The Gaps

by Leanne Hall

  It’s difficult to know what to say to such a double-edged insult-compliment.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve still got two exams left this week to study for. Let’s forget about it.’

  ‘Please.’ She sounds desperate, although I can’t imagine why. I’m the one that’s going to have a half-arsed Art project, and probably not be able to finish my homework for any other subjects as well.

  Natalia sounds calmer though when she speaks again. ‘Don’t overthink it. I’m free on Sunday arvo, so pick a place, get some props or whatever and we’ll do it. I’ll sort out what I’m wearing and what I’ll look like. No stress.’

  I’m quiet for a good few seconds. ‘Okay?’ I say, eventually.

  ‘You can do it,’ she says. ‘At least you’re doing something.’ And then she hangs up.

  DAY 35

  I wait until the next morning to call Dad.

  ‘Chloe, everything okay?’ is how he answers my call. He’s out of breath; he always seems to be out of breath when he answers his phone.

  ‘Yeah, nothing’s wrong. Just called to chat.’

  This is not the truth. I’ve been sitting in my room for the last hour, looking at all the tests and due dates scribbled in my school diary.

  ‘Oh, good, good.’

  There’s a pause. My hope is that he can get me out of this Art project mess, because he does actually have some skills in this area, from the olden days when he used to help put on underground raves and events.

  ‘How’s school?’

  ‘A bit better now, I guess.’ I haven’t spoken to him since the week Yin disappeared, but I know Mum has probably been giving him updates.

  ‘Any news on the police front?’

  ‘Not really. There were rumours today that they’re interviewing teachers again. And some people’s dads as well. And bus drivers, that sort of thing.’

  ‘I should hope so.’

  ‘I guess. There’s a reward now, so…’

  I don’t even believe the rumours that police are interviewing students’ fathers. People will say anything when they’re feeling desperate.

  ‘Listen, Chlo, I’ve been thinking. You know how Jarrod is an expert at Dim Mak? It’s a self-defence technique using pressure points. You can temporarily paralyse someone with one finger. Anyway, he’s offered to teach you, if you want.’

  I rub my face. I haven’t gone to Dad’s house much in the eighteen months since he’s been back from Western Australia, it’s too far away. And I’m pretty sure I don’t want to voluntarily spend time with Dad’s housemate who wears Thai fisherman pants 24/7. Or experience that much power in one finger, for that matter.

  ‘Uh, no. I mean, thank you. That’s really nice of him to offer. But we’re doing self-defence in PE.’

  ‘The offer’s there, Chlo. Or we can look into something else.’

  ‘Maybe.’ I take a deep breath. He’s taken me way off track. ‘Hey, so I’m calling because I need your help with something. It’s kind of short notice.’

  ‘Of course, yes! What do you need?’

  I try to ignore how eager he sounds, practically panting like Arnold. I tell him about my project, as best I can, without getting into it too deep.

  ‘So, we need a location,’ he sums up, ‘and you need help picking up the equipment from school and driving it there and back?’

  ‘Yeah. And we’ll probably need to pick my friend up. Sorry. It’s a lot of work. I can’t ask Mum, with her roster and everything.’

  ‘It’s no problem, love. I’ve already got a place in mind. I’ll make a few calls and get back to you.’

  ‘Thanks Dad.’ I feel hypocritical but I remind myself that he probably owes me this. I’m allowed to ask him for things.

  ‘Let me take care of it, Chlo. Is little Sammy there?’

  ‘Nah, he’s at soccer practice.’

  ‘Oh, right. I should watch one of his matches, shouldn’t I?’

  ‘Yeah, he’d like that.’

  ‘Speak soon,’ he says, and we hang up.

  After I speak to Dad I do my homework. Not all of it, because at this time of year it’s like a bottomless pit of things that should have been done a week ago. Balmoral runs on pressure, like a big steam train you can’t get off once you’re on. Every teacher thinks their subject is the most important, and they get annoyed if you haven’t paid enough attention to their set tasks. They’ve got no idea how much it adds up to across six subjects.

  The house is quiet, with Mum and Sam both at soccer. I do my maths exercises and then make grilled cheese on toast with so much French mustard my tongue burns.

  Natalia has sent me a link to the TV show she mentioned, Devil Creek. I realise that the billboard I saw on the way home from school just after Yin was taken was for the same show.

  The opening credits roll: a girl runs barefoot through the bush at night, her legs and arms painfully scratched, the soundtrack built from driving drums and panic.

  I decide I don’t really love it halfway through the first episode. Detective McManus is experienced and professional, but distracted by his messy divorce. His work partner Detective Burns is dedicated and cares too much, but keeps pissing off witnesses with her blunt manner. The people of Devil Creek all have secret lives, but nothing ties together, at least not yet. Everyone is white and every time it seems like the plot might go somewhere, they cut to a confusing dream sequence.

  But Emily Blake, the victim, the town’s prettiest girl with the sordid secrets—she gives me chills. The music builds to something sinister when they find her body.

  Her nightie is ripped low on her chest and a fly hovers around her face.

  The camera zooms in on her pale lips, which are as cracked as the mud she’s lying on. A strand of hair snakes its way into the corner of her mouth, searching for a way in. There are droplets of blood along the actress’s forehead, as pretty as rubies, and her staring eyes wear the reflection of blue sky and clouds above.

  Every time they show the autopsy photo, or show Emily Blake when she was alive, or give us her blueish body on a mortuary gurney, I can see the resemblance to Natalia, I see every fallen body on the cover of a crime novel, and I can’t help thinking that everyone wants their teenage girls ruined.

  DAY 36

  A police car fills our driveway, and when I take a survey of what other gargantuan shifts have taken place in the universe, I see the Baillieus’ front curtains twitch across the road.

  Welcome to the show, everyone.

  I pull my headphones off, look through the police car window to see a black leather void inside, with extra screens, extra gadgets. First the Mitchells on TV, and now this. I let myself in the front door instead of the back.

  Mum is a treble clef silhouette in the distance, leaning against the kitchen counter. She’s supposed to be visiting Nan at the retirement home today. It usually takes her most of the day to drive down to the peninsula and back.

  ‘You’re home early,’ Mum says.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  The question sends her slumping even further against the counter. She looks unexpectedly beautiful in this moment, pale and tense, beige and blonde, surrounded by the marble countertop and gleaming kitchen appliances.

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  Faith emerges from the laundry holding her jacket and bag, heading for the back door fast. She’s scared of anyone in uniform, and who would blame her when she’s already survived a civil war in her home country. She has a nursing degree but works as a cleaner for several families on our street. Mum raises her hand goodbye.

  A strange man walks across the picture window behind Mum, looks up at the garage eaves and makes a mark on a notepad. He disappears around the side of the house.

  ‘Is our house being searched?’ My mind leaps to my bedroom immediately, completing a detailed inventory of my drawers and closet.

  ‘Not exactly. I don’t know.’ My mum, the lawyer, doesn’t know. She worries away at a cuticle. ‘Your father is upstairs talki
ng to the police. It’s…routine.’

  I stare. When my voice comes out again, it’s high and not really my own. ‘It doesn’t sound routine. This is because I used to be close to Yin, isn’t it?’

  A shower of illusions crash around me. That I can stay at a distance from the abduction, that the police won’t drag us into it anyway.

  ‘I don’t think so, love.’

  ‘Then it’s about Dad? Do they suspect him?’

  ‘Darling…’

  Every word costs Mum energy she doesn’t have. She’s about to say more, but Dad clomps down the staircase that leads to their bedroom. He looks grey and ashamed when he sees me, the way he should look all the times he comes home drunk.

  He’s followed down the stairs by a rumpled, friendly looking guy in a suit.

  ‘This is my daughter, Natalia,’ Dad says. ‘Natalia, this is Detective Barbero. We’re helping him with his enquiries.’

  ‘Are you going to interrogate me as well?’ I ask.

  Detective Barbero looks like someone’s unfit dad, not a person who chases criminals for a living. I haven’t seen him around school or on the TV either. He’s got nothing on the handsome head guy who gets interviewed on the news.

  ‘No one is getting interrogated, Natalia. We’ve got everything we need at this stage, and your parents have my number.’

  It’s odd to be so irrelevant when I know Yin better than anyone else. Or I used to. Maybe someone should talk to me.

  The detective gestures to his colleague in the backyard. After weeks of doing nothing, I wonder what other waves of activity are spreading across the city, stirred up by Friday’s reward announcement or rising up of their own accord. Why now?

  ‘We’ll be in touch if we need anything else.’

  Detective Barbero is barely out the door before Dad deflates, the wind and puff and strength ripped out of him. He staggers to the couch.

  ‘Get me a Scotch, Tal,’ he says, and I do, making it the way he likes it, neat with a dash of water.

  His hand trembles when I hand it to him; the whisky ripples like a miniature earthquake has rocked our house. He’s not my lion dad, the king of the dinner party, master of the golf course. He shrinks inside his clothes, and even though he sometimes gets like this, how unfamiliar he seems.

  ‘They asked the strangest questions.’ He presses himself into the couch, closes his eyes and sips.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Give your dad a moment,’ Mum says. ‘We’ll talk later.’

  I give her my most cutting look, because I know with them that later never happens, and I’m not supposed to notice that.

  DAY 37

  Mum is heading to work early so I let her drive me to school, even if it means getting there thirty minutes before I want to. She stops the car at the student gate and leans forward, looking at the great green expanse I have to walk across to get to the main doors. It’s a misty morning, so the empty grounds look spookier than usual, and we’re the only car on the street.

  ‘By the way,’ she says. ‘The police have asked me to run a few things by you. Some information about the offender.’

  She could not have picked worse timing. ‘Is this a secret from Dad?’

  ‘I don’t want to distract you before school, Natalia. We can talk tonight. I just wanted to flag it.’

  ‘Why bring it up at all, Mum? Tell me. I won’t be able to concentrate now, and I’ve got my French exam today.’

  She’s so annoying.

  ‘I don’t want you worrying. I hate that you have to be involved in this.’

  ‘I am worried! The police ransacked our house yesterday. How can I not worry?’

  Mum sighs like I’m the one being irrational. She reaches behind my seat for her handbag. ‘The kidnapper uses unusual words or phrases. You know, endearments or pet names.’

  ‘Like what?’

  Mum pulls a slip of paper from her handbag and gives it to me. It’s been ripped off from the notepad she keeps on the kitchen bench to write shopping lists and communicate with Faith.

  I read the list. Sweetpea. Honeypie. Sleepover party.

  Bile rises in my throat. ‘Gross. If a grown man called me any of these I would know for sure that he’s a certified paedophile.’

  ‘The detectives want to know if you’ve ever heard someone use these words, a teacher who might have left the school, or a substitute teacher. Or any of your sports coaches.’

  ‘Why didn’t they ask me directly?’ I try to hand the note back, willing my hands to stop shaking, but Mum pushes it towards me.

  ‘Keep it. I don’t want you obsessing over it, but if you hear anything even remotely similar, obviously tell me or your dad.’

  ‘And run a mile.’ I tuck the note into the pocket of my school bag. She doesn’t smile, of course she doesn’t.

  This basically reminds me of the million questions I have like, why offer a reward now? Does this mean they’ve shifted to looking for Yin dead rather than alive? They’re acting awfully like we should be scared of someone very close to us. I think of all the rumours that are trickling through our year level, rumours that are scabs we can’t stop picking at, like that Doctor Calm takes baths with his victims and pretends that a rubber duck is talking in a tiny duck voice, that he likes to sing them to sleep with lullabies, that he puts on our school uniform and pretends to be a Balmoral girl.

  I start to wonder if it’s better if she’s dead.

  After I get out I see Mum arrange her makeup bag carefully on the seat so she can do her face on the freeway.

  The supernatural mist soup sweeps me through to reception, where I swipe my attendance card, nodding at part-time receptionist Susan, who is one of the saddest people any of us have ever seen. Whenever we study a tragic story in English, I think of Susan.

  Our usual nook, the triangle of couches next to the window that overlooks the quad like an observation deck, is depressing without my girls in it, besides which it’s littered with empty chip packets and none of the corridor lights are on yet. I reverse along the corridor and try not to look at the morbid shrine that’s formed around Yin’s locker. Polaroids and origami cranes and silk flowers gathering dust, and even a handwritten Bible verse that has to have come from that happy-clapper Lisbeth.

  Surely they’ll clear this up over the holidays, they can’t let it bleed into next term.

  When I inch closer my feet knock into a pile of paper held together with a plastic clip in the shape of a frog. I bend down to see equations and symbols—Petra obviously couldn’t hack the heat and dumped Yin’s borrowed physics notes here.

  I straighten up and I’m surprised to see Yin’s locker door is open a crack. She’s got a sticker of a sparkly clarinet on it so it’s easy to find and the darkness inside pulls my attention—come closer come closer come closer—like a black hole or a portal.

  The silence in the abandoned school building is total.

  I flick the door open.

  A short stack of textbooks. A lone scrunchie. A neatly folded school scarf. An orange box of clarinet reeds. One picture of Yin, Claire and Milla stuck to the inside of the door.

  The locker is too empty, too tidy. Yin has had a lifelong stationery addiction, so where are the sticky notes and the cute notepads and the patterned washi tape and the glitter gel pens? Where are the tablets she takes for hay fever? If the police searched her locker, why wouldn’t they have given the rest of her things straight to the Mitchells? And what did they take as evidence?

  I put my head close to the square dark hole, reaching to touch the cold back wall. The wall gives way, something catches my hand, tugs my arm, dragging me along a cramped metal tunnel, no bigger than an air duct. I’m squeezed in a tube, tighter than a water slide, darker and more sinister. Gravity pulls me through time and space, down down, through to another place, the other place, the other side.

  I step away, breathing hard.

  I look around at the cack-green carpet, pocked with old chewing gum. The lemon-vomit w
alls, the dusty windows high up. The row of gunmetal grey lockers. Everything ordinary, nothing changed.

  The library is the only warm bright spot in the early-morning school. Mrs Lithgow lifts her head and smiles when I enter and I think about if she only knew about the overdue copy of Picnic at Hanging Rock in my bag that I have no intention of returning.

  The other librarians gather in the inner sanctum of the back office, plunging coffee and loading croissants into their mouths and talking about the wild orgies they participated in on the weekend.

  A group of international students are already hitting the books and a poor Year Nine waif is curled up, asleep, in a beanbag.

  I try to focus on the art shelves, because when I called her on Friday Chloe sounded stressed, and if she needs all the help she can get, then I need all the distraction in the world right now. If I can find a book about that Bill Henson guy she’s always banging on about, then maybe we’ll have something to talk about in fourth-period Art today.

  When I think about Emily Blake and dead girls in general and sweetpea honeypie sleepover parties and Mrs Christie’s pursed-up face and everything that has been swept under the school carpet, a red tide of rage threatens to engulf me.

  I blink it away and think about the open locker and how I could get a bag and scoop everything inside into it, I could collect and preserve those small leftover bits of Yin and take them to Chunjuan and Stephen to compensate for the fact that I didn’t send a card, I didn’t send a text, my family didn’t make food and bring it to them.

  I give up on art and round the corner and see Petra at a carrel with her human security blanket Audrey. They both still think I poked Petra in the eye deliberately, so I reverse before I’m seen. I collect a pancake stack of magazines and install myself in the new cushion pit that smells of dry-cleaning and Old Collegian donations, realising too late that the opposite curve of the pit is occupied by Claire and Milla, hunched over an iPad. They’re engrossed and don’t see me, so I pick up a magazine and start to flick through it.