Rat Race Part 2

Two of my other pa.s.sengers were there. Annie Villars was watching the horses canter past with an intent eye and a pursed mouth: the field marshall element was showing strongly, the feminine camouflage in abeyance. Major Tyderman, planted firmly with his legs apart and his chin tucked well back into his neck, was scribbling notes into his racecard. When he looked up he saw us, and made his way purposefully across.

'I say,' he said to me, having forgotten my name. 'Did I leave my Sporting Life Sporting Life over in the plane, do you know?' over in the plane, do you know?'

'Yes, you did, Major.'

'Blast,' he said. 'I made some notes on it.... Must get it, you know. Have to go across after this race.'

'Would you like me to fetch it?' I asked.

'Well, that's very good of you, my dear chap. But... no... couldn't ask it. Walk will do me good.'

'The aircraft's locked, Major,' I said. 'You'll need the keys.' I took them out of my pocket and gave them to him.

'Right.' He nodded stiffly. 'Good.'

The race started away off down the track and was all over long before I sorted out the colours of Colin Ross. In the event, it wasn't difficult. He had won.

'How's Midge?' Annie Villars said to Nancy, restoring her giant racegla.s.ses to their case.

'Oh, much better, thank you. Getting on splendidly.'

'I'm so glad. She's had a bad time, poor girl.'

Nancy nodded and smiled, and everyone trooped down the stairs to the ground.

'Well now,' Nancy said. 'How about some coffee? And something to munch, perhaps?'

'You must have others you'd prefer to be with... I won't get into trouble, you know, on my own.'

Her lips twitched. 'Today I need a bodyguard. I elected you for the job. Desert me if you like, but if you want to please, stick.'

'Not difficult,' I said.

'Great. Coffee, then.'

It was iced coffee, rather good. Half way through the turkey sandwiches the reason why Nancy wanted me with her drifted up to the small table where we sat and s...o...b..red all over her. She fended off what looked to me like a random a.s.sembly of long hair, beard, beads, fringes and a garment like a table cloth with a hole in it, and yelled to me through the undergrowth, 'Buddy, your job starts right now.'

I stood up, reached out two hands, caught hold of an a.s.sortment of wool and hair, and pulled firmly backwards. The result resolved itself into a youngish man sitting down with surprise much more suddenly than he'd intended.

'Nancy,' he said in an aggrieved voice.

'This is Chanter,' she said to me. 'He's never grown out of the hippie thing, as you can see.'

'I'm an artist,' he said. He had an embroidered band across his forehead and round his head: like the horses' bridles, I thought fleetingly. All the hair was clean and there were shaven parts on his jaw just to prove that it wasn't from pure laziness that he let everything grow. On closer inspection I was sure that it was indeed a dark green chenille table cloth, with a central hole for his head. Underneath that he wore low-slung buckskin trousers fringed from hip to ankle, and a creepy crepy dim mauve s.h.i.+rt curved to fit his concave stomach. Various necklaces and pendants on silver chains hung round his neck. Under all the splendour he had dirty bare feet.

'I went to art school with him,' Nancy said resignedly. 'That was in London. Now he's at Liverpool, just down the road. Any time I come racing up here, he turns up too.'

'Uh,' Chanter said profoundly.

'Do you get grants for ever?' I asked: not sneeringly; I simply wanted to know.

He was not offended. 'Look, man, like, up here I'm the fuzz.'

I nearly laughed. Nancy said, 'You know what he means, then?'

'He teaches,' I said.

'Yeah, man, that's what I said.' He took one of the turkey sandwiches. His fingers were greenish with black streaks. Paint.

'You keep your impure thoughts off this little bird,' he said to me, spitting out bits of bread. 'She's strictly my territory. But strictly, man.'

'Zat so?'

'Zat definitely, but definitely... is... so, man.'

'How come?'

He gave me a look which was as off beat as his appearance.

'I've 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 s.e.x 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 suns.h.i.+ne.

'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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 Sporting Life and holding out the aircraft's keys. His gaze swept over Chanter and he controlled himself admirably. Not a twitch. 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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. Coca Colas for three, splashed out of the bottles by an overworked barmaid. Chanter busily juggled the three gla.s.ses so that it was I who paid, which figured.

The bar was only half full but a great deal of s.p.a.ce and attention was being taken up by one man, a large tough-looking individual with a penetrating Australian accent. He had an obviously new white plaster cast on his leg and a pair of crutches which he hadn't mastered. His loud laugh rose above the general buzz as he constantly apologised for knocking into people.

'Haven't got the hang of these props yet...'

Chanter regarded him, as he did most things, with some disfavour.

The large Australian went on explaining his state to two receptive acquaintances.

'Mind you, can't say I'm sorry I broke my ankle. Best investment I ever made.' The laugh rang out infectiously and most people in the bar began to grin. Not Chanter, of course.

'See, I only paid my premium the week before, and then I fell down these steps and I got a thousand quid for it. Now that ain't whistling, that ain't, eh? A thousand bleeding quid for falling down a flight of steps.' He laughed again hugely, enjoying the joke. 'Come on mates,' he said, 'Drink up, and let's go and invest some of this manna from Heaven on my good friend Kenny Bayst.'

I jumped a fraction and looked at my watch. Coming up to three thirty. Kenny Bayst clearly hadn't told his good friend not to speculate. Absolutely none of my business. Telling him myself would be the worst favour I could do for Kenny Bayst.

The large Australian swung himself out of the bar, followed by the two mates. Chanter's curiosity overcame his disinclination to show himself at a loss.

'Who,' he said crossly, 'Is going to give that schmo a thousand quid for breaking his ankle?'

Nancy smiled. 'It's a new insurance fund, specially for people who go racing. Accident insurance. I don't really know. I've heard one or two people mention it lately.'

'Insurance is immoral,' Chanter said dogmatically, sliding round behind her and laying his hand flat on her stomach. Nancy picked it off and stepped away. As a bodyguard, I didn't seem to be doing much good.

Nancy said she particularly wanted to see this race properly, and left Chanter looking moody at the bottom of the staircase. Without asking her I followed her up the steps: a period alone with Chanter held no attractions.

Kenny Bayst, according to my slantways look at Nancy's racecard, was riding a horse called Rudiments: number seven, owned by the Duke of Wess.e.x, trained by Miss Villars, carrying olive green with silver crossbelts and cap. I watched the horse canter down past the stands on the olive green gra.s.s and reflected that the Duke of Wess.e.x had chosen colours which were as easy to distinguish as coal on a black night.

I said to Nancy, 'What did Rudiments do in his last race?'

'Hm?' she said absentmindedly, all her attention on the rose pink and white shape of her brother. 'Did you say Rudiments?'

'That's right. I brought Kenny Bayst and Annie Villars here, as well.'

'Oh. I see.' She looked down at her racecard. 'Last time out... it won. Time before that, it won. Time before that, it came fourth.'

'It's good, then?'

'Fairly, I suppose.' She wrinkled her nose at me. 'I told you you'd get involved.'

I shook my head. 'Just curious.'

'Same thing.'

'Is it favourite?'

'No, Colin is. But... you can see over there, on that big board... see?... Rudiments is second favourite on the Tote at about three to one.'

'Well...' I said. 'What does it mean, to lay a horse?'

'It means to stand a bet. It's what bookmakers do. What the Tote does, really, come to that.'

'Can people do it who aren't bookmakers?'

'Oh sure. They do. Say the bookmakers are offering three to one, and you yourself don't think the horse will win, you could say to your friends, I'll lay you four to one; so they'd bet with you because you were offering more. Also, no betting tax. Private wager, you see.'

'And if the horse wins, you pay out?'

'You sure do.'

'I see,' I said. And I did. Eric Goldenberg had laid Rudiments the last time it had run because Kenny Bayst had agreed to lose, and then he'd gone and won. Their tempers were still on the d.i.c.ky side as a result: and they had been arguing today about whether or not to try again.