Island girl

A mystery solved

As the week went in, the new arrival had caused quite a stir in the small Island community. There was the talk that he was paying regular visits to the local off -licence and spending a lot of money on bottles of whiskey.

Sean McIntyre the proprietor of the off license, claimed his business had never been so busy. But any attempts for the locals to get into a conversation with the new visitor was sometimes rudely cut off.

It was now a well known fact, that he was not the most friendliest of people, and preferred to keep his own company with a bottle of alcohol, so now, after getting some of their backs up the local left him to it.

He obviously had meant what he said about wanting his privacy Alison realised.

She personally, had made a point of not going out of her way to encounter him again, despite her curiosity about him.

Which was why the other rumours that had now started to spread around, about him actually being someone perhaps famous and well known, seem to have more credence with her.

She was realising that she was not the only one who thought he seemed familiar, but what exactly he was known for, or who he was, seemed to be still a bit of a mystery.

It was almost a week since his arrival, when she inadvertently found the answers to these questions.

Bored because there was nothing on the television and her grandmother had already gone to bed a little earlier than usual, Alison had been sitting glancing through an old celebrity magazine one evening that had been left there by one of her grandmothers friends.

She had no real interest in celebrities as the majority of them were unheard of where she lived, so had no significance in her life.

But as she was idly browsing through the pages, a particular face jumped out at her, making her peer at it more closely and read the writing below the picture

It was definitely him, her new neighbour. And she discovered his full name was actually Paul Moratti. It seemed he was indeed famous; a celebrity chef, whose restaurant appeared in some reality type programme on a cable television channel that was not available on their remote Island.

From the written article next to the picture, the only other information she could gather was that he was well known for being rude and arrogant to both his staff and the famous celebrity customers, who paid a fortune to come and eat at his restaurant. That bit she could well relate to from what she had heard from the locals about his behaviour towards them. It explained a lot.

The reason why the celebrity magazine were interested in him in particular, was because there was rumours that his marriage to his pretty blonde female television soap star called Holly was in trouble, and a split seemed eminent, and not really surprising as the three year marriage had always been on shaky ground and now the magazine claimed it as their exclusive new bit of celebrity break up gossip.

Alison now looked at the front of the magazine, and realised it was over six months old, so it was well out of date. But at least she now could understand why Paul Morratti seemed familiar, she had probably seen his face on other magazines and maybe even briefly on the television, although she had probably not paid him any great attention at the time.

Because her grandmother had already gone to bed, Alison was unable to share this latest bit of information she had learned with anyone, so now, with her interest even more piqued from what she had discovered, she eagerly went about searching through the pile of old magazines her Gran had in her kitchen drawer, to see if there was anything more about Paul in them.