Do I have a gap in my employment history? How do I address this (if at all) on my CV?

Hi all,

So this might be a weird question, but I started a job way back in January 2020. I was employed abroad, then 2 months later the pandemic hit and I was sent back home. In total, I received 3 paychecks, and then my company arranged to call me once a month to "keep me in the loop" about when I can return. At first they seemed super sympathetic, but then I felt like they were leading me on with the promise of my job "returning" eventually. They even said they "don't mind if I take up some freelance work during this time", as that wasn't allowed in my contract. I was never told "You're fired, sorry", I was told "much of our staff are going on unpaid leave, and you'll be back to work in a few weeks"... which kept getting extended.

Eventually, I got bored of waiting and felt a bit deceived about how much effort they were putting in to get me back to work, and I started applying to other jobs - while that wasn't super successful (I blame the state of the pandemic economy), a bit over a year after I was sent home, my company wanted me back. After a short period of working remotely, I'm now back abroad.

Well, for a variety of reasons (poor management, job duties changing, worse pay than I used to be on, the feeling of being deceived repeatedly, to name just a few things), I want to leave. I really can't stand this job anymore (it's a shame, it used to be my dream job). However, I'm worried about how it's perceived on my CV - I was in contact with the company regularly over the pandemic, had access to my emails etc, how should I put it on my CV? I feel like they kind of robbed me of over a year's worth of "experience" on my CV if I make note of the gap, but I'm worried about how, if a potential new employer calls my current employer to verify my role, it likely won't look good if my current employer says "oh he wasn't with us for over a year between when he first started and now". They'd likely be very unhappy with me leaving, and I don't have faith in them handling things diplomatically with any potential new employer.

Any suggestions on how to handle this? I'm mostly just desperate to move smoothly from this job to another one ASAP.

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