on to obsessing about exams and the Year Ten formal and subject choices for next year?

‘You know,’ Mum ruminates, ‘your dad’s a pretty decent guy, even if he has been a dick in the past.’

‘Mum.’

There is nothing more horrific than hearing that word come out of your mother’s mouth, especially while she’s wearing the ridiculous cat-ear headband from last Christmas. For a second she looks like a friend, not a parent, a giddy teenager. Someone who was once so in love with Dad she defied her entire family to move to Australia to be with him.

‘You remember I’m having dinner with the girls tomorrow night?’ she says.

I try not to smirk at the fact that Mum calls her forty-something friends ‘the girls’.

‘You got anything on?’

‘No.’ I let out a giant sigh. ‘Natalia invited me to this exhibition opening, you know, friends of hers, but I don’t think I’ll go…’

‘You should go!’ Mum sits up straighter. ‘You’ve barely been out all holidays.’

‘I saw Liana the other day.’

‘One time. You need to balance relaxation and work.’

‘Can’t you just be normal and tell me to stay home and study?’

‘Ha! Normal, as if.’ Mum pours the tea. ‘I used to be married to the lead singer of Psychedelic Noodle. How could I be normal?’

DAY 54

When Natalia shows up she’s wearing a black linen jumpsuit and strappy sandals and statement earrings and I understand straight away, and far too late, that my jeans and trainers aren’t going to cut it.

We don’t hug or kiss hello, but she does give me an overly friendly punch on my arm. Meeting up during school holidays feels like an amplification of our friendship that I’m not sure either of us are prepared for.

‘You ready?’ she greets me. ‘Let’s walk.’

‘Where are we going again?’ For someone half a foot shorter than me she sure can walk fast. Natalia is the kind of person who walks in a straight line down the road and forces everyone to swerve around her. All she would say in her texts was that she was going to take me to ‘a proper art opening, not a dweeby Balmoral thing’.

We pass a vintage clothes shop, several cafes, an art supplies store, a pilates studio, and still she doesn’t answer me. She’s been pestering me every day with multiple messages and now she has nothing at all to say. Go figure.

‘There.’ Natalia points at the crowd blocking the footpath, standing dangerously close to bikes and traffic, beers in their hands, cigarettes to their lips, hands on their phones.

I’m not at ease in this part of town, it’s the kind of street that people dress up just to walk down and be seen. Natalia, on the other hand, seems completely at home; she dives into the scrum, pausing only to check that I’m following her through the clogged doorway into a narrow corridor lined with framed pictures and up an even narrower flight of stairs. The name of the gallery—Park ARC—is stencilled on the white wall.

There are people everywhere, pushed close into each other,