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‘Right. Yes. Angus, would you mind? It’s just that Mae’ll eat anything she can find, and I wouldn’t want you to lose your vegetables or whatever.’ Ben bounced on the balls of his feet, a little impatiently.
‘Ah, right! Yes, go round. I’ll come with ye.’ Angus went to one side of the house, and Ben followed Liz to the other.
‘There she is!’ Ben whispered from behind Liz.
Sure enough, a large goat stood in the middle of a well-kept lawn at the back of the cottage. She was chewing something that definitely wasn’t a plant and staring back at Liz and Ben with a contemptuous look on her narrow face.
‘Look, she’s got a sock from the clothes line!’ she whispered. Angus – or someone else at the cottage – had obviously hung out laundry at some point, and Mae seemed to have chosen one of a number of white socks from the line to eat.
‘Oh, goodness,’ Ben muttered. ‘Well, I guess it could be worse.’
‘Angus’ pants, you mean,’ Liz murmured back, stifling a sudden giggle.
‘Liz! It’s not funny,’ Ben shushed her. ‘Did you see that guy? He could eat me for breakfast. Now I have to explain to him that my goat’s eating his underwear.’
‘Come on. It is abitfunny.’ Liz started laughing out loud as Angus appeared at the other side of the garden and took in Mae with the sock in her mouth.
Ben edged past Liz and started to move towards Mae, making a clicking sound.
‘Mae, be a good girl. Come on,’ he crooned. The goat eyed him and continued chewing. ‘Mae-Mae. Who’s a good girl?’ he continued, reaching out his hand. Liz watched as Angus crept up on the goat from the other side of the garden. She was laughing so hard now that she couldn’t have helped if she’d tried.
Mae skipped a few steps away from Ben, as if she knew what he was up to.She probably does,Liz thought.
‘Mae. Don’t be silly. We both know what’s going to happen here.’ Ben reprimanded the goat sternly, which set Liz off even more. ‘Liz. It’s not funny,’ he called out, casting an amused glance at her. ‘You could help, you know.’
Liz held onto the gate and wiped her eyes, still giggling. It was the goat’s face that really did it: there was something in her flat eyes with their odd, striped pupils that spoke of mayhem.
‘I can’t,’ she managed to stutter. Ben grinned at her and started to laugh.
However, as if Mae knew that Ben was temporarily distracted, she made a break for it and ran straight at Angus, the white sock still in her mouth.
‘Aghhh!’ Angus flailed for a moment and then stood stock still, staring Mae straight in the eye as she ran at him. Ben flung himself after Mae, and as the goat collided with the mountainous Angus, Ben landed on top of them both in one confused man-goat tangle.
‘Ben!’ Liz ran over to them, temporarily concerned that someone had hurt themselves, but Ben looked up at her, smiling. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine. Angus bore the brunt of it.’ Ben got to his knees, carefully holding Mae’s collar. The fall seemed to have surprised her, and though she got to her feet readily, she seemed unharmed. ‘Damn goat! Angus, I’m so sorry for all this,’ he added.
‘Ah, no harm done.’ Angus dusted himself off and stood up. ‘Not every day I get tae wrestle a goat in ma own back garden,’ he chuckled. ‘Would ye like some tea? Ye might need it after that.’
‘That’s kind, Angus, but I better get this one home.’ Ben tapped Mae on the head. ‘So sorry, again. I’ll replace the sock.’
‘Nae bother. I’ve got more.’ Angus shrugged. ‘Good tae meet ye, Miss… sorry, I forgot yer name.’
‘Liz Parsons. I’ll come and say a proper hello another time. When I don’t have a mad goat in tow.’ Liz opened the cottage’s side door, standing back so that Ben could hustle Mae through it. ‘Come on. Let’s get her back home.’
As Liz followed Ben and the goat onto the pathway that ran alongside all the cottages, she reflected that, sometimes, it was nice to embrace the unexpected. There was no way that she could have predicted her morning so far, and she liked that. She liked the fact that in Loch Cameron, her life was different. Anything might happen, and that made her hopeful.
SIXTEEN
‘We need some kind of local angle. I’m thinking a new range that can revive the Loch Cameron brand.’ Liz stood at the head of the board room table and pointed to the screen behind her, which showed the traditional logo and bottle labels Loch Cameron Distillery was known for. ‘People respect the Loch Cameron brand, and they recognise that it’s historic and family-run. But our market share is – frankly – abysmal. Almost every other single malt distiller sells three times or more than we do per year, and most of them have updated their messaging, their sales outlets, the way they reach people. Look at all these other traditional, family-run distilleries’ Instagram accounts. See how they’re interacting with customers here?’ Liz flicked through a few slides showing the Instagram accounts of some of their competitor distilleries.
Ben opened the door to the board room and gestured to Liz to continue.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said, his face curiously blank. ‘Had a last-minute thing I had to attend to.’
‘No problem.’ Liz continued with her presentation, but she was slightly annoyed at Ben’s lateness to the meeting. It wasn’t like she didn’t know meetings overran, and schedules got busy at the last minute – especially for CEOs. But Liz had seen Ben in his office five minutes before the meeting started, sipping coffee with Henry curled up by his feet.
It didn’t seem like that was too much of an emergency.
