Naked Hero - The Journey Away

learned long ago to accept what life would bring, and perhaps more importantly – what it wouldn’t.
    “Did you have a good swim, Lewis?” Fiona asked over her shoulder , her eyes warming him with their smile.
    “Oh aye. I was up and down that pool like a yoyo,” he laughed in response. “How’s the food going, Fiona? I’ve worked up a fair appetite with all those lengths.”
    “Twenty minutes, Lewis, and it’ll be ready... Funny how I didn’t hear too much splashing in the pool… when you were doing your lengths.”
    Lewis threw her a wink, enjoying the banter. “That’s the southern hemisphere for you, Fiona - water does strange thing here apparently. Did you not know?”
    She shook her head, pretending annoyance. “Get away with you, and let me get on here now, or strange things will be happening to your dinner.”
    “Right you are, Fiona… So Jim - has it come through yet?” asked Lewis as he threw himself onto a couch.
    The coach raised his twinkling eyes - the man wallowing in his work. “The draw?” he asked, as if he didn’t know what was being referred to. “Aye, I’m just going over it now.”
    “Who have I got?”
    “A qualifier in the first round.”
    “Nice one.”
    Jim looked over to Lewis and ominously added, “An Australian qualifier.”
    “Ooh!” harped the lad. “That should make it a bit more fun.” He was trying to make light of it, but he knew exactly what Jim was implying, and knew exactly what lay in store for him.
    Jim put it into words. “It could get ugly.”
    “There’s going to be some arseholes shouting out abuse, whoever I get, Jim.”
    Lewis heard a tutting sound emanating from the kitchen area. Reproached for his bad language, he decided to continue the conversation with his coach next to him at the table so that sensitive ears would not be offended by any further remarks on the merits of a hostile crowd.
    “There’ll be more of a reaction for a local boy,” replied Jim, lowering his voice as Lewis joined him. His eyes twinkled all the more, the coach well aware that the conversation was now turning serious.
    “Well, not too much - it’s bound to be on an outside court, do you not think? They’ll not want it televised.”
    Jim heard a thickening of the accent, and with it he knew that his boy was coming back to him, if only for a few moments. Even after ten years away from his homeland, Lewis would still revert to his native Ayrshire brogue when defences were lowered through either trust or alcohol.
    “Let’s hope so,” agreed Jim with a nod of his head. “But that’s what you’re up against anyway... and you know what a crowd can do.”
    “Okay! I’m prepared… So what’s the crystal ball telling you?”
    Jim was in his domain now. He loved these sessions, when he would sit and speculate with Lewis whom the likely opponents might be. He rarely guessed wrong, and knew that his boy rightly trusted his judgement. “Well, in theory you’ll get past the crowd, because let’s face it, that’s who you’ll really have to beat in the first round, then get a Spaniard in the second. It shouldn’t matter which one, they’re clay-courters the pair of them... you’ll be okay. The seeding then puts you up against the Czech boy, Navrotil, but I think you’re more likely to face Mierskoff.”
    “He blows hot and cold,” said Lewis nonchalantly.
    “Aye, but it’s been more ‘hot’ of late, and if that serve of his is in gear then you’re in trouble.”
    “I can serve as well you know,” claimed an indignant Macleod.
    Jim let out a sneer, which was a tad unfair, but that was his way and he was too old to change now. “Your serve’s come along, but it’s not as good as his... so you can’t try to blast him off the court like that. You need to slow things down for him.”
    “That’s not my game. I don’t run away. I take it to them.”
    A friendly nudge was given, just like old times. “It’s even less his game. And it’s not you I want to see running, it’s him! Anyway, that’s all speculation.”
    “You usually get it right, so carry on.”
    “Huh… I’m speculating that it’ll be YOU that gets there, not the other way round!”
    Sure that he was joking, Lewis leaned over and whispered in Jim’s ear. “You can be a right sour cunt when you put your mind to it, Jim Murdoch… but one that I lap up, and that’s a rarity - I can assure you! Now who does Mystic Meg see in the forth. That’s where I get knocked out