A Powerful Epic: Read an Extract from One Night at Silver Lake by Katherine Scholes

ONE

Tanzania, East Africa

1967

Sara sat in the chair nearest the window, her handbag settled in her lap. Glancing sideways, she exchanged a tense smile with her husband. Richard’s face was gleaming with sweat. He was watching the doctor who sat in front of them, flicking through papers in a manila folder. From the open window came the calls of street hawkers, switching from Swahili to English and back as they named their wares. Cars and motorbikes honked their horns. Beneath the tang of antiseptic that hung in the air of the consulting room was the heavy smell of over-ripe pawpaw.

Closing the folder, Dr Singh pushed his chair away from his desk as if to create as much distance as possible between him- self and his two patients. Sara searched the man’s face for clues to what he was about to say. His mouth was half hidden by his moustache, his dark eyes unreadable. As the silence stretched out, she shifted her gaze, focusing on his blue turban – the way it was wound so neatly. She imagined his hair coiled up inside, a long black rope of it, never trimmed in his entire life.

‘The results are clear. We have the information we need.’ As he spoke, the doctor nodded slowly, as though inviting the couple to agree in advance with what he was going to say.

Sara clasped her hands together, her fingernails pressing into her skin.

‘Mr Brayden, the problem lies with you.’

Sara caught her breath. In all the time she’d been trying to fall pregnant, the focus had been on her – her monthly…

Continue reading the extract here.

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