Free Vanilla Salt by Ada Parellada Page A

and restaurant. Taster menu is best. No à la carte. We say this.”
    “Yesterday you went to have lunch with Carol in Granollers. Well, well, well… and you had a little chat about me. And my cooking, I suppose. So now you’re suggesting that I should forget about the à-la-carte menu and offer a taster menu instead.”
    “Yes, exact.”
    “Oh, that’s lovely, so lovely… So, you decide to go out for lunch together and, since you’ve got nothing to talk about, because you’re a pair of bitter, twisted spinsters, you while away the time organizing my cooking and my life. That’s bloody marvellous! You can stick the degustation menu right up Miss Carol’s arse, my girl. Make sure it all goes in, right down to the last dish.”
    Annette knows that what will wind Àlex up more than anything else is her remaining silent and calmly getting on with the job. In the time she’s worked with him, she’s learnt that this is something he can’t stand, because he doesn’t know how to react. Then again, she’s hurt and she’s had enough of his shouting.
    She takes off her patchwork apron, carefully folds it, gazes steadily at him and says very firmly, “I finish. Thank you for all. I no want nothing. You no pay even salary. You no have money. Antic Món is finish. Game over!”
    She goes up to her room, throws everything into her suitcase and leaves.
    She’s in the street, dragging the heavy suitcase. She has no money except for twenty euros she’s taken from the cash register at the restaurant.She doesn’t know where to go. She must make a decision. She doesn’t want to phone Carol, no, not Carol. Òscar? No, not him either, poor fellow. He’s already done enough to help her.
    She walks aimlessly down the road and then goes into a bar to have a cup of tea. It will give her time to think about how to deal with this new situation. She’s in a country she doesn’t know, where she has no real friends.
    She sits down at a small table, asks for her tea, which she sips, staring at a corner of the bar with the unfocused look of someone who’s lost their marbles. Frank Gabo comes in, an apparition bearing a huge box of fish.
    “Hello, what are you doing here with that mad look in your eye? Has something happened to you?” he asks, flashing his incredibly white teeth.
    “I drink tea.”
    “Yes, I can see that. Are you OK? Are you going back home?” He points at her suitcase.
    “I’m OK, but no sure what I must to do. I think.”
    “Aha! So you’ve had a row with that damn cook, have you? Like everyone else.”
    “Yes, he intolerable.”
    “Can I sit down with you?” he asks, sitting down opposite her, perfectly at ease.
    “I no know what I must to do, Frank. I alone and no have money. I no can to go home.”
    “I can’t do much to help, but if you need a roof over your head you can come to my place. There are eight of us and the flat’s tiny. You can stay a couple of nights till you decide what to do. You can sleep in the dining room. We’ll put a mattress on the floor. That’s where my cousins sleep when they come from Mozambique, and they stay a whole month! Of course, they’re used to roughing it. I’ll give you my phone numberand, if you have no other option, just call me. My wife makes a millet soup to die for.”
    “Thank you Frank, thank you so much… and thank you so much also for fish.”
    “What fish?”
    “Door of restaurant. Every day the box. That you!”
    “Àlex is OK. He’s had lots of bad luck. Then again, my boss is rich and hasn’t even twigged that a couple of kilos of small fish go missing every day. It’s cheap fish, but it’s better that nobody finds out about this, OK?”
    “OK. Nobody. I no know nobody. Fish very good. Clients like very much. Àlex cook very good and fish very tasty, very good.”
    “I have to go. I’ve got a horrific list of deliveries to get through. Come to my place. We’ll be expecting you.”
    Àlex tastes the carrot cake. “Bloody hell,” he