Stillwater by Tanya Scott Extract

Allen & Unwin
Jun 27
15 min read

Updated: 7 days ago

Read an extract from Stillwater by Tanya Scott.

After checking out the video above of author Tanya Scott introducing it, you can dive straight into reading the most thrilling debut you’ll read this year, Stillwater!

18 YEARS AGO

A light flicked on, casting a yellow glow over the dark porch, as Quin fiddled with a key in the lock. Jack didn’t know where he was or why. The drive had taken so long, and covered so much distance, that the ground beneath his feet felt unstable, as though he’d got off a boat. He’d lost his ability to gauge distance or weight or any other physical properties of the world. He waited behind the unfamiliar shape of his father on the step of an old red-brick house in a city that smelled foreign. It was late at night and bitterly cold. Jack hugged his chest with his arms as a woman opened the door from inside.

Quin’s voice was subdued. ‘Hey, Gail. Sorry, the key was stuck. This is Jack.’

Gail had blonde hair streaked with grey, a smoker’s lined mouth and pale eyes that crinkled as she narrowed them. Her tracksuit might have fit her a decade ago, but now clung to every detail of her soft body. Jack could see a line where the elastic of her underwear cut in at her hip.

‘What’s going on?’ Gail wasn’t looking at Quin: her attention was on Jack. Her scanty white eyebrows knotted together, as though she were trying to figure out a puzzle.

Quin flicked a glance to Jack. ‘I’ll tell you later, alright?’

He ushered Jack into the lounge. A wall of warm air hit Jack’s face. The house smelled of lavender soap, cigarettes, musty newspapers. An old plastic telephone sat on a stand in the hall. Pink ceramics in the bathroom. Rose-patterned carpet, scuffed linoleum in the kitchen.

Gail rifled in a cupboard in the hall for a blow-up mattress and blankets, which she and Quin squashed into a space on the floor in Quin’s bedroom. She peered at Jack with keen eyes.

‘You hungry, love?’

He nodded. Words formed in his mind, but his tongue was stuck.

She made him baked beans on toast, which he ate at a laminate table in the kitchen. His eyelids drooped. It was hard to concentrate on chewing. Quin and Gail’s conversation floated over the top of his head. He’s Susie’s kid and Yeah, she was in Sydney the last few years and Nah, I didn’t know and I’ll get my own place and When’s Kev out? and He’s exhausted, Quin, let’s get him to bed.

He’d met Quin less than a week ago, in a grey government office with kind strangers hovering over him. Since his mother died, he’d lived with a foster family— more kind strangers— while they tracked down his family. Which meant Quin.

Michael Quinlan was not a big man, but he had a big smile. A pleasant face, shaggy brown hair overdue for a cut, an infectious laugh. He fidgeted on his feet, like a kid who needed to pee. Hi, buddy, I’m Quin, had been their brief introduction, followed by, Man, you look like your mum. Bloody hell. Spitting bloody image.

Jack was wary of him. The shape and smell of him were unfamiliar, the timbre of his voice. Mum had spoken of him occasionally, casually: Your dad loves this song or Once, your father spilt a whole tub of popcorn at the movies or Your father puts tomato sauce on his eggs, how Australian is that? She’d laughed about his Australianness, the contrast to her Englishness. She never told Jack why they weren’t together, or where his father was, and Jack had never asked. It had never seemed to matter before.

‘Am I supposed to call you Dad?’ he’d asked, during the long drive from Sydney. It had come out wrong— too familiar, too similar to saying Mum. For a moment he couldn’t breathe, afraid he’d said the wrong thing. He’d peered out the window to hide his reaction, watching the green and brown hills flash past.

‘Call me what you want, mate.’ Quin lit another cigarette.

In the morning, Quin wasn’t there. Jack woke on the air mattress, which had gone flat overnight, and fumbled his way to the bathroom and then to the kitchen.

‘He’s gone to the panel shop,’ Gail said. She gave him a bowl of cereal to eat. ‘He works there sometimes, when Malcolm needs him. I’ve gotta go to work soon.’ Her brow furrowed. ‘I guess you’ll have to come with me. You’re too young to stay home by yourself.’

Jack dressed in yesterday’s clothes and got into Gail’s Corolla. She worked in a newsagency, selling magazines and pens and lottery tickets. Jack spent the day doing puzzles and looking at magazines in the storeroom, trying not to think about his mother.

When they got home, Quin was in the kitchen eating a pie. Gail said, Quin, we need to talk, and Jack took the car magazine she’d bought him and hid in the bedroom while they argued in the kitchen.

You can’t just piss off and leave him and I had to go to work and So did I and a series of other useless statements from each of them. A few minutes later the front door slammed, signalling Quin’s departure.

Gail appeared at the bedroom door. ‘Come and help me with this,’ she said, and Jack sat with her on the couch to do puzzles. Gail was obsessed with puzzles: sudoku, word-finding, cryptic crosswords and others he’d never come across. His natural ability seemed to impress her.

‘Where’s Quin?’ he asked later, when they were eating sausages for dinner.

‘Looking for a place to live.’ Gail rolled her shoulders. ‘Kevin will be out soon. Quin and Kevin— I mean, they’re mates, but they’re not good at living under the same roof.’

Kevin, her son, had been Quin’s best friend since school. Quin had bunked in Gail’s house since he ran away from his own parents when he was fifteen. Kevin had been in jail for the last few years and was about to come home. He’d been pulled over for speeding and the police had found an unregistered shotgun in his car.

Jack noted Gail’s resigned sigh as she explained it all. ‘He was lucky he only got two years,’ she said. ‘I wish he’d stay away from guns.’

Quin came back later and apologised to Gail. They had a long, intense conversation in the kitchen while Jack watched television in the lounge, trying not to listen. They came to an agreement of sorts, and although the details flew over Jack’s head, the tension in the house eased.

For the next few days, he spent his time with Gail, either at work or doing puzzles on the couch, trying not to think about his mother, or watching television, trying not to think about his mother. His grief was like a hole, a space where she should be; an absence of feeling rather than the presence of one.

Quin came and went. Jack learned, by osmosis rather than any explanation, that his work in the panel shop was not his passion: he was a guitarist in a rock band. The band played gigs in local pubs, covers of eighties and nineties rock. Whenever Quin was home, he’d sit on the bed with his guitar, casually strumming chords and crooning. Jack recognised most of the tunes, because his mother had loved music and had a huge collection of CDs. When he told Quin this, Quin went quiet and turned his face away. Jack didn’t mention it again.

When Quin wasn’t at band rehearsal, playing at the pub or banging out panels for Malcolm, he was with his girlfriend Donna or at the racecourse, betting on horses. On the nights that Quin wasn’t home, Jack snuck into Gail’s room and slept beside her in the big bed. She was such a heavy sleeper that she never noticed him. If he heard Quin come home, Jack would get up and sneak into his own bed on the floor.

One such night, Jack waited until Quin was settled in bed before creeping in. Quietly, his voice small in the dark room, Jack ventured, ‘You awake?’

Sleepily, Quin said, ‘What?’

‘Can I meet Donna?’

‘Why?’

‘Are you gonna get married? Will I live with you?’

Quin’s laugh was not encouraging. ‘Married? Jesus. No. We’ll stay here for now, mate. I’m looking for a place. It’s just taking some time.’

Jack felt his face hot and wet against the pillow, the hole where his mother had been stretched larger by Quin’s words. The idea that Quin might get married and make a family for him had teased him with its simplicity. He felt stupid to have conjured the fantasy. And it wasn’t an unknown woman named Donna he wanted; it was Mum, with her crisp accent and her penchant for strong tea.

Gail reminded Quin to enrol Jack in school, which was just as well because he was tired of reading the same three books. The local primary was close enough that he could walk, and for the first week Quin walked with him. They were still strangers, and their conversations were awkward and transactional. It was a relief when Quin let him go on his own.

Going to school made him feel normal. Back home— back in Sydney, rather— he’d been good at school. His mother had worked in the school library and he was the best reader in his class. Starting at a new school had its challenges, but he understood the rules of schoolyard etiquette and played it cool. The kids wanted to know all about him: where was he from, and was it true his mother had died? Instead of answering, Jack threw himself into the playground games, the faster and more frantic the better. When the kids were out of breath, they couldn’t ask hard questions.

He got along well with his new teacher and made friends with the kids who played football through recess and lunch. He and Quin tolerated each other, feeling out the edges between them. Gail provided consistency in his life. And meals, importantly.

Just as Jack was starting to settle in, Kevin was released from jail.

Jack was in the kitchen eating Weet-Bix after school when Gail brought Kevin home. Kevin was taller and heavier than Quin, with thick sandy hair, solid shoulders, big hands. A full sleeve of tattoos on his left arm. He filled the kitchen doorway and stared at Jack with accusing pale eyes.

‘What the actual fuck?’ he said.

Jack wanted to hide under the table. Instead, he froze, the spoon halfway to his mouth.

Gail said, ‘I told you, Kev. It’s Susie’s boy.’

Kevin continued to stare. Jack couldn’t move.

‘Where’s Quin? I’m gonna wring his fucking neck!’

Kevin turned to find Quin behind him. With a hand on Quin’s shoulder, Kevin directed him out the back door and the two disappeared to shout at each other in the backyard.

I told you he was coming and Susie was in Sydney and You’re such a dickhead, Quin and Jesus, Kev, calm down and What was I supposed to do? You were in bloody jail and Wasn’t my fault! and I couldn’t just leave him and What the fuck is wrong with you, Quin? and on and on.

‘It’s alright,’ Gail said to Jack. ‘Don’t worry about Kevin. They always fight like that.’

Despite her reassurance, Jack walked on eggshells when Kevin was around. Kevin was quick to slap him whenever a smart-arse reply leaked out. And if Jack annoyed him, sometimes by his mere presence, he’d grab an implement— a wooden spoon or a spatula—from the kitchen, hound Jack into his room and bark at him to stay out of his way. Jack was usually quick enough to dodge him. Not always. Because Quin was rarely there, Gail was the buffer between them when Kevin arced up because Jack had smart-mouthed him or made a mess.

‘What’s all this shit on the table? Hey, kid, clean up your bloody— ’

‘Leave him alone, Kev, it’s his homework!’ Gail was not averse to brandishing a household weapon herself. It amused Jack— not that he would ever show it— that she could still intimidate her son with a wooden spoon.

‘Where’s Quin? Leaves his fucking kid here and— ’

‘Language, Kev.’ Gail slapped Kevin’s arm with her spoon. ‘Quin’s out with the band. He’ll be back later.’

One of Jack’s schoolbooks contained a picture of a highlander in tartan— a red-haired man with a ferocious face, wielding a massive sword— that always came to mind when Kevin was angry. Jack showed it to Gail, who told him McNally was an Irish name, not Scottish. She didn’t see the resemblance.

Kevin painted houses for a living. He’d apprenticed with his late father and drove an old ute with his father’s name on it. The work was patchy and Kevin’s enthusiasm for it was lacklustre, which meant he was often home during the day. In the evenings, he sometimes went out with Quin to the pub or band rehearsal or wherever it was Quin went. Jack was always relieved to see him go.

A few months later, Jack twigged that Kevin and Quin were up to something. They talked into the night, drinking beer and chain-smoking cigarettes. Jack, hiding in the bedroom pretending to read, listened with ghoulish fascination to the conversation in the lounge.

Piece of cake, Quin said.

We need a man around the back. Kevin was more cautious and, though Jack hated to admit it, much smarter.

The job was a 3 am hit on a convenience store. Jack pretended to be asleep when Quin snuck out and when he snuck back in.

For a few weeks, Kevin was in a good mood, and both men threw money around. Jack got new sneakers, they had takeaway pizza, and Kevin bought Gail a flat-screen television. The money burned a hole in Quin’s pocket: he went to the Flemington races and blew the rest of his share on a booze-up and a poorly considered trifecta. When Kevin laughed about it, Quin threw a punch at him. Jack peeked out from the bedroom as they flung fists and insults at each other and wrestled on the floor. There was no question who’d come out on top. Kevin outclassed Quin in every way. Gail’s wooden spoon intervened before any permanent injuries were inflicted.

Jack was worried that Quin’s behaviour would mean they had to leave— he’d lived in Gail’s house long enough to consider it home, despite Quin’s ongoing, futile search for affordable housing— but the next day it was as though nothing had happened. Kevin and Quin sat at the kitchen table smoking and drinking coffee together, talking about the football, while Gail cooked scrambled eggs for breakfast.

‘You alright, Jack?’ she said, sensing him loitering in the hallway.

‘I’m good.’ He sat at the table, keeping Quin between him and Kevin, fascinated by the colours in the bruising around Quin’s left eye. He wondered why they called it a black eye, when it was actually purple and green. Quin and Kevin both reached for the tomato sauce at the same time and laughed at each other.

‘Don’t worry about these two,’ Gail said, waving her cigarette at the two men. ‘They’ve been fighting like that since they were your size. Not going to stop now.’

A year later, Jack sat in the passenger seat, nursing his right wrist on his lap, while Quin drove. The stitches throbbed as the local anaesthetic wore off. The nurse had given him a sandwich, which he’d finished in seconds, and a strawberry Chupa Chup, which was dissolving in his cheek.

‘Are we going home now?’

Quin fiddled with the car radio. ‘Yeah. See if Kev’s calmed down.’ And then, ‘Fuck.’

He pulled the car to the kerb and wound down the window. Jack swivelled in his seat. Red and blue lights flashed on the car behind them. Two coppers emerged and came to the driver’s-side window. They peered into the interior while Quin rifled through his wallet for his licence.

‘It’s a seventy zone. We clocked you at eighty-four.’

Quin handed over his licence. ‘Do I get a ticket?’

The officer nodded. His gaze rested on Jack’s bandaged wrist. ‘Kids are safer in the back.’

‘Jack, get in the back.’ Quin cast the words at him sideways.

The policeman waited while Jack cleared a space in the back seat and found a seatbelt. ‘Stay here while we sort out the paperwork.’

Quin’s gaze fixed on the rear-view mirror. ‘Fucking cops. Picked up for speeding, now?’

Jack finished his lollipop and looked for somewhere to stash the stick. He turned to peer through the rear windshield at the police car. The two policemen got out of their car and returned to the driver’s side with purposeful strides.

‘Mr Quinlan, we need you to step out of the car. There’s a warrant— ’

‘What?’ Quin’s feigned surprise didn’t fool anyone. He floored the accelerator and shot out into the traffic, leaving the two shocked policemen in his wake.

Jack twisted to watch. They were back in their car in seconds, and in pursuit.

The agitation in Quin’s voice as he shouted at other drivers to get out of his way scared Jack more than the speeding vehicle or the screeching tyres. Quin’s palm stayed rammed against the horn as he swerved from lane to lane. Jack clamped his hands around the doorhandle beside him and clamped his mouth shut. He was so terrified he feared he might piss his pants. Cars and houses and street signs flashed past as they sped along the suburban road.

Police sirens faded in and out and multiplied Quin took a left-hand corner too fast, panicked and slammed on the brakes. The tyres squealed as they lost traction. The car careened onto the wrong side of the road and slammed into the driver’s side of an oncoming vehicle. Metal crunched as the two vehicles crumpled, and the airbag exploded into Quin’s face. Jack was thrown into his seatbelt and hit his head against the back of the seat in front.

His vision went blurry. Noise filled his ears and pain split his head. His stomach heaved and he tasted vomit. When he put his hand to his forehead, it came away sticky with blood.

The front door was wrenched open and Quin was dragged out.

The copper who’d made Jack sit in the back forced open his door, helped him unbuckle the seatbelt, then asked questions about where he hurt. Jack couldn’t answer; his tongue was as shocked as the rest of him. He vomited on the wheel of the car and his legs melted under him until he hit the asphalt. He couldn’t see properly. The noises around him funnelled away.

‘Just as well you weren’t in the front seat,’ the cop said, and Jack snapped his attention to the car. The front of the car had been crushed by the collision. The airbag had saved Quin’s life. The cop had saved Jack’s.

Jack vomited again, and then a woman in a different uniform told him she was a paramedic and would he like a ride in an ambulance?

‘Yeah,’ Jack said, as his vision turned to stars in a black night.

He was cheated. He remembered nothing of the ambulance. He remembered little of the next few days. Stitches in his eyebrow. Nurses both kind and stern. Not knowing where Quin was. A thumping headache that worsened whenever he opened his eyes. A doctor told him he had a concussion, but his scan was okay and not to worry. Jack felt cheated again; he didn’t remember having a scan.

He did remember having two visitors in his hospital room. Both were women, and both had clipboards. One was a police officer, who told Jack she would be grateful if he could answer some questions. The other was a social worker, who interrupted many times; Jack figured she was there because Quin wasn’t, because he was a kid and shouldn’t have to answer questions from the police, and because his father had endangered his life and there were concerns about his safety . . .

The questions were easy at first but quickly progressed to dangerous territory. ‘What happened to your hand?’

‘It wasn’t anyone’s fault.’ If it was anyone’s fault, it was his own, for coming out of his room when Kevin and Quin were fighting in the kitchen. He should have known Kevin would grab something off the bench to throw at him. And he should have ducked the knife, instead of throwing up his arm to block it.

Quin had told him not to talk to cops. Jack couldn’t resist direct questions, but he kept some things to himself. For example, he didn’t say that Kevin and Quin had attempted a job together the night before, which they abandoned when they realised they’d been caught on CCTV. Neither Quin nor Jack had expected Kevin to go quite as ballistic as he did, throwing knives around and threatening to kill people.

A feisty public defender helped keep Quin out of jail. Got a kid to look after, was part of the argument. A community corrections order and a good behaviour bond kept him in line for a year. Kevin’s parole was revoked. He went back to prison and blamed Quin for the whole mess. Jack wondered if their friendship would survive.

Kev always calms down eventually, Quin said, with a shrug. You know what he’s like.

Gail’s house was different without Kevin. Not quieter— Quin made a lot of noise, with his constant chatter and his guitar and his inability to sit still— but it seemed to Jack as though order was restored, like the feeling after a storm when the rain has ended and the sky clears. Quin’s community service, removing graffiti from walls in the city, had him out of the house every day. Keeping my head down, he said, which amused Jack because Quin wore high-vis overalls and an orange hard hat. He was far from subtle.

Jack wondered how long the peace would last once Kevin was released. He asked Gail, while eating breakfast cereal after school one day, how long her son would be in jail.

‘Well, he’ll be lucky to get parole.’ She flicked ash off her cigarette. ‘Two years, give or take. Lucky it was just attempted robbery this time. They couldn’t prove he was armed.’

Jack held his tongue. He figured luck was irrelevant in either case, but Gail was Kevin’s mother, so he cut her some slack.

Quin, arriving home with his usual soundtrack of slammed doors, dumped bag and discarded boots, overhead the end of the conversation and called out from the hallway. ‘Don’t worry, Jack. We’ll find a place to live before he gets out.’

‘Yeah,’ Gail said with a sigh. ‘I reckon that’s a good idea.’

Extracted from Stillwater by Tanya Scott