still got the salt to put on this little bird’s tail,’ he said. ‘Shan’t be satisfied till it’s there…’
Nancy was looking at him with an expression which meant that she didn’t know whether to laugh at him or be afraid of him. She couldn’t decide whether he was Chanter the amorous buffoon or Chanter the frustrated sex maniac. Nor could I. I understood her needing help when he was around.
‘He only wants me because I won’t,’ she said.
‘The challenge bit,’ I nodded. ‘Affront to male pride, and all that.’
‘Practically every other girl has,’ she said.
‘That makes it worse.’
Chanter looked at me broodingly. ‘You’re a drag, man. I mean, cubic’.
‘To each his scene,’ I said ironically.
He took the last of the sandwiches, turned his back studiously towards me and said to Nancy, ‘Let’s you and me lose this dross, huh?’
‘Let’s you and me do nothing of the sort, Chanter. If you want to tag along, Matt comes in the deal.’
He scowled at the floor and then suddenly stood up so that all the fringes and beads danced and jingled.
‘Come on then. Let’s get a look at the horses. Life’s a-wasting.’
‘He really can draw,’ Nancy said as we followed the tablecloth out into the sunshine.
‘I wouldn’t doubt it. I’ll bet half of what he does is caricature, though, with a strong element of cruelty.’
‘How d’ you know?’ she said, startled.
‘He just seems like that.’
He padded along beside us in his bare feet and was a sufficiently unusual sight on a racecourse to attract a barrage of stares ranging from amusement to apoplexy. He didn’t seem to notice. Nancy looked as if she were long used to it.
We came to a halt against the parade ring rails where Chanter rested his elbows and exercised his voice.
‘Horses,’ he said. ‘I’m not for the Stubbs and Munnings thing. When I see a racehorse I see a machine, and that’s what I paint, a horse-shaped machine with pistons thumping away and muscle fibres like connecting rods and a crack in the crank case with the oil dripping away drop by drop into the body cavity…’ He broke off abruptly but with the same breath finished. ‘How’s your sister?’
‘She’s much better,’ Nancy said, not seeming to see any great change of subject. ‘She’s really quite well now.’
‘Good,’ he said, and went straight on with his lecture. ‘And then I draw some distant bulging stands with hats flying off and everyone cheering and all the time the machine is bursting its gut.… I see components, I see what’s happening to the bits… the stresses… I see colours in components too… nothing on earth is a whole… nothing is ever what it seems… everything is components.’ He stopped abruptly, thinking about what he’d said.
After a suitably appreciative pause, I asked, ‘Do you ever sell your paintings?’
‘Sell them?’ He gave me a scornful, superior stare. ‘No, I don’t. Money is disgusting.’
‘It’s more disgusting when you haven’t got it,’ Nancy said.
‘You’re a renegade, girl,’ he said fiercely.
‘Love on a crust,’ she said, ‘Is fine when you’re twenty, but pretty squalid when you’re sixty.’
‘I don’t intend to be sixty. Sixty is strictly for grandfathers. Not my scene at all.’
We turned away from the rails and came face to face with Major Tyderman, who was carrying his Sporting Life and holding out the aircraft’s keys. His gaze swept over Chanter and he controlled himself admirably. Not a twitch.
‘I locked up again,’ he said, handing me the bunch.
‘Thanks, Major.’
He nodded, glanced once more at Chanter, and retreated in good order.
Even for Nancy’s sake the official wouldn’t let Chanter up the steps to the Owners and Trainers. We watched at grass level with Chanter muttering ‘stinking bourgeois’ at regular intervals.
Colin Ross finished second. The crowd booed and tore up a lot of tickets. Nancy looked as though she were long used to that, too.
Between the next two races we sat on the grass while Chanter gave us the uninterrupted benefit of his views on the evils of money, racialism, war, religion and marriage. It was regulation stuff, nothing new. I didn’t say I thought so. During the discourse he twice without warning stretched over and put his hand on Nancy’s breast. Each time without surprise she picked it off again by the wrist and threw it back at him. Neither of them seemed to think it needed comment.
After the next race (Colin was third) Chanter remarked that his throat was dry, and Nancy and I obediently followed him off to the Tattersalls bar for lubrication.