by Leanne Hall
I turn pages through hazy ballet classes, haughty schoolgirls in straw hats, a lone house in the woods, downturned faces in the street, a little girl wearing her mother’s pearls, an erect nipple, ruined buildings, dilapidated glamour, petrol stations, burning houses, city lights.
My mind settles into the same flowing hum as it does when I jog. I move onto the next book, and the next.
Beautiful dishevelled young people. Bare skin, sexy angles, tangled limbs, wet mouths, drunken abandon, muddy smears, floating. They look like adults one moment and teenagers the next. Ecstatic in one shot, miserable in others. Troubled or hedonistic, it’s hard to tell.
I’d be happy if I could take one photo that matters, and here are hundreds.
The realisation that I could work at this for fifty years and never achieve anything half as good as these images thumps me in the chest. If you want to feel confident about what you’re doing, don’t look at great art.
I stretch my arms up and out, realising that I’ve been hunched over the books for quite some time. The man in front of me has been replaced by a professor-type in a knitted vest.
The woman to my right is taking careful photos of each letter and envelope, openly, so it must be allowed.
I flick back through the monographs, trying to find the images that have struck me the most, lining up my phone to capture them. I photograph the schoolgirls in hats and the little girl in pearls. The house in the woods. When I land on the city street scene with a solitary Asian face in a white crowd, something dawns on me.
Almost everyone is white.
I turn to my favourite sequence of pictures, the sullen, naughty teens. They look gorgeous and highbred, despite their degradation. Blue veins and pale skin. Tawny hair and red lips. They could be Natalia and some Grammar boys, so easily. They definitely couldn’t be me.
I check again, racing through page after page, finding a world that is overwhelmingly Western and white. This is not what the streets of my town look like.
I wonder why I’ve never noticed this about Henson’s photographs before. Does it make me like the photos any less? How could I like something that ignores my existence? It’s still on my mind as I hand the books back to the librarian at the desk and sign out in the visitor book.
‘Are you interested in contemporary photography?’ the librarian asks. I’m so lost in thought I’m slow to answer.
‘Yeah, I guess. I mean, I’m trying to learn about it. There are so many different styles.’
‘You should speak to my colleague, Chris. They know everything there is to know about our photographic collections. Do you want me to see if they’re around?’
‘I don’t want to bother—’
The librarian waves my protests aside. He makes a quick call then sends me out to the main room, to the info desk. Chris has short purple hair and a septum piercing.
‘So, what exactly are you looking for?’ they say.
‘I don’t know…’ I’m positive Chris would rather deal with weighty academic requests than vague curiosity from a teenager. ‘We’ve been introduced to some photographers at school, but they’re all the famous ones. I guess…I want to see photos of someone who looks like me,’ I say. ‘Or a lot of different types of people, actually.’
Chris claps their hands. ‘This is the best enquiry I’ve had all day. Come.’
They march me to the Arts Reading Room and load me up with books from the photography section.
‘I’ll give you too many options, then you’re more likely to find something that resonates.’
Chris helps me lug the books to a table and then leaves me alone. I want to thank them for taking me seriously, but the words get stuck and they’re gone before I can say it.
The array of art books is mind boggling. Most are related to exhibitions that have happened all over the world, so it’s like taking a round-the-world trip in an hour.
A book about masquerade and self-portraiture and constructing different selves. A catalogue from the Lagos Photo Festival. Collections of found photographs from India. A coffee-table book about female Chinese artists. Gender performance in photography.
Some photos are posed and almost look like movie stills, some are so casual they seem like accidents. I think my photo of Natalia falls somewhere between the two, and I wish I’d thought more intentionally about that before taking it.
I spend some time on a monograph of Tracey Moffatt’s work. I’ve seen her photographs before, but only one or two at a time. And there’s something different about seeing the image on a page, running my fingers over the coloured paper, more alive and tangible than looking at photos on a screen. Her photos are carefully staged and full of symbolism.
I pause at one of her most famous images: Moffatt dressed in a cheongsam, looking expectant and wistful in front of a falling-down shack. There’s a brassy blonde woman in the doorway, a sweaty guy drinking inside, a pair of blurry kids and a young Chinese man in a traditional conical hat outside. The landscape is red and hot and dusty, and obviously fake.
I wonder about where the Chinese elements fit in with Moffatt’s Aboriginal heritage, but I don’t know enough about her to figure it out. She’s saying something important, though, it radiates off the page. The photo uses stereotypes and stock characters, but the effect is mysterious and the colours glow and Moffatt looks in control of the whole thing.
I turn next to the book about Chinese female artists, called Half the Sky. Brave women who worked in private without acclaim, who made large-scale ink works, who shocked everyone by shooting their own artwork with real bullets at an exhibition opening.
The introductory essay explains that the title is based on the Mao Zedong quote: Women hold up half the sky.
I’d read in the paper that morning how many calls the police hotline had received about Yin’s disappearance—apparently hundreds of calls from people all over, and not just about Yin but about dozens of other missing women too. Shouldn’t we be doing more to find them? Caring more that they’ve disappeared?
I know the longer Yin’s gone, the more we should worry for her, but I’ve noticed that the pure fear of the first weeks has melted away. The more time that passes, the easier it becomes to forget.
If women hold up half the sky, then why are we so disposable?
DAY 53
I’ve lost count of how many hours I’ve stared at my photo. I have it clipped to the easel, set up near the window, where the light is strongest. It’s still a shock to see something I created blown up so big. Even the mere size of it makes it seem more like proper art.
Natalia sprawls on the mottled concrete, red feathers sprinkled around her body, looking like a littered petal or a lost princess, or a dreaming virgin or a bad girl getting what she deserves. All of these contradictory things that somehow get heaped on young women.
The print turned out shadowier than I expected, but the colours are everything I wanted, even though I’d originally wanted a subject with dark hair.
A bird walks across the corrugated tin roof overhead, its spindly feet amplified into sharp clangs. I pick up my brush.
After practising on countless throwaway photos, I’ve finally plucked up the courage to paint the real thing. I’ve coloured Natalia’s cheeks and given her exposed limbs the barest hint of pale blue. So far, no mistakes. I can’t afford to get another print, so whatever happens, I’m stuck with it.
My phone rattles on the card table but I ignore it. Natalia has already messaged me a billion times since the shoot, demanding to see updates.
My next step will be to create a rainbow aura around the ceiling and edges of the picture, as if something otherworldly might be at play.
I walk back to the reference pics I have taped to the shed walls, looking closely at my eighteenth-century geisha, the photo that gave me the idea to hand colour my image.
Underneath her heavy costume and makeup the girl is probably very young. I imagine letting her hair down, wiping her face, putting her in a Balmoral unifor
m instead.
Who arranged for this photo to be taken? Was it her family, or her employer, or a tourist? Did she want to pose, or was it for someone else? Does it make a difference?
I scrawl the words that come to me—someone’s watching—on a piece of paper and set it aside.
Even though I haven’t finished colouring my photograph yet, I can tell already that something is missing. The image is too similar to the Devil Creek billboard, too much like the crime novel covers. There’s not enough comment in the artwork yet, not enough of my opinions.
The air is stifling in here; a headache crouches at the edge of my vision.
Someone’s watching—who? The world, the newspapers, Doctor Calm, the police, TV viewers, book readers. And me.
It’s possible that the thing missing from my photo is me. Or someone like me—a teenage schoolgirl watching the scene. Watching the scene of her death, her falling, the depiction of her demise. Showing that we see it, but that’s not who we are. But I don’t know how to make that happen. I don’t have the time or money to take the photo again.
My phone vibrates.
I scoop it up, and my drink bottle too, and go outside.
The garden is another world. There are bees and butterflies buzzing about and I can smell the tomato plants. The gentle sun feels good on my face. I stretch my limbs, waking up my muscles.
It’s not a bad day, after all. Maybe spring is almost here. It’s been nice to be away from the rumours and the endless cycle of news and no-news.
I read my messages—Natalia has gotten huffy to the point where she’s asking for Dad’s address, saying she’ll come over, Liana wants Katie and I to watch her netball grand final on the weekend, Mum needs help resetting our modem.
I go in the back door, through the sunroom, past the laundry and into the kitchen, all three rooms looking like they were tacked onto the house as an afterthought and might fall off one day. Dad is at work and Jarrod is banging drums in the bush with a group of men, so I have the place to myself.
I try to picture Natalia inside my dad’s house, but it’s impossible.
It would look like a slum to her, to any of the Balmoral girls, probably, instead of a major life achievement.
I fill my bottle at the kitchen sink and then drink it almost in one continuous hit.
Nestled among the bills and recipes tacked onto the fridge is the invitation to our school art exhibition opening. It’s in the first week of term, after our artworks have been up for a few days, to give students time to vote on their favourite.
I’m terrified about Dad coming with me to Balmoral, what he’ll say and think about the groomed school grounds, the epic buildings, the august portraits on the wall. Even worse, I’m worried how he’ll act around Ms Nouri and the other parents, what random topics he’ll raise or, worst of all, what will happen if he decides to talk politics with them.
I can’t figure out if it’s going to be the worst or greatest night of my life.
I return to the garden, squint into the light. I need to add myself into the photo somehow. Maybe I should get Dad to take some photos of me in my Balmoral uniform, then print them out and make a collage, cutting and pasting to construct a frame.
More work, in short.
Because no one’s around, I allow myself a little growl that turns into a satisfying anguished groan. This project is taking over my life.
‘Who’s that?’ Mum asks, when my phone lights up.
‘Natalia. Again.’
‘You two seem to get along well.’
‘Hnnh,’ I say, even though she is sort of right. I read Natalia’s message and then stow my phone. ‘She’s desperate to see how the photo is going. Like, desperate.’
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, standing on every possible f lat surface. Yelling, laughing, taking selfies, dancing, drinking, screeching, hugging.
‘Who do you know in this exhibition?’ I grab onto the back of Natalia’s jumpsuit so I don’t lose her.
‘Not me, my sister!’ she yells back. ‘Some of her friends are in it.’
We reach the main room and the situation is no better. The gallery itself is even more crowded, if that’s possible. Natalia wiggles expertly into any possible crack between bodies until we reach a trestle table holding drinks. My bulky backpack—holding a change of clothes and toiletries to take to Dad’s house—is almost torn from my back.