Vanilla Salt (6 page)

He doesn’t answer. He’s gone to open the door. That’s odd. Annette can’t hear him talking with anyone, just the sound of the door closing. He returns to the kitchen looking baffled and carrying a polystyrene box full of all sorts of small fish. He looks at them one by one and mutters to himself, “This must be Frank’s doing.”

Whatever the case, the fish have turned up at Antic Món, or someone’s left them at the door like a Christmas present, and Àlex’s face has changed. It seems he’s completely forgotten his outburst. While Annette is washing all the pots, pans and plates from last night’s party, he’s cleaning fish and singing a Paolo Conte song about pissed-off French people, flapping newspapers and going to the cinema.

Tra i francesi che s’incazzano, e i giornali che svolazzano, e tu mi fai – dobbiamo andare al cine – e vai al cine, vacci tu!

Annette lets out a big sigh of relief. If Àlex is singing, she’s safe. It’s a clear sign that he’s forgotten about the mess his kitchen was in and the state of the dishwasher, and now he’s showing how happy he is.

The fish are small, perfect for serving with romesco sauce or in soup. Their flavour is intense, delicious. You need three saucepans for
making fish soup, one for the garlic-and-onion base, one for the broth and the last one for the soup itself. You have to use onion, garlic, bay leaves and a lot of fish. A couple of red prawns as well. Yet the soup is always too pale.

“Àlex, my home cook he put in soup tomato. Colour red. And small pepper, also give red colour.” Annette’s trying to help.

“Madame top chef, I’ll have you bloody well know that no tomato and no pepper will ever darken the doors of this house. Do me a favour, will you, and get on with the job of cleaning up everything you messed up yesterday before the first clients arrive. Ah yes, and how much did those kids pay last night?”

Pay? Annette wonders who had to pay. Oh dear, the customers, those three young people!

She let them off paying for their dinner because they got the ingredients of the flavours game right… An image flashes back, the moment when she’s saying, “In me the dinner is today. I pay!” She remembers Carol’s giggles as she echoes, “‘In me the dinner is today. I pay!’ Annette means it’s on the house. You’re invited!” Another flash: the amazed expression on the faces of the three clients when they realize it’s on the house. They hadn’t left a drop in the Caol Ila bottle, had no idea of the price of the “surprise” menu and were terrified they wouldn’t be able to pay the bill. And then the opposite happened. It was gratis! But how will she wriggle out of this one? How is she going to tell Àlex there were no takings yesterday? Carol didn’t pay either. Carol never pays.

She opts for the deep end. “I invite them last night.”

“Ah, that’s so kind of you! That’s really lovely. So, first of all you sabotage my prestige. You don’t even know what you’re going to serve up, but of course it’s got nothing to do with my cooking. Then you create bedlam in my restaurant, leave the kitchen looking like a rubbish dump and, to cap it all, you give away my food and drink! Are you completely mad?”

Annette stares at the floor like a kid in primary school being ticked off by the teacher. The phone saves her. It’s Carol, who wants to say hello and then speak to Àlex.

“How are you, love? Are you alive? I feel like something the cat threw up. I’ve only just dragged myself out of bed but, before anything else, I wanted to phone and thank you for the wonderful time we had last night. It’s ages since I’ve enjoyed myself so much. It was, to tell the truth, the best night I’ve spent in many years!”

“Me also. I’m tired, very much. You come today?”

“I can’t today but I’ll be back very soon. I really want to talk with you again and, if Àlex lets us, cook together too. Now, put Àlex on please. I’m going to tell him off a bit, which will give me a lot of pleasure, and I need to start the day with a bit of oomph. You look after yourself, sweetheart.”

Àlex cusses a bit before taking the phone and stumbling through an apology. “Carol, er, sorry I walked out on you like that last night. I was in a state.”

“Listen, laddie, you excelled yourself, with me and with Annette. Let me tell you that this little foreign lady you’ve taken on is worth her weight in Sevruga caviar. If you don’t look after her, if you bully her just for the pleasure of feeling superior, if you keep making everyone around you feel like shit and if you apply any single one of your strategies of psychological sadism, I’m going to saw your balls off, nice and slowly with a rusty knife, purée them with barbed beaters, make patties of them and fry them in hot oil. You choose. By the way, when is that lovely girl’s day off? I want to invite her out to dinner. She needs to discover there’s a bit more to life than hanging around your run-down hole.”

Carol’s going for the jugular today. The most intelligent strategy is not to fight back too much, Àlex thinks. He says, “She has the same day off as I do, when the restaurant’s closed, which is on Mondays. I’m
free too and can come and have dinner with you. It’ll be good for me to have a bit of a break.”

“No way! I’m going to punish you for quite a while. Let’s see if you can learn not to leave me stranded with my mouth gaping open, not because I’m in the grip of some kind of culinary rapture, but because you storm out in the middle of a conversation. Anyway, I must say that I was overjoyed, absolutely overjoyed that you pissed off like that, because I had the chance to get to know the girl and do something I’ve always wanted to do, which is cooking Lord-knows-what, in a top-ranking restaurant – well let’s say in a whatever-ranking restaurant, as it is nowadays.”

“Carol, I know this may sound trite, but I’m determined to get Antic Món back to the top. I’m in especially good spirits today. I found a box of the freshest fish imaginable at the door. It’s a gift and also a sign that not all is lost. I imagine Frank’s involved in this, but the thing is, I’m cooking with top-quality fish again, even if they’re small fish that wouldn’t bring in much on the market. If I bone them and cosset them a bit, you’ll get the finest Mediterranean fish right here at my place.”

“It’s not a matter of fish, or raw material, or quality, Àlex, as you very well know. It’s about good manners, understanding the customer, making an effort, being nice to people, teaching tactfully, being an elegant host and knowing how to explain your dishes. You fail on every count. You do what you like, but let me repeat, it’s not enough to be an excellent chef. You have to listen to your customers. I have to leave you now. I’m going to throw up, because I drank almost a whole bottle of Lepanto on a virtually empty stomach last night. Let me remind you that your chicken was all but inedible. Give that lovely girl from Quebec a kiss from me. She has the hands of an angel, a heart of gold and the brains of a Nobel laureate.”

“I hope the sour bloody cow drowns in her own vomit,” Àlex mutters to himself as he returns to the kitchen. “And that she doesn’t bloody try to get off with Annette.” He promises himself that he’ll slam the door in her face next time she comes to Antic Món.

He’s well and truly convinced that, thanks to him and him alone, without the toxic advice of any critic or any other arse-licker for that matter, his restaurant will soon shine again.

4

SWEET

It’s a month today since Annette arrived in Antic Món. Àlex hasn’t mentioned a salary or payment of any kind, but she’s not bothered by this. She’s happy. She knows it’s a question of patience – the patience of those who have no choice.

The Friends of Antic Món Facebook page has almost five hundred followers and people sometimes turn up at the restaurant wanting to take up one of the offers or try their luck at the guessing games Annette posts on the page.

Things seem to be looking up. The restaurant hasn’t been empty for more than two weeks. Occasionally they even have more than one table. It’s nothing to get too excited about, but at least they’re not standing around twiddling their thumbs, although it must be said that, whatever the case, Àlex never stands around twiddling his thumbs. He’s always on the go, constantly busy in the kitchen. When there is no more cooking to be done, he goes off to his office to do the books. This is a cross he has to bear. He’s always moaning about it, saying it’s difficult, a pain in the arse, and that doing an accountant’s work is a waste of his talent. But the way things are going, doing the books is actually quite easy: very little income and expenses galore. Although since he can’t
pay most of his suppliers, even the expenses side is skimpy. He doesn’t have to worry about a payroll: just the two of them are working in the restaurant and Annette doesn’t have a contract. Neither has she been paid for the month she’s been working there.

A couple of days ago Àlex asked her to give him a hand with the books. He must have wanted to pass on the crappy job to her, or why else would he be making her go up to his office, she now wonders, as she’s following him upstairs up to the tiny room where he keeps his paltry takings. Once installed, Àlex pours himself a glass from the first bottle he finds to confront his trials with a little more verve.

When she first arrived, Annette thought gin was his favourite tipple, but she’s since discovered that his taste varies depending on what’s within reach. Anything’s good as long as it has high alcohol content. He’s funny when he decides to justify what he’s drinking, always downing it with the same words: “I love this. It’s the best drink in the world, my favourite of all.” It doesn’t matter whether it’s gin, vodka, cognac, whisky, wine, cava or Bonet herbal liqueur. Àlex believes you can’t lock yourself in an office without having a nice glass of something strong.

“What are you going to do tomorrow, Annette?” he suddenly asks.

She takes a moment to answer. She wavers, surprised by such a personal question.

“I do nothing. Rest. I always rest the Monday. I need. You, what you do? Where you go the Monday?”

“Doing what I have to do… getting away from it all. You should do that too, get out a bit, see Catalonia, move around and meet people. What about Òscar? Don’t you see him? You’re friends, aren’t you?”

Àlex wants to find out a bit more about Annette, but doesn’t seem keen to tell his own secrets. She, however, has no hang-ups.

“With Òscar, we the virtual friends. Just meet one time. We chat very much with computer. I very tired for to see more persons. Maybe later.”

“Two loners, we are,” he says, trying to imitate Bogart. “Two sociable loners. That sounds like a contradiction, but it isn’t. We need to be alone and we need to share. Why did you leave Quebec?”

“Quebec cold place… I want see Barcelona.”

“You’re a dab hand at changing the subject, girl! Good work. Well, no one gives a damn about what you did or what you’re doing. It’s a bit like old photos. They’re fascinating because they’re mute, and then you can imagine their stories. Stay as you are, carrot top. The mystery you’re cloaked in makes you even more alluring.”

With a skinful of highly alcoholic Basque sloe berries in liquid form, poured from his bottle of patxaran, Àlex is getting a little maudlin.

Annette pours herself a glass and adds some ice. She likes this liqueur, which she considers “indigenous”, traditional and authentic.

“When I will go Barcelona, you also come?”

“I don’t like the city. If you want, we’ll go to the Maresme and look at the sea one day. One Monday night.”

“And we no can go Monday in day?” Annette asks, trying to find out what he does on his days off.

“Maresme is cold place…” he mocks.

Strange as it may seem, Annette hasn’t left the restaurant in all this time. Apart from the supermarket, she’s seen hardly anything of its surroundings and, of course, has never been to Barcelona. It doesn’t bother her, because she’s not here to go sightseeing and right now she’s giving her all to the project of reviving the restaurant.

On Mondays, Àlex heads off wherever he goes and she enjoys some peace and quiet in her small room. She spends the day resting and working on the Friends of Antic Món Facebook page. Àlex hasn’t found out about it yet. He thinks social networks are teenage crap. However, thanks
to this crap, quite a few tables have been filled with people wanting to taste “the fabulous cuisine of Àlex Graupera”.

“Want to see a film with me tonight, girl?”

Àlex doesn’t want to sound tender, so he always addresses her as “girl” when he comes out with anything she might interpret as a come-on. Annette understands this as a distancing manoeuvre, a way of putting years between them, as if he’s much older and sees her as a little girl who could never aspire to be a friend, let alone a lover.

“Oh yes! What film?”

“One of my favourites. I’ve seen it at least ten times:
Big Night
.”

“In what cinema?”

There is no cinema in Bigues i Riells, which means they’ll have to go to Granollers or even to Barcelona, Annette thinks. But nothing is further from Àlex’s intentions.

“In my room.”

Annette finally opens her eyes at about eleven in the morning. She’s slept for hours, but badly. She drank too much last night. Both of them drank too much. The film,
Big Night
, was great. She loved it, and she loved relaxing with Àlex just as much. Lying in bed, she recalls details of the film and her evening with the boss.

She was surprised by his room. She imagined it would be baroque, full of mementos, but instead she found an austere space with badly distributed old furniture, dominated by a huge television set and an even more impressive stereo system. Not a picture on the walls. The only personal touch was a set of shelves full of old LPs, CDs, DVDs and videotapes, all set out in perfect order.

They sat on the bed because there was no sofa. Annette was both relaxed and edgy, however contradictory this may seem. She was relaxed
because he was relaxed, and edgy because she was expecting some sign from Àlex that might be interpreted as an overture.