A/N: Thank you for your reviews – See you after the weekend for Chapter 3. I hope everyone has a lovely Bank holiday break and that it warms up a bit, it's bl**dy freezing in Sussex, have just lit the fire.

-OG-

Let's Start a Brand New Story

She spent most of the evening thanking a benevolent god for the invention of alcohol as she and Bella downed glass after glass of slightly horrible white wine while telling herself that it wasn't like it was Vodka or Tequila or anything, so it didn't really count. It might not have been what she called 'real' booze, but the upshot was still a splitting headache the following morning and a face that looked as if she'd slept in it, not to mention a queasy stomach that made the thought of a bus ride out to Dulwich Village a really attractive prospect.

She'd made the terrible mistake of looking at the comments on-line, of looking at Twitter and Facebook, and had seen all these so-called friends she'd suddenly acquired, people had popped up that she hadn't seen or even thought about for donkeys but who were now pretending they cared deeply about how she was doing, whether she was coping. In fact what they really wanted were the gory details of what it had been like to shag a rock legend, whether he was any good, as if she'd know for fuck sake. Then there was the other lot, the ones who didn't know her but thought it was okay to go on about what a slut she was, how common she was, about how she wasn't even pretty, the ones who'd called her the poisoned dwarf after that actress whatever her name was and said as how she should be taken out and shot for trying to break up his happy marriage. The ones that thought that tarring and feathering would be too good for the likes of her and the one who'd started a petition to get her black-listed by every nanny agency in the world, let alone London, the one that had got all them likes…..

She'd closed everything down straight away and wished that she'd thought about doing it sooner because she recognised that some of the photos that had been in the tabloids had come from her Facebook profile, but she'd been just so bloody upset when it had all kicked off that she hadn't been thinking straight. Re-printing photos from last year's holiday had made it look like she'd posed in her bikini with this big happy grin on her gob for the sodding tabloid press, which was the last thing she would have done, but it made her look like she was some sort of exhibitionist who was enjoying all the attention as well as being a total tart.

-OG-

A tedious bus journey out to Dulwich Village took her to another world, it was the first time she'd ever been there and Molly thought it was beautiful, and way, way out of her league. Posh and expensive looking wasn't in it and no-one who lived in a place like that was going to take a chance on the tabloid press door-stepping them wanting to talk to the nanny about her sex life for fuck sake. She wondered whether she might as well spare herself the humiliation of being shown the door and get back on a bloody bus straight off, she would of done if it wasn't for what Simon would say to her if she didn't show up for the interview.

It was two hours before she finally got on a bus home, the nearer she'd got to the address the more stubborn and determined she'd got, Nan was right, it wasn't like she'd done anything wrong so she had to stop behaving as if she had.

Rebecca seemed a really nice lady, a few years older than Molly she'd put her at her ease straight off and had been really friendly as they'd talked about the little boy, Sam, and how she needed or rather she wanted someone to be there to help out with taking care of him when he was stopping with his dad for a couple of weeks because the dad wasn't long out of hospital and she was worried about him coping. Molly wondered for a moment whether or not she should ask for a bit more information, shit, she wasn't a nurse for fuck sake, what if the dad needed someone to take care of him?

Rebecca was so nice that Molly let it go, she was such a nice lady that she would say if that was the case, and not only was she really lovely, but she looked lovely as well. She was so soft spoken and posh, all shiny hair with manicured nails and her make-up was beautiful, if she was even wearing any cos you couldn't tell and she smelt expensive. She was also bloody wearing the sort of casual clothes that made Molly bitterly regret her own choice of outfit. Simon had said to dress like a nanny so she'd picked something that covered her tattoos and was as close to Mary Poppins as she could get, an outfit that had made Bella look her up and down and hoot with laughter as she asked whether she was going for a job as a prison guard, or was she just wanting to scare the shit out of the kid to make him do what he was told? Even her mum had looked at her a bit funny and asked her whether she was sure ….. .

The little boy wasn't there, he was a day boarder at some boarding school somewhere and Molly wasn't even sure what one of them was but didn't want to display her ignorance, she'd google it when she got home. Rebecca was so nice to her that Molly begun to feel awful that she was sort of deceiving her by not telling her any of the crap that had gone on. She wasn't comfortable keeping it secret and was afraid that they were bound to find out sooner or later and would then be bloody furious that she hadn't said, but before she could pluck up courage to put the kibosh on their cosy chat, Rebecca brought the subject up herself, saying she knew what had been in the papers, that Simon had filled her in on the details.

Molly made a mental note to ring him when she got out of there and say 'thanks a bleeding bunch mate' but kept her mouth shut, she couldn't be sure what he'd said, especially when Rebecca went on to say that it really didn't make that much difference and that you couldn't always believe what was in the gutter press anyway, and that they weren't famous so no-one would care, especially as they weren't even married any more. Molly did a quick revision of her opinion of Simon, and decided that maybe he wasn't such a fucker after all.

Rebecca finished by saying that she would ring him and confirm the details and Molly wanted to jump up and hug her as the other woman vanished to answer a phone ringing off the hook somewhere and she sat and waited in the sitting room with its gorgeous big soft white sofas, her feet on the blue and white Chinese rug and tears of relief prickled at the back of her eyes. She was trying her best not to listen as Rebecca was obviously having a difference of opinion with someone, an argument which was being conducted in a very low voice and which seemed to be taking a bleeding long time with lots of silences so that Molly wondered whether she should get up and close the door, give the woman a bit of privacy which she did and then started looking round the room, something she'd been too wound up to do before. She wandered over to look at all the photos on the window sill, wondering whether Rebecca would mind if she took a bit of a look, and decided it would be okay.

All of them seemed to be of a little boy with a lively smile, obviously Sam, but there was one in particular that made Molly wish she had a magnifying glass with her. It was a snap, in a large frame full of a mix of little snaps, mostly obviously taken on holidays, but this was of a tall man with dark hair wearing army uniform and standing a long way from the camera as he laughed with Sam, a man whose face looked familiar, even though the photograph was titchy and he was a long way off. She looked through all the rest of them to see if there was any more with him in them, but there weren't and it was one of those annoying things that happen sometimes when you see someone whose face you sort of recognise but you can't think where from, like when you see the bloke from the corner shop on the tube and can't place him. You know you know him, but ….. and then ….. and it was enough to give her a small shitfit. She could only hope that the world wasn't that small and that this bloke only looked a little bit like him, anyhow he didn't have to be the ex did he? He might be a family friend or a relative or something, anything, and that was if it was even him and she wasn't a bit sure.

-OG-

Memories of those days at Carlo's came flooding back as she sat on the bus going home, it all seemed so bloody long ago, well it was, it was at least two years, a bit more, and everything had changed since then. Carlo's had long gone and for the first time in ages she wondered a bit about what had happened to the others and made a resolution to find out, well, maybe not Piotr and the other cretin, they were most probably in Wormwood Scrubs or been deported or something, but Sandy, she would definitely check on her once she got back on Facebook, whenever that was….. .

She started smiling and even snorted the odd giggle as she on the bus and remembered …. .

Saturday 6th August 2013 – Carlo's

"You would, wouldn't you?"

"Nah, course not, don't know him do I?"

"Yeah you would, I can see from your face"

"Well, be rude not to really, wouldn't it?"

Sandy grinned, then sniggered and had then given out one of her full volume cackles so that the punters had all looked over towards where they were standing, "taking a break" as they put it, in other words leaning up against the wall behind the counter and ignoring sticky table tops that needed clearing and swiping with a damp cloth, actions that passed for cleaning in Carlo's. At the time she could have done without Sandy laughing like that because he'd looked over and smiled and it was him they was actually talking about, so that all she could hope was that he hadn't heard what they were saying otherwise it would have been a bit embarrassing to say the least.

He was one of her favourites coming in as he did regular as clockwork every other Saturday for his breakfast, always at the same time and always on his own. He'd just sit there and eat whatever the two cretins in the kitchen served up and he would never try and have a conversation with her or anything, just read the Telegraph, but he'd always be polite, say "Good Morning" and "Goodbye" in this very nice posh way he had and he'd always smile at her when he came in and when he went as well as leaving a tip, which she and Sandy thought was a bit of bleeding miracle in the circumstances.

"Usual?"

She'd smile and yell his order through the hatch to the two Polish chefs out the back in the kitchen, neither of whom could speak more than the odd word of English, except for their incredible repertoire of what her tutor called profanity so she had to change the order to a number 4 rather than a full English with scrambled, or what passed for scrambled eggs once they've finished fucking them up. They were totally and unbelievably inept for people who were supposed to be professionals although Sandy reckoned that in their case it just meant that they were cheap.

"And cook them bleeding eggs properly"

She knew that they probably wouldn't understand a word of that or that they'd pretend not to, so that she'd have to go in the kitchen and show them what she was talking about, but they were a pair of serial 'gropers' so that she and Sandy avoided getting anywhere near them if they could help it.

She smiled as she remembered the time when the scrambled eggs had been like yellow rat droppings, hard little pellets so that he'd looked at them for a very long time and had pushed them around with his knife for a bit before sensibly pushing them to one side of the plate and leaving them, and the time when they'd been almost raw, still slimy with uncooked egg white, so that he'd have been risking salmonella by putting them anywhere near his mouth, let alone eating them, which he hadn't. It had become like a game they played each time he came in. He'd order the eggs, they'd cook them and she'd serve them at which point he'd look at them, push them around a bit then look at her and raise his eyebrows, then look at them again and bite his bottom lip, laugh and leave them, but he'd still come in every second Saturday and sit there and read his paper and check his watch every so often as though he was waiting for something, or maybe someone.

Once the rush was over, or at least once the customers had obligingly pissed off and they had the place to themselves, well, except for her favourite and they actually didn't mind him because of him being what passed for a regular, it was the best bit of the morning because it meant it was time for their official tea break as opposed to their 'leaning up against the wall resting their feet' break. Cups of tea and slices of cheesecake, the one that was bought in otherwise they wouldn't have touched it with a bargepole. Two slices of it that had, allegedly, fallen on the floor so that it had, again allegedly, become totally unsuitable for serving up to members of the paying public. Sandy would often say as how it was funny how that kept on happening time after time no matter how careful they were.

Molly had offered him a bit once, well, she couldn't see any harm in being nice no matter what Sandy said, but he just shook his head and smiled, so that she and Sandy had looked at each other and pretended to bite the backs of their knuckles as they'd smirked because holy shit, he really had got a nice smile. He'd checked his watch again and pretended not to see what they were doing as he got up, still smiling and said goodbye and left but it didn't matter how hard she'd tried she could never see where he went and she hadn't wanted to go to the window to be blatantly nosy because Sandy would never have let her live it down.

-OG-

It had been 2013 the last time she'd seen him, she remembered that it had been starting to get chilly outside so it must have been October or November and she wondered if he remembered it as clearly as she did, God she hoped not ….. .