At the end of the tour, a reporter asked him what he thought of America. He had answered that question a hundred times. Maybe a thousand.
“I had a dream last night,” Silk said. “I was on a train crossing America, except it was going in circles, and I was in the locomotive with a shovel, stoking the furnace. And the engine driver said, ‘There’s good news and there’s bad news. The bad news is you’ve got nothing to shovel but bullshit. The good news is you can shovel all you like.’ Then I woke up.”
“Don’t print any of that,” the consulate officer told the reporter.
“It’s an old RAF joke,” Silk said. “Not very funny.”
“The squadron leader is tremendously impressed by the energy and enthusiasm he has found everywhere,” the officer said. “Against the forces of freedom, the enemy stands no chance at all.”
The reporter left. “Sorry about that,” Silk said. “Sometimes I have this odd sensation of being two people, in two places. I’m over here, watching myself make another speech over there. And I don’t know which is the real me.”
“You’re doing brilliantly. Let’s get a drink.”
Next day he put Silk on a plane to Los Angeles. The man from the L.A. consulate met him. He was somewhat in awe. “You’ve made a tremendous impression back east, squadron leader,” he said. “It feels like every war plant in California wants you.”
“How many is that?”
“Around five hundred. Not all making aircraft, of course. Some are equipping the army or the marines. Still, it’s all the same war, isn’t it?” Silk could think of nothing to say. He looked away. “Ah! Now I see it,” the man from the consulate said. “The eyes, and the mouth. A clear resemblance. That’s very useful.”
“Resemblance?”
“David Niven. The Washington embassy mentioned that you’re related. Younger brother, is that right? Niven’s awfully popular in Hollywood.”
Silk rested against a pillar. “You can shovel all you like,” he said. His legs slowly folded until he was sitting on the floor. “Five hundred fucking factories.”
“More or less,” the man said. “That’s what you asked, wasn’t it? You’ll be visiting fifty. Only fifty.”
“Can’t do it.” He slumped further. “I’ll just lie down here and die.”
“For God’s sake… Stand up, squadron leader, please. There are photographers…” A couple of people had stopped to stare. “It’s the heat,” the man explained. “He’ll be fine in a moment.”
With their help he got Silk into his car. Silk said nothing on the way to the hotel, or in the elevator. He sat on the edge of his bed, too tired to take his shoes off. “You can lead a horse to water,” he said, “but what does it get you?”
“Rest,” the man advised. “You need rest.”
“It gets you wet feet,” Silk said. “But don’t tell anyone.”
“I’ll pick you up at ten tomorrow morning.”
When he arrived, Silk was wandering about the room, naked, reading the Gideon bible. His body was covered in a bright red rash. “The hotel doctor doesn’t like the look of it,” Silk said. “Personally, I think it’s hideous. What do you think?”
The consulate cancelled Silk’s tour. It sent a specialist in skin conditions, a burly, amiable American with a touch as delicate as a concert pianist’s. Throughout his very thorough examination he chatted with Silk about England, and bombers, and where he’d been in America. It was a relaxed and comfortable conversation. “Do you see a lot of people like me?” Silk asked. “Red all over?”
“Well, there’s Hollywood, of course. Movie-making can be hard on the nerves. All that make-up doesn’t help.”
“I knew a chap who wore make-up. Polish pilot. A touch of rouge on the cheeks, and he always slept in a hairnet. Brave as a lion. What we call a press-on type. Got the chop, of course. Over Osnabrück.”
“Was he a good friend of yours?” the doctor asked.
“Certainly not,” Silk said. “Chap gets the chop over Osnabrück, he’s no friend of mine.”
“Eyes wide open.” The doctor stared into one, then the other. “Clear as gin… You play any sports?”
“Sex. Lots of sex. Not enough, though. And none at all, recently.” He walked over to a full-length mirror. “You don’t get as red as that from a touch of rouge,” he said. “Looks more like a bucket of blood.”
“I’ll be back tomorrow. Drink lots of orange juice. It won’t stop your rash, but it helps our economy.”
Silk never saw him again.
There was a strong English colony in Hollywood which did its duty by providing hospitality for any compatriot in uniform who was passing through Los Angeles. Ronald Colman was accepted without question as the leader of the colony. He had played the perfect Englishman in so many hits that he was the unofficial British ambassador on the West Coast. His male secretary tapped on Silk’s door, didn’t even blink at what he saw, explained that Mr Colman thought Mr Silk might feel more comfortable as his guest in Beverly Hills. Stroll in the grounds, swim in the pool, watch a little cricket…
“Can’t wear my uniform,” Silk said. “Odd, isn’t it?”
“Try this.” The secretary had brought a pure silk dressing gown. “Belongs to Myrna Loy, but she has plenty more.”
“Crikey.” Silk slipped it on, warily. It felt like a cool evening breeze. “Strewth… Can I go out like this?”
“With your figure, I think you can carry it off.”
The car was a white Rolls. When it stopped at lights, some passers-by shaded their eyes and waved. Silk waved back.
“What if they want my autograph?” he asked.
“Just write Errol Flynn. That’s what I do.” The white Rolls seemed to know its way home. With only a little help from the chauffeur, it strolled up a driveway and circled what Silk took to be an unusually handsome country club but which turned out to be Ronald Colman’s home. His secretary had not been joking about cricket: the lawn was big enough. Sprinklers tossed small rainbows back and forth. Mexican gardeners hunted down weeds.
The Rolls stopped at a fake-Tudor cottage under a group of big shade trees. “Everything you need is in here,” the secretary said, “and if it isn’t, just pick up the phone. Mr Colman returns from the studio at six. Cocktails by the pool at seven.”
“What should I wear?”
“Anything. An air of quiet confidence would be fine.”
Silk searched a chest of drawers and found a pair of shorts, so flimsy that he wondered if they too belonged to Myrna Loy. He put them on. Not too painful. The kitchen was well stocked. The bathroom had a dozen towels, the thickest he had ever seen.
He went out and walked around the cottage, and saw a lush tropical bush where a hummingbird was doing its act. It glowed like a jewel. The wings were a blur, the tiny body shimmered with a golden green, a crimson, a purple, a bronze. This wasn’t flying the way Silk flew. The hummingbird stood on thin air and tickled the depth of a blossom with its probe, an action that was pure sex without the embrace. Silk blinked and the creature had gone.
He moved on and found it again. Or maybe its pal. Another blossom was in luck. Next to this genius, an aeroplane was just a truck with roaring propellers. Other hummingbirds visited other bushes. He studied them until his eyes began to lose focus.
The day slipped away, pleasantly, painlessly. He sat in a garden chair. After a while, a yellow butterfly as big as his hand landed on his knee. Its antenna uncurled and tasted the red skin. “Mustard?” he asked. “Horseradish sauce?” It flew away, dodging imaginary enemies. “Drunk on duty,” he said. “Court martial.”