Mornington-By-Mere is a small country village lying in the Finchbottom Vale nestled between the Ancient Dancingdean Forest and the rolling Pepperstock Hills.
It is a quaint picturesque village, a proper chocolate box picturesque
idyll, with a Manor House, 12th Century Church, a Coaching Inn,
Windmills, an Old Forge, a Schoolhouse, a River and a Mere.
In addition there were a number of cottages and small
houses on the Purplemere road and Dulcets Lane which form the part of
Mornington Village known as Manorside where Martin Carnell lived with his wife
Julie in a small two bedroom cottage on the banks of the River Brooke.
On New Year’s Day he
woke up annoyingly early, having had a disturbed night, as he was unable to
sleep, and the reason for that was a guilty conscience.
So he got up and left
Julie sleeping and went downstairs where he sat in the kitchen drinking coffee
and thinking about the source of his anxiety.
What was bothering him
was the simple fact that he had lied to his wife.
They had only been
married for a few months and up until that Christmas he had never done it
before, and in the space of a few days he had done it twice, and his deceit
hung heavy on his mind.
The first time was on
Boxing Day when he feigned a migraine to avoid driving to Childean to spend the
day with his parents and the second was on New Year’s Eve when he told her that
the car battery was flat so they couldn’t get to Shallowfield for a party at
her sister’s house.
Two totally different
lies but both motivated by the same thing and that was the desire two spend
every minute of their first Christmas and New Year on their own.
He quickly made a New
Year’s resolution to never lie to Julie again.
They were due to eat
New Year’s Day lunch at her parent’s house in Forestdean, which he didn’t want
to go to because he wanted to keep Julie all to himself, but he had no choice
he couldn’t lie again so at nine o’clock he stopped his ruminations and made
Julie a cup of tea.
Five minutes later, tea
mug in hand, he was on his way upstairs to wake his lovely wife when the phone
rang, so he stopped and did a U-turn and picked up the phone.
“Hello”
“Martin?” the voice
said “it’s Gordon”
Gordon was Julie’s
Dad.
“Hi Gordon, Happy New
Year” he said
“Yes Happy New Year”
he responded vaguely
“Is everything ok?”
Martin asked
“No” he replied, “not
at all, it’s Maggie”
Maggie was his wife,
“She’s been throwing
up most of the night, so we thought it best to cancel lunch as a precaution” he
continued “I’m sorry to let you down”
“Nonsense” Martin
said, as he punched the air, “These things happen”
“I suspect it’s been
brought on by two much rich food” Gordon elaborated “but just in case it is a
bug we have decided to quarantine ourselves”
Martin suspected it was
more likely brought on by too much Pinot but he didn’t say that, instead he
just said
“Very sensible”
After he had put down
the phone he continue his journey up the stairs to his sleeping wife.
After tiptoeing into
the room he put her tea on the bedside cabinet and slipped into bed beside her.
Once he was under the
covers he leant over and kissed her neck and as she stirred he cuddled up
behind her and began kissing her ear.
“We don’t have time
for that” she purred
“Oh I think we do” he
retorted and nibbled her lobe.
“No we don’t” she
reiterated “You’re forgetting about lunch at my parents”
“No I’m not, it’s been
cancelled” he told her and she rolled onto her back and gave him a suspicious
look
“Why?”
“Your mum’s throwing
up” Martin said “Your Dad thinks it might be a bug”
“It’s more likely too
much Pinot” Julie said and laughed, until her demeanour changed suddenly.
“So we don’t have to
get up and go out” she mused
“Correct” he agreed
“Oh goody” Julie said
and wrapped herself around him “We get to spend the whole day together just the
two of us”
“We do” he said and
kissed her
“And without
pretending to have a migraine or a flat battery” Julie added
“What?”
“You know perfectly
well what” she said
“You mean you knew all
along?” he asked
“Of course”
“So why didn’t you say
something?” Martyn asked
“Because I didn’t want
to go either” she admitted and kissed him passionately which lead to them
having a very late lunch at home.
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