Vanilla Salt (35 page)

“Here, Àlex, we put the little booklet here. You see? We wrap up salt in your recipes of Roda el Món that we adapt them, so the people can to make them at home and use the salt. I put a comment, the history
and some words about ingredients with every recipe. It will be a perfect product for to use at home and for nice present also.”

“This is wonderful, Annette, but how are we going to sell it?”

“Now things no are done like before. Today we no need the shop. Of course we can sell our Vanilla Salt products in restaurant but… I make also a website. It ready now. The customers can consult about products before they buy direct from restaurant, and like this maybe we make new customers too! We can to send also by post and, on this new page, we offer transport service.”

“So far so good, but this idea of home delivery of the product is crazy. If you sell the Vanilla Salt pack at the price you say, the transport alone will cost twice as much. And who will deliver it, anyway? Me? I can see it in your face… No, no, no, I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to deliver it. Me, going to Sant Feliu de Buixalleu to take a little packet to Senyora Maria? No thank you.”

“Calm you, calm you, Àlex. This no is problem. You work in kitchen. I think about this. The customer pay for cost of transport, but less than messenger service, but first time customer buy Vanilla Salt product we deliver it no charge, because this investment for to advertise our product.”

“You haven’t told me who will deliver it.” Àlex is slightly rattled by Annette’s calm self-assurance as she presents the business. “Seeing how you have everything planned, I’m sure you’ve given it a lot of thought. But I’ll just repeat that there’s no way I’m going to be running round the country in my old bomb of a car. No bloody way!”

“You no worry. I tell you already that you no do this, of course. I think of one professional man for to deliver. You know who? His name is Frank and he lose job because he help us. Now it time we give him back favour.”

“Frank hasn’t got a car! And we can’t employ him, because we’re broke too.”

“You got that bomb car. No is fantastic, but this what we got and no, we no can give him contract because we no have money. But think, because he no have job now and the way economy of this country now, he no will find job. So we give him this little job that no is much, I know.”

“It’s less than not much. It’s nothing, because, until we sell a pack, we can’t ask him to take it to the middle of nowhere to some client who will never repeat the order. It might be ten years before Frank can be paid something.”

“Listen, I explain you it in little bits. I do web page before I prepare jars and boxes. My time very valuable for me and especially since I work here with you. I want first discover if people interested for to buy the product. I very surprise that I get many orders and, I must say this: it because they know your name. So I start quickly work and prepare the little jars. Then we have scandal of poison and this stop business. But, it lucky thing, customers with interest in product no think bad of me because I send them letter for to explain the incredible story. Today I look at web page and orders they go up like rocket. I think this because of revelation about poisoning, so, I sorry for say this, but it give us big publicity.”

“You’ve really planned it very well, but do you know how long one pack of salt would last in a family of four? An eternity! It will never be finished inside a year. Frank won’t ever earn a cent!”

“I know and I think this also. You have reason when you say it difficult they repeat when salt it last long time. But the customer can buy more for to make gifts, for example. It very nice gift. But I want we include Frank in our business. He no have to be partner, but we pay him percentage for every pack he sell. Frank very nice and attractive man and he help us with publicity. If he take pack to Sant Feliu de Buixalleu like you say, he can use journey and take product to shops. We only need sell few pots and free journey will make for us profit.”

“You’ve got an exemplary business head on you. But there’s one thing. Have you forgotten that Frank’s as black as a Kalamata olive?”

“So?”

“Well, people are very prejudiced about immigrants in this country. And it might be difficult for us to get the product into shops if we have a black salesman.”

“I will not even think this. This country have prejudice, but we help to break it with way we act. We do what we believe, always sure, firm and consistent. This is how we fight this stupid thing.”

18

AVOCADO

This is day two of the new era, as Annette likes to call it. They have an enormous amount of work today but, in contrast with other times, she doesn’t find it a chore. She goes about her tasks happily. They need to cook, answer a host of journalists who are overjoyed with the prospect of flaying Carol alive, meet Frank to offer him the job with them and find time to do serious work updating their Facebook page and engaging in other social networking. Naturally, she hasn’t had a moment to start writing the booklet that will be included in the Vanilla Salt pack.

She doesn’t want to admit it, but she’s thrilled at the idea of writing her small history of food. After spending so long studying the subject, it’s wonderful to have this chance to make good use of her efforts and share her knowledge with others. It looks as if everything’s going well at last, a beautiful time for them.

Àlex is in the kitchen with Eric and, in a fit of rage, has just tipped into the rubbish bin all the “dreadful” culinary efforts of “that little shit”, as he defines the last chef, decorated with all sorts of school certificates, who was sacked yesterday. Annette comes in to make her raspberry crumble, which is to feature on the dessert menu today. What she likes most about this dish is being able to recycle their leftover bread, now crumbled, mixed with butter and sweetened with brown sugar to
make a crunchy top for the caramelized raspberries. Even in her earlier life, when she was a rich woman living in Canada, she hated wasting food. Now, when she’s totally broke, she finds it even more terrible to throw away food, so, seeing the bin full of the dismissed chef’s efforts, she almost faints.

She calls Àlex over and berates him. “The same old story!” she exclaims as she criticizes his bad habit of wasting food. Eric watches on in amusement. He loves conflict and hopes the knives will start flying. He’d be in the middle of some mêlée or other all the time if he could, and thinks it’s a shame people usually behave well when it’s so much fun winding them up. Annette sees that he’s enjoying the show and says, “Àlex, we go and have a cup of tea and talk. Eric he will finish to clean the clams.”

“Tea, tea! What kind of poncey thing is this now? Don’t come to me with all this Pu-erh, green tea and healthy infusions bullshit. If Madame likes it, that’s all very well, but it’s not my thing. I don’t drink tea, OK?”

“When you ready, come to table with me. It important and you have what you think good for you. I have tea,” Annette says, completely unperturbed.

If Àlex’s tantrums terrified her before, she’s immune now and even finds them funny. If too many days go by without explosions, she misses them. He doesn’t seem to realize how childish they are, like a kid whistling in the dark, and they add a splash of colour to the otherwise sterile whiteness of the kitchen. Hence, with today’s outburst when she offered him a cup of tea, she’s let him sound off as much as necessary and, to goad him just a little more, she’s made herself a blend he particularly detests – passion fruit and vanilla.

“Pooh! That stink is terrible. Only Indians and Anglo-Saxons – the former dirt-poor and the latter illiterate in all things gastronomic – could drink that shit.”

“You a cliché walk around on two legs, Àlex. No all the Indians of India they poor. On the contrary, everyone know the rajas of India they live like kings.”

“You can count them on the fingers of one hand. The rest live in the direst poverty.”

“Listen, we no can to lose time with stupid conversation. We have very big problem. In few words, we no have money. I know you get scared when you do books, so I give you this summary of our business. In the beginning we survive problems because Carol write good articles about us.”

“Don’t mention that woman’s name. It’s prohibited in this restaurant!” he interrupts.

“OK, I no call this cat a cat, but I continue. In good times we pay your debts and have party with money remaining. After scandal we get less and less money.”

“I don’t understand why you’re telling me this when I already know. Everything will be fine now. Look at the reservation book. We’ve got quite a lot of work.”

“Yes, we maybe can recover, but we have many debts accumulated. The Can Bret man he phone today and tell me he take us to the court if we no pay rent – two months of rent I no can to pay him. He remind me also that you sign him document to sell restaurant and deadline is near now and we must finish this deal or give back him the advance he pay to buy this business. We have problem, a very big problem, and you make it for us, all yourself.”

Àlex huffs and puffs. “Everything’s always my fault. Stop talking so much about problems and looking for guilty parties. Let’s think positively and find solutions.”

“Yes, is what I try to do now, and the only solution I can think is: you sell house already, so you have money. You return advance with interest
and invest you in business, or we must to find other solution. We no have more possibilities, no time and no can wait more…”

Àlex stares with glazed eyes at her cup of tea. He is silent.

“You no say something?” Annette’s expression is serious.

“I don’t have the money. I haven’t got a bean.”

“The money of the house?…”

“I don’t have it. I gave it away.”

Now she’s angry. “What is this you say? This is crazy thing. What you do?”

The day after the party, the day Annette had lunch with Carol, Àlex went to Barcelona. He hadn’t been able to visit his son in the Cottolengo convent for some months owing to all the work at the restaurant. He felt guilty, sad and lost. He went directly there. The nuns were overjoyed to see him, as there was a lot of work for him to do, which he set about immediately, unblocking a toilet, fixing a pipe, changing light bulbs and tiling one corner of the kitchen. It had been ages since he had done any work for the nuns. He couldn’t find his son. He wasn’t in his usual room and the question was eating away at him, filling him with a feeling of helplessness until one of the nuns confirmed his fears. Laiex had died some weeks earlier. “This is to be expected,” the nun told him. “People with conditions like this don’t usually survive beyond thirty. Now he is with God.”

Àlex asked for an appointment with the Mother Superior and made an exceptional donation: most of the money he’d got from the sale of his house. He felt enormously happy at being able to contribute something to the community of nuns who had taken in his disabled son, the son he had abandoned. However, despite his generous donation, guilt still gnawed away at him. Money can’t neutralize pain or feelings of meanness, but at least his spirit felt lighter.

He didn’t give the whole lot to the nuns. The small amount that remained would have been enough to get the restaurant going again or set up the flavoured-salts business.

“When, believing that I was the one who poisoned the journalists, you threw me out of Roda el Món, I felt very hurt, extremely hurt and alone, dreadfully alone. I had nowhere to go and my life didn’t make sense. I loved you and you didn’t believe in my innocence. I could have spent the first night in a hotel, rented a flat with the bit of money I had left and then looked for a job. But I was totally destroyed. Having to spend the night alone in a hotel room would have done me in. In fact, I didn’t want to live. I went into a bar and stayed there till they kicked me out at closing time, dead drunk. I went to sleep in a doorway, and the next morning the concierge yelled at me and made me leave. I spent all day wandering around the streets of Barcelona, literally without a roof over my head until I ended up in the Raval.”

This story goes back to earlier times. After Laura left him alone with Laiex, Àlex began hating women and became a hardened misogynist. He hated his mother, hated Laura, hated anything to do with the female sex and promised himself that he would never again have any dealings with any woman, neither in his personal nor in his professional life. He gave himself body and soul to cooking. But he was still a man and his craving for sex made life unbearable.

One Monday, some eighteen years earlier, after spending the whole day working at Cottolengo, he was walking around the city and had a few drinks to wind down afterwards. He ended up in the Raval, where he saw a young prostitute soliciting men on the street. She reminded him of a daisy, a childlike, white and delicate flower. He went over to her, paid the trifle she asked for in advance and went upstairs with her to the room she rented by the hour, a bare, dirty, dark space. Àlex didn’t
speak to her, but roughly undressed her, entered her and brutally fucked her till he came.

“Darling, please, my love, be gentle with me, please,” she begged in a strong Brazilian accent. He filled her mouth with his penis and obliged her to swallow his semen until she almost choked. Then, in a primitive, animal rage he began to beat her, shouting, “Fucking whore, pig, bloody bitch.”

Cowering in a corner of the grotty room, the terrified woman sobbed. Mute with fear, she couldn’t say a word. Seeing her so defenceless, Àlex kicked her hard in the back. He closed the door, leaving her alone, naked and crying, curled up on the dirty floor.

On the way back to the restaurant, Àlex had been about to drive off the road. He wanted to die, crushed by twisted metal, in the River Tenes. He had to pull over and stop the car, and he immediately threw up all the hatred he’d accumulated over so many years. He felt relieved, totally vile and disgusted with himself.