Letters from the Village

By James B. Rieley

Letters from the Village is the story of David Somerset, a double-ex-pat who is relationship challenged, who was raised in a fast-moving, high-tech, ‘go do it’ environment and then move to an island in the Mediterranean where the term slow takes on a whole new meaning; weaving a story that tells how he copes with relationships, culture, and happiness on the island of Mallorca...and survives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James B. Rieley
• Release date: Dec 13, 2009
• ISBN: 9781301747818

James B. Rieley

James B. Rieley is an advisor to CEO’s of large global organisations. He is the author of Gaming the System (FT/Prentice Hall), Leadership (Hodder), Strategy and Performance (Hodder), and Change and Crisis Management (Hodder). Letters from the Village is his first work of fiction. He lives on the island of Mallorca and can be reached at [e-mail]

Book preview

1

I had no idea that there were that many SUV’s in the world. The road was littered with them. Ironically, it seemed as if none of the ones whizzing past had ever seen anything remotely looking like a mountain or dirt. It was if the SUV was the latest incarnation of a limousine, and after all, I was in Los Angeles where it seemed as if this was the best and worst of everything…and the level of opulence was so high it was if the entire place was on steroids.

I was amazed at what I was seeing, and even contemplated trying to figure out where they were going. Rushing off to a business meeting? Heading out on the school run to pick up an overly indulged child? Perhaps just driving around to make sure that someone would see them. The reality was that I had no idea where all the drivers of these behemoths were going, and truth be told, I really didn’t give a shit. I was just trying to get through the traffic on the way back to LAX, but it almost seemed that they believed they were all on some mission of anal retentive urgency, most of them babbling into a mobile phone whilst their vehicles were spewing God-knows-how-many tons of carbon emissions as they tried to scurry between the shopping malls that were littered along the highway. Yes, it was warm. Yes, the sun poured down on the land making this a near paradise. But even though I was a pretty happy camper, all I wanted to do was get the hell out of there and return to the life I had made for myself.

As my stress level soared to new heights as I fought my way down the motorway, I recognized the gravely voice of Randy Newman coming out of the speakers that seemed to be hidden all over the interior of the hire car I was driving.

"Rollin down the Imperial Highway. With a big nasty redhead at my side. Santa Ana winds blowin’ hot from the north. And we was born to ride. Roll down the window. Put up the top. Crank up the Beach Boys baby. Don’t let the music stop." Okay, so I was on the San Diego Freeway, not the Imperial Highway. I didn’t have a big nasty redhead at my side. I didn’t even have a Beach Boys CD with me; but on that day, I sure did love L.A.

In the desperately long meeting I had just left at the Chateau Marmont, I had been able to convince the producers who had taken out an option on the book I had written that it certainly could be made into a movie, and I was the one to do the screenplay for it. I had pretty much zoned-out of the meeting after I heard the words, ‘Okay, you get to do the screenplay’ and was marginally oblivious to the conversation as it drifted to mentioning names of Hollywood-types that I suppose I should have know. I just sat there with a glazed look on my face – I was chuffed beyond belief. My book, being made into a full-length romantic comedy, and I was going to get to write the screenplay. Shit. Unfuckingbelievable.

Of course, there was that little thing about the fact that I wasn’t sure that it was all that funny, or even that it was a story about romance. When I was writing it, I just assumed that it was an ongoing commentary about my life after I moved from the high-tech, fast-moving, never-static environment of London and found myself living in a tiny little village in the middle of a Mediterranean island where the term ‘slow’ took on a whole new meaning. Letters from the Village seemed like such an appropriate title, and the fact that it was based on actual letters I had written to friends about my experiences made it even more appropriate. And whilst I did have some concerns about the direction the whole project was going, there was that retainer check firmly ensconced in my pocket that I was given to begin the project. The check did sort of offset my immediate other concerns.

After returning the car at the airport, I felt as it I had just entered the dead-zone where all you did was stand around and get older. The queues for security, made Heathrow appear to be childs-play. Standing amongst the throngs who must have measured their importance by the branding on their carry-ons, I kept thinking that whilst writing a screenplay was one of those bucket-list things for me, now I would actually have to do it. Sort of one of those ‘be careful what you wish for moments’ I supposed.

Eventually I did make it to the head of the queue and after almost falling asleep in the lounge, the flight announcement brought me back to reality and I boarded the jumbo jet that would take me back to the land of sanity. As I found 3C, I couldn’t help but look around and I wonder how many of these passengers were going to write a screenplay. From the looks of the passengers in the rest of the First Class cabin, probably none of them but that was also probably because they were too important to do any work. Today, I couldn’t agree more with Mr. Newman…I loved L.A., but I still wanted desperately to get back to the island. By the time the purser brought me my pre-take-off glass of bubbly, I had turned on my computer and begun to look at some of the letters to see exactly what I had just been contracted to write a screenplay for.

2

When the plane had landed in Madrid, I was admittedly pretty knackered. I have no idea how frequent travellers do it. I had dozed off a bit I think but my mind was too busy vacillating between utter excitement about the prospects of my book becoming a movie and near panic about the contract I had signed to write the screenplay. And if the flight from Los Angeles to Madrid wasn’t enough, I now had to wait another two hours before the next flight would actually take me home. I plopped down in the Business Class lounge and pondered what I had been reading on the flight.

Okay, so some of the letters weren’t exactly demonstrations of my literary genius, which I have always thought was suspect to begin with. They really weren’t supposed to be some literary genius output. Shit, I hadn’t been going for the Booker Prize; I had just written a series of letters to friends and family so they could try to get their heads around what I was experiencing after I made the conscious decision to transition from one life-style to another. My life had gone through some serious changes, but I was open to the fact that this might only be the start. Well, sort of.

I had been living alone for some time. My second wife had moved back to where she was from in America years earlier and after finding myself once again divorced, I vowed that I would never again let myself be hurt that much. To me, solving this would be easy. I would simply no longer let myself become immersed in a long-term, serious relationship. Being in a serious relationship meant that I would be exposing myself to more possible pain, and after two relationships that resulted in me feeling totally gutted was too big of a risk to my mental and physical health. I just wouldn’t open myself up to that again. For the past years I really had done pretty well, but admittedly, there were times when I longed to have someone be a part of my life again. Now don’t mis-understand me; it wasn’t as if I was living a monastic life. But to me, there was a big difference between some serious dating and letting myself slip into being in a serious relationship. I was doing just fine, and I had planned on things staying that way.

After the first leg of my return to the island, I was now pretty exhausted and to avoid falling asleep in the lounge and missing the flight from Madrid, I began to almost inhale several bottles of Coke-Light to stay awake. But as that just made me feel like shit and tired, I decided I needed get out of the lounge and get some fresh air. In all honesty, for someone like me, the phrase ‘getting some fresh air’ usually is