On the Stairs, 5
ON THE LANDING of the second floor. The Altamonts’ door, framed by two dwarf orange trees emerging from hexagonal marble plant pot-holders, is open. Through it exits an old family friend, who obviously arrived too early for the reception.
He is a German industrialist called Hermann Fugger, who made a fortune in the early postwar years selling camping equipment, and has since moved into one-piece floor coverings and wallpaper. He is wearing a double-breasted suit, whose sobriety is overcompensated for by a mauve scarf with pink polka dots. He carries under his arm a Dublin daily – The Free Man – on which the following headline can be read:
and also a small display box advertising a travel agency:
Hermann Fugger has in fact arrived very early on purpose: an amateur cook, he spends his time regretting that business does not permit him to be at his stove more often, dreaming of the ever less likely day when he will be able to devote himself entirely to the culinary arts, and he was planning to cook his own recipe this evening for leg of wild boar in beer, whose knuckle end, he claims, is the most delectable thing on earth, but the Altamonts angrily refuse.