Vanilla Salt (32 page)

“It no is easy with two personalities so strong and so tortured.”

“It could be… maybe it started out as a plot they hatched together? They agreed on it, but at some point they fell out and one of them tried to stop the plan while the other one went ahead with it?”

“You see too many films. No, I no believe this. Why they make plot? Both they say they want to be with me… so if they hurt me it no have sense. If also the love messages they tell me make part of this plan, I no know, but it seem very bizarre. I no think they two make a plan. This thing it is for novels and films.”

“Hey! Speaking of film! I want to show you the film I made in the restaurant. It’s great. Here you have the party more or less live. I want to make a short out of it and enter a competition, but it’s very hard to cut down. It really looks as if it was based on a written script. So many things are happening and there’s such a lot of movement!”

“Oh… the film… I no sure I want see this now. OK, we see it because I come here for this, no? First I finish this fig carpaccio with ginger ice cream. It fantastic, Òscar, this recipe.”

They watch the film. Òscar thinks it’s amazing, but Annette is quite bored. He is ecstatic to be hobnobbing with so many well-known journalists, food critics and celebrities. Annette’s never been interested in this world and still less in a few journalists she’d never even heard of six months ago. It’s also painful for her to relive the scenes of the party, which, after all her efforts, turned out to be such a disaster.

Òscar is chuckling continuously when not making comments.

“Look, look, that woman is Carme Cassanyes. She’s so elegant.”

“I can see that fat pig Martí Peris over there. He’s such a freeloader and would never miss a free meal.”

“There’s Xènius Agut, drunk already and the party’s just begun. You should have seen him at the end!”

“Did you know that the party was the start of an affair between the chef Albert Camot and that journalist from the afternoon programme, what’s her name? Ah yes, Elena Sanchis… Incredible!”

What with the darkness in the dining room and the boring film, Annette keeps nodding off, despite Òscar’s salacious comments about all the guests.

Suddenly she grabs Òscar’s arm. In one wakeful moment before dozing off again, she sees it! She makes him stop the film. Go back. Stop. Òscar doesn’t understand.

“Look!” she shouts. “You no can see?”

“What? I see the kitchen, yes. I see Carol in the background and that new boy you’ve taken on. What else am I supposed to see?”

“The arm of Carol, the hand, the saucepan of watercress soup. Go back. We look careful. What she do?” Annette is shocked and babbling.

“Calm down, Annette, please.”

“How I can calm down? You no know the headaches, worry, the nights I no sleep these weeks, and it worse this doubt that make big hole in my brain. I no would want that my most biggest enemy suffer this. Now we find the key for all we talk about tonight. The truth it is in this film. Now we know at last and we can demonstrate this to the persons who want the proof. And there is witness also. Eric! We look careful again, all number of times we must.”

The image is distant, in the background, but Carol is perfectly visible, as is Eric behind her. Carol’s peering into the saucepan. Then she dips a spoon in and tastes the contents. She takes something out of her bag and seems to wave her arm over the saucepan as Eric watches.

Annette’s heart is skittering around like a ping-pong ball. They have their proof. It was Carol, because Òscar’s camera also shows Àlex being
interviewed by the TV journalist. A few minutes later it records Annette entering the kitchen and, with Eric’s help, starting to serve the soup. Àlex is still being interviewed.

“These images are impressive, but they don’t constitute irrefutable proof, because the soup could have been poisoned earlier, and don’t forget Àlex knew which dish was poisoned. Carol could claim she added herbs or spices,” Òscar muses.

“The journalists no bring charges, because they no go to hospital, but they do more worse than take us to the court because they write this in the newspapers and tell all the people, we no have customers now we no have customers never. If they no make complain with police, Carol she no go to the prison. That is certain, but we can destroy her, like she do to me, if the press see this video.”

“Don’t underestimate Carol’s incredible power. You already know how manipulative she is. Let’s work out a plan. The aim is that everyone should know that Carol set out to sabotage you in this way. We don’t know why and probably never will, because, as you say, there will be no official inquiry. We can only present facts, but there is one problem here, a kind of dark cloud of doubt over the whole thing and this bothers me. We can’t be certain that what Carol put in the saucepan was rat poison. We still have the possibility that the soup was poisoned beforehand.”

“I taste the soup when Àlex finish to make it. I had hungry and I think I no will to have chance to eat after, so I drink a bowl of this soup before guests come, because this very quick. You no need spoon and fork or napkin or sit down. I finish bowl and drink one more big spoon. I drink big quantity, but when Àlex ask if I taste the soup I say no, because he always complain the kitchen staff ‘rob’ him the food. I no get poison. And Carol she no taste this soup. She send plate full back to kitchen. This one more sign that she guilty.”

“Yes, but you can’t prove it. You can look for witnesses, but no one will remember whether Carol tasted the watercress soup or not. Anyway, nobody will dare to accuse her because she’s so powerful,” Òscar argues. “People can also say that bit was filmed some other day, not the day of the party. Carol is often at Roda el Món and we could have filmed that any day and edited it in.”

“Come on! This is more pervert than the brain of Carol. And the television camera and your camera they film same thing, so the other camera for sure film it also. That film show Carol guilty. We must get this part of the television film. I no know these journalists and no have access to the television producers. How we can do this?”

“Let’s see… we have to be fast, surgical and get it right. First of all, we have to find Àlex. Hang on, let me think… no, maybe that’s rushing things. We need to get our hands on all the material proving that Carol poisoned the soup, and then we have to go and find Àlex.” Òscar, who would love to be the detective starring in a crime series, is thrilled with this role of chief investigator.

“I very certain now who is the guilty person. We need discover how Àlex know the soup had in it the poison. How he know this? Did they make this plot the two? I think this nearly impossible. We must to find Àlex.”

“You don’t know where he is?”

“I no know, but one customer say he see him often. I no know who is this man, his name or telephone number of course. He say Àlex live in the district Raval of Barcelona.”

“In the Raval? I’m afraid I know who he’s with then. Phone Albert the fruit and veg man and he’ll take you there. I warn you: don’t be shocked by what you find.”

She gets back to Roda el Món very late. Carol has gone home and Annette’s delighted. She couldn’t stand having to see her now. Carol
will be away all this week, at some congress in San Sebastián. At least something’s going right. She can work on her inquiry into the food-poisoning without having to deal with conflicting emotions. If Carol were here, it would be much more difficult to concentrate. She’d been mulling it over all the way back from Granollers to the restaurant. She wants justice, wants to make a success of Roda el Món, wants to get out of this mess, and wants to know what happened. But she would have preferred to have kept her friendships with both Àlex and Carol!

She’s tortured by these contradictions. They’ve both hurt her, deceived her and manipulated her, but she can’t help being attracted to such strong personalities, each so different from the other and from everyone else as well.

People don’t have a fixed, clearly defined nature. Different kinds of behaviour are often immediate reactions to circumstances. It’s not so much character as environment that shapes us and guides us. Trying to understand the complexity of the human brain is a colossal and very often futile task.

Carol isn’t such a witch as people say. She’s eccentric, it’s true, but she also has a heart. Àlex isn’t an oaf on two legs either. He has his tender moments and strong values. Both of them have taken her in, both of them have loved her… in their own ways. Carol would certainly have been a good friend, with all her mysteries and contradictions, if the poisoning incident hadn’t spoilt their relationship.

Life has taught Annette that even the most improbable characters in novels are less complex and less difficult to understand than real-life people. The novelist has to create a clear, comprehensible character that the reader can situate. In real life, people say they know where they’re going, but somewhere along the way they come up against an obstacle and arbitrarily take some other direction. They keep evolving. Life is multihued.

Annette phones Albert early in the morning.

“Good morning, Albert. I am Annette, and I phone you because people say you know where is living Àlex.”

“Me? No, I haven’t got the faintest.”

“He live in Raval.”

“Ah, yes, then I know where he is.”

“You can to take me there? This night, please?”

“OK, I’ll take you, but it’s no place for girls like you.”

Annette’s intrigued. This is the second time she’s been told that Àlex is living somewhere that might upset her. So where has he hidden, then?

Albert comes to pick her up at Roda el Món early that evening. For the first time ever, Annette leaves the restaurant in the hands of Graça and Eric. She can’t count on the chef who started on Friday and thinks he’ll last three days at the most. But Eric now understands much more about how the kitchen works and the dishes made in it than some of these other young men who have graduated as qualified chefs.

Albert parks in a dark street, and they’re assailed by the reek of piss as soon as they get out of the car. Some Filipino kids are playing football, using two tins as their goalposts in a patch of waste ground. It’s supposed to be a kind of urban park, but there are no trees except for a few bare trunks and the ground is dusty and dirty. They go up a narrow alleyway lit by a few small Pakistani shops, each one with a man sitting on a chair waiting for some customer to come inside.

A grubby tabby cat brushes against Annette’s leg as it goes past. She screams in fright.

They go up a high, steep, bare stairway decorated only by a few dim bulbs, half of which have blown. It smells of spices. Albert thinks of how things have changed. Only a few years ago there was a disgusting stench of cauliflower, and now it smells like garam masala. The old people have died and newcomers have moved in.

“The Barcelona locals shun this neighbourhood. Not even the pros want to know about it. There are only a few old whores plus a few of the most desperate ones. The flats are a health hazard and the pros want places where they will at least not die from some kind of infection,” Albert tells Annette. By the time they get to the third floor she’s puffing, short of oxygen. Her nervousness, the smell of spices, the semi-darkness, what’s in store for her when she sees Àlex again and her mixed feelings of fear and desire are almost too much to cope with.

A tall, dark, plump woman opens the door. Albert introduces her. “This is Gladys, a good friend of ours. She works as a prostitute. How are you, beautiful? It’s been such a long time and you’re as sexy as ever. This is Annette. We’re looking for Àlex.”

“Hello Albert. You’re looking very handsome. As usual! I don’t have much time to talk, because I’ve got to work,” Gladys says very naturally, as if she’s selling buttons. “Àlex usually arrives around now. Wait here and make yourselves at home. Or if you prefer you can wait in the bar downstairs. They do a good rum and coke.”

They decide to wait in Gladys’s tiny living room, which is dominated by a television set. There are photos of three boys, one in military uniform, on a coffee table. They must be her sons. There are also faded Christmas cards and a calendar full of notes. It looks as if Gladys would hate to forget the birthday or saint’s day of any of her nearest and dearest.

He has keys. He opens the door. He looks first at Albert and then stares at Annette. He’s completely flummoxed. This visit is totally unexpected. Barely bothering to say hello, he starts yelling abuse at them for having taken him by surprise by lying in wait for him like this, his swearing, shouts and accusations a sure sign that he’s completely unnerved and doesn’t know how to react to the shock of finding them here in Gladys’s flat.

They go down to the bar for a rum and coke. Àlex still hasn’t worked out whether he’s pleased to see them or pissed off because they’ve found him. In any case, he doesn’t complain too much. The two men are hungry and there’s not much to eat here apart from some tripe, which is good, and a more than edible green-pepper omelette.

Annette is still digesting Òscar’s gourmet dinner, so she asks for sautéed turkey breast and likes the way they’ve cooked it. It’s different from the usual way of treating it like any old slab of meat. They dice it and sauté it with honey and lemon. Then they put the plate in the centre of the table so they can all pick at it.

“Taste it, Àlex,” Annette urges.

“It turns my stomach,” he responds.

“Why?” Now it’s Albert who has his say. “It’s very subtle. Don’t you like chicken?”

“Of course I like chicken. But this white stuff turns my stomach. If you want to try to convince me that turkey and chicken are from the same family and therefore if I like one I should like the other, I would remind you that roses and raspberries belong to the same family and you’ll never catch me chewing on a rose, however lovely I think it looks.”

“Well, edible roses are great – in fact, I’m growing them. You wouldn’t believe how well they sell. People make jam out of them and even use the petals in salads.” Albert never misses a chance to tout the products from his garden.