To Go Completely Under

A Sudden Lavender’s publication made headlines countrywide, and even garnered moderate attention far beyond our waters, with a rave review appearing notably in the Huddersfield Times of Huddersfield.  In our own paper, the new film reviewer was tasked with doing a write-up for it and I the job of editing said piece. 

A Sudden Lavender

Heller Press

Review by Leonora Boyle

It took me a while to get into but eventually I was hooked.  A great, romantic, thrilling, epic, depressing, and often stomach-churningly funny memoir.  What a life he lived in so short a time.  Gone but not forgotten.  Yes.

The review felt more like an obituary.  And was about the length of a common blurb.  Its brevity was not due to the range of vocabulary accessible to the writer, nor was it a result of my editing.  A period of austerity had come upon The Martlet and some general downsizing was underway.  Which was also the reason for Leonora’s scope now widening so as to cover books as well as films.  As well as restaurants.  And sports.  And courts.  The newspaper’s circulation had experienced decline since the Scouring Tout debacle.  Sales had gone down by about 3000 in a matter of weeks.  Total devastation for a gazette of its renown.  Lavery had come under enormous pressure from the Gilgan family to pay up for the loss of their favourite son.  A reparative donation went their way but it was not enough – they required the whole business to suffer, to go completely under, if need be, so next targeted the paper’s advertising revenue, scaring off local companies that were essential to The Martlet’s running.  And this was not the only crowd to be scared off.  Due to the severe public outcry in recent months, Lavery started to lose the backing he usually had from those county higher-ups, among them magistrates and elected officials, who were now more interested in saving their own skins than helping a mutual conniver.  With a heavy heart, Lavery ordered a significant reduction in pages from the time-honoured 32 to a paltry 23.  And of course with less acreage available for text it was only right for our office hours to come down too.  And then eventually – inevitably – lay-offs.   Fitz was first to go.  I can’t say I ever liked the man with the everlastingly-long face, didn’t much care for the grief he’d give me in the course of fulfilling my own professional obligations.  In tribute to my character, however, I empathised with his predicament.  Next on the firing line was Denis Watson.  A legendary typesetter in the business, he’d worked through the hot metal and phototype eras until the digital revolution stubbed out his regular puff and his role was minimised to doing general maintenance about the place.  I was sorry to see him go even though we hadn’t known each other well, hardly ever spoke.  If in the future I happened to see him in town, you could be sure I would say hello and I was confident he’d have the kindness in him to reciprocate. 

Anxiety levels were high with all of us at the paper, none more so than myself who had aided and abetted the Berrills and was now blamed by a great many in the office for the paper’s tenuous situation.  It had caused me to neglect my duties to some extent, hence the survival of the word stomach-churningly in Ms. Boyle’s review, a word which would not have escaped my shears on any other occasion.  As luck would have it, I was not let go.  It appeared for some reason Lavery wanted me to stay, or just wasn’t that bothered by my existence.  I never imagined he had any outstanding fondness for me.  Unless a knack for spelling words somewhat well was a quality he especially admired in people.  Caitríona Colreavy also stayed.  Though the office was small, she and I were able to gently keep out of one another’s hair.  I can’t say that I was not upset by this fresh aversion to me as I continued to harbour strong lust for the woman, but by and by I was content with her guarding her personal space going forward considering the plain fact she was married to an enormous bastard, so more power to the pair of them if you ask me.