AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Liz had rented the cottage unseen, apart from the photos on the website. So, when she had first walked in, she had been slightly dreading a cottage reeking of mildew and full of dusty trinkets. However, she couldn’t have been more delighted with Gretchen’s cottage – and when she laid out on the pink chaise longue, she felt like a decadent socialite.If only there were someone to feed me chocolate-dipped strawberries,she’d thought jokingly to herself.
Liz let herself in with the key she’d found under a plant pot when she’d arrived a week before. Gretchen had asked a local friend to leave it there for Liz, as she couldn’t get out so easily nowadays.Scones and bridge tournaments, that’s how they get you,she’d exclaimed brightly on the phone when Liz had rung the care home number and been put through to Gretchen’s room.You think you’re moving into a care home, and then you realise it’s a geriatric cult. Honestly, Liz, if it’s not whist, it’s canasta and I just can’t spare the time to get over to the cottage much now, not being able to drive any more.
Liz had liked Gretchen straight away and promised to come over and visit her soon.
Well, that would be lovely. ButI will come and visit when you’re settled, dear. Till then, the cottage’ll look after you. It’s a little bit magic like that,Gretchen had assured her.
Liz walked into the sunny kitchen and dropped her handbag on a blue leather Chesterfield-style chair which faced a blackened fireplace. The Chesterfield was very comfortable, despite the fact that it was losing some of its stuffing. A large wooden dresser stood at one end, showcasing a beautiful array of vintage crockery, and the large window overlooked a cottage garden full of bright wildflowers.
Liz filled a copper kettle with water and placed it on the old range cooker, flicking a switch as she did so. Then, she reached for a mug and a floral porcelain teapot. She’d got quite into making tea in the teapot, the slow, old-fashioned way.
She sat down in a floral easy chair next to the kitchen table and breathed out a long sigh. A lot of things in Loch Cameron seemed to move in the slow, old-fashioned way, and some of it – like Gretchen’s cottage – was charming. But some things were rather frustrating.
For instance, she’d had a bit of an opportunity to look at the sales reports for the company that afternoon, after she and Sally had gone through some of the main financial records, and it wasn’t encouraging reading. Her predecessor, Brian, who had apparently been in the job for twenty years, seemed to think that taking the owners of a few independent off-licenses out for a boozy dinner every month was the key to successful sales. Seeing as Brian had retired with liver disease, Liz thought it was likely that approach hadn’t worked out particularly well for him.
There was no evidence that Brian had approached many of the major retailers for years; he seemed to believe that, if people wanted Loch Cameron Single Malt, then they’d buy it from one of the few independent sellers that stocked it. There seemed to be no awareness in the company at all that people would buy Loch Cameron whisky if they saw it in the supermarket, whether they knew the name or not: if people tried it and liked it, as they would, because it was good, then they’d buy it again. It wasn’t complicated.
Liz had come up against this kind of view before in the drinks industry. It was probably the same in any field: there were always small, specialist makers that wanted to be exclusive, desirable and collectible. And there were the big boys who sold a popular product everywhere, from petrol stations to airports and supermarkets. Both were good business models in very different ways. But the difference between Loch Cameron Distillery and a successful boutique drinks company was that Loch Cameron Distillery wasn’t making any money, and she wasn’t convinced that anyone had ever really intended the business to be so exclusive and hard to find in the first place.
Loch Cameron Distillery wasn’t exclusive and boutique-y. It was just poorly managed.
The challenge – her challenge now, as Sales Director – was to be able to present the big retailers with a compelling enough story to persuade them to stock Loch Cameron Distillery whisky in the first place, and that was what was missing. She’d learned plenty today about the distillery, and she knew it had an amazing history. But no one else did, and that was the problem.
For another thing, the distillery seemed to have little social media presence, and its marketing – now that she’d managed to have a quick look at what was out there – was only the old, traditional trade media, like the various whisky magazines that she knew only a certain sort of person subscribed to, and old-fashioned leaflet inserts in magazines aimed at the older generation: classic motoring, gardening and fishing titles that no one under the age of fifty read.
It wasn’t that it was bad, being over fifty, of course. It was just that Liz knew that only catering to one age group would bring the distillery limited success. Whisky was now considered a cool drink by young people, middle-aged hipsters, parents of young families and all kinds of other groups. It seemed that Loch Cameron Distillery was, however, not aware of this fact.
Liz poured her tea into the floral mug and gazed out at the wildflowers in the back garden, blowing gently in the breeze.
Well, here I am, she thought, sipping her drink.For better or worse. It was a world away from her old life, but, after all, that was what she had wanted. She was looking forward to throwing herself into something new.
The cottage’ll look after you. It’s a little bit magic like that, Gretchen had told her. She hoped that was true. Liz felt like she could do with some magic in her life right about now.
FOUR
The next morning, Liz arrived early at the distillery, keen to have time to reorganise her office before everyone arrived. The car park was empty, apart from a muddy pickup truck.Perhaps a gardener was doing an early shift, she thought, or, more likely, they had left it here overnight.
She had walked into work, leaving her car parked in the lane next to the cottage. Apart from a passing tractor and a couple of early dog walkers, the roads had been deserted. Liz had cut into a field for part of the way, following a flattened grass footpath past some cows who regarded her with equanimity.
As she’d walked along, Liz had marvelled at the deep green blanket of verdant luxury that surrounded her. The hedgerows at the edges of the fields were thick with red hawthorn berries and glossy holly, and little thrushes and great tits twittered in the occasional oaks that grew in between, flying in and out of the hedges. In the long grass at the edge of the flattened path, she came across a long white feather with a light brown stripe and held it up in amazement. She’d never been much of a one for wildlife, but it was so pretty that she decided to take it with her and ask someone at the distillery if they knew what it was. The feather felt like a good luck omen.
Liz took another deep breath of fresh lochside air. She’d been in Loch Cameron a week already, settling in to the cottage, but the clean atmosphere was still a revelation to her. All she could hear was birdsong, and there was a smell of pine in the air from the surrounding trees.
Pulling her laptop bag onto her shoulder as well as her handbag, she picked her way across the car park. She had worn walking boots for her walk into the office, and she had a pair of heels in her bag; she was keen to get into her office and change before anyone saw her in her smart suit and muddy boots. That would be a fine first impression to make on the elusive Ben Douglas, if he chose to appear at the wrong moment.
Walking into the cobbled courtyard, Liz was struck again by the beauty of the scene. Everything was so quaint, from the original cobbles to the whitewashed buildings – so like Gretchen’s cottage – and the hanging baskets and window-boxes that boasted an explosion of colourful blooms.
Liz wondered if there were regular tours around the distillery. It was standard practice at other whisky-makers, but if Loch Cameron Distillery wasn’t operating them, that felt like another missed opportunity. Surely, tourists would love to visit this charming location.
By now, she was developing a long list of questions for Ben and the other staff. Liz smiled to herself.Don’t make them hate you from sheer efficiency,she thought. She’d have to make a point of introducing her ideas slowly, not all at once, or she might put someone’s nose out of joint. Liz sighed and turned the key that Carol had given her at the end of the previous day in the side door that led to the corridor of offices.
There had been so many times in Liz’s career that she’d had to introduce her ideas carefully out of fear of outshining her boss, or hold back on forging ahead with what she knew was a great idea, to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. The more senior she’d got in sales, the more of a problem it had become: because she was a woman, other women perceived her as unfriendly or somehow betraying the sisterhood if she didn’t listen to their ideas, or want to have eternal meetings about everything rather than actually make a decision.
If I was a man, no one would have a problem with me being decisive,she thought for the hundredth time.
‘Early start?’
Liz looked up in surprise to see a tall, black-haired man dressed casually in jeans and a black T-shirt walking towards her. Her first thought was that he might be the gardener whose truck she had seen outside: he had a few days’ worth of stubble growth on his chin, and his skin had the kind of tan you only got by being outside a lot.
