Fraser picked him up. ‘Thanks, Liv. It was good of you to sacrifice your coat like that,’ he said.
‘My pleasure. Not my coat,’ said Liv wielding the scissors.
‘What?’ Fraser did a double take. ‘That’smycoat!’
‘Whoops,’ said Liv with a shrug. ‘Still, it died for a good cause.’
Dolly was overjoyed to be reunited with Jock’O, who seemed happy to be back in the safety of Dolly’s lap. ‘Right, now he’s safe we have another issue.’
‘What now?’ asked Fraser.
‘The guests are a bit… well one of them used the word “traumatised” by the toppling Christmas tree episode and Shanie was encouraging Aaron to look into solicitors. She said where there’s blame there’s a claim.’
‘You see. I said no good would come from this.’ Fraser began pacing. ‘You try and help people and this is the thanks you get. We should have left them in the snow,’ he muttered.
Dolly gave him a hard stare. ‘I think we need to do something,’ she said. ‘But what can we do?’
‘We need to find ways to turn this miserable moment into a memorable one for the right reasons,’ said Liv.
‘Ooh like when I gave them shortbread,’ said Effie.
‘Exactly. Any ideas?’ She was met by blank faces. She decided to reword it. ‘What can we do to make things even better for each of the guests?’
‘Ooh,’ said Effie thrusting her hand in the air.
‘You don’t need to put your hand up.’
‘Sorry,’ said Effie. ‘Robbie could play the bagpipes for them.’ Robbie sat up straight and grinned.
‘Nooooooo,’ said Liv turning it into a cough when she saw the disappointment on Robbie’s face. ‘I think that’s a um… special occasion thing. And we should save that for when they leave as a proper Scottish send-off,’ she said, pleased with her improvisation.
‘Maybe see if we can get a television signal,’ said Dolly.
‘I’ll take a look,’ said Robbie and he and Dolly left.
‘Shanie is desperate to get on the internet because she’s bored. What could she do instead?’ asked Effie.
‘Read a book,’ said Liv with a shrug.
‘Genius!’ said Effie. ‘I’ll show her the library.’
‘She’s seen the library, Effie. And I’m not being mean but the books you have in there are not exactly TikTok’s finest. I’ve a steamy romcom in my room; I’ll see if she fancies reading it.’
‘Great idea. What about Aaron and Kacey? What can we get them?’ asked Effie.
‘They’reina steamy romcom so maybe an annual subscription to Lovehoney?’ said Liv with a grin.
‘I don’t know if they even like honey but if you think—’
‘It was a joke. Lovehoney is a… well, it’s a website for um… This is like explaining the birds and the bees to Winnie the Pooh.’
‘Pooh knew all about honey. You’d not need to explain it to him,’ said Effie.
‘You’re absolutely right. Let’s give Aaron and Kacey the gift of private time.’
‘Good idea because they’re probably having lots of sex,’ said Effie.
Liv laughed. ‘Got it in one.’ Effie was clearly more worldly-wise than Liv had given her credit for. ‘Anything else we could do?’
