Unconfirmed Reports

Shouts going out to Daniel Gloag, who has finished the manuscript of this second novel, Love and Airports, all 80,000 words of it. From what I’ve seen of it, it looks pretty good. It begins like this:

Chapter 1

A young woman was wandering one of the arrivals lounges of the Incheon international airport, in Seoul, Korea. She was a woman of indeterminable origins, seeming at once Russian, Chinese, and even, strangely enough, Navaho. She was about five foot ten and had a large body with small feet. Her nose was set perfectly in the centre of her face, her eyes were chocolate brown, and she had the sort of profile people loved to sketch with a single line on the back of a cafe napkin. She wore too much make-up. He eyelashes were unusually thick, dark and straight, and they pointed down wards like small brooms over her eyes. She had the long straight black hair of an asian, but it was thick and strong like she’d been raised on a celtic isle and never washed.
Being dark outside, her image was reflected clearly in the glass. She wore a long grey skirt, underneath which were thick black stockings. Her socks were bright white, her shoes were leather. She carried a coat under one arm, and wore a black blazer like a student. She wore a grey turtle neck. She towed behind her a tiny bag, made especially for air-travel. It was attached to her hand by a long extendable handle
Who was this mysterious woman?
Slowly she walked through the early morning airport. Through the windows, jet planes lazed on the tarmac, lights flashed on service vehicles and wardens waved signs and flags. Another woman rushed up to her.
“Jackye, you better come quickly. We’re being relocated.”
Jackye and the other westerner hurried to the bay where they had been waiting for the better part of four hours. Their plane had made a forced landing in Korea. All the passengers had been sitting about a small emergency lounge waiting for some explanation. It was a Japanese flight, heading to London. There were lots of pissed off people on that flight. Only Jackye seemed to have enjoyed the debacle. She breathed in the smell of the air conditioning like she was getting high from it.