Naked Hero - The Journey Away

picture now, using what he’d just heard and what had been previously conveyed. “So, I take it... that at Wimbledon, he and your mum would have preferred that you kept it all quiet. I assume they must have known before you dropped the bombshell. Now that would have been funny if they didn’t!”
    There was another laugh down the line – slightly forced in Lee’s opinion, but a good attempt to lighten the conversation. “Yeah, they knew,” Lewis chortled. “Shame really. The pair of them would have had a right fit if I’d given them no warning. Can you imagine it – my mother up there swooning in the box, Jim clutching his heart – the shock too much.” There was another round of laughter, this time from both ends before Lewis continued in a more serious tone. “But you’re right - they did want me to keep it quiet. Only I couldn’t. I didn’t want to have to lie - and saying nothing... that would have been like a lie in a way. Do you not think?”
    Lee thought about the potential billion Lewis had blown – the fortune in sponsorship deals he had backed away from, but naturally he tempered his views. Lewis used a different rulebook to the one Lee conducted his life by, and he wanted to keep the empathy running. “Perhaps you could have left it… for a little while at least. Then you could have had your moment without all the crap.”
    “But it would have been a fake - to me anyway. It was the biggest moment of my life, and it was my life, not Jim’s, not my mum’s. I might have spoiled it for them, but it made it sort of… pure for me… despite what happened.”
    “What do you mean exactly?”
    “The press. How people reacted, that sort of thing.”
    “I read some of the stuff that was written afterwards. But they didn’t really have anything to write about. It was all just blatant homophobia. And it seemed to die down after a while. Couldn’t you have just ignored it?”
    “Yes, it died down... till the following year at Wimbledon.”
    Lee clutched his brow – what an idiot he was – forgetting about another painful raw nerve. But it was Lewis who had mentioned it – Lee had only provided the opening, so he decided to grasp the nettle and see how badly it stung. “Yeah, I remember now... your opening match in defence of the title. I mean, I can understand the tabloids… you don’t expect anything else from them... but the crowd. How could they do that to you - their own player?”
    “It was only a few.”
    There it was again – a cold dismissive statement like it didn’t really matter. But it had mattered then and it still mattered now. Maybe not as much as the father he had lost, but it was still a big factor that had influenced his life. “It didn’t seem like just a few,” Lee prompted.
    “Didn’t feel like it either… but it was... just a few.”
    Just a few! A few homophobic idiots who thought they’d have a laugh, calling out abuse at the champion once the match got underway. A few was all it took to mess with Lewis’s head, make his game fall apart, and ruin his chances of retaining the title. “It was a disgrace... Has it happened anywhere else?” asked Lee.
    “Oh yeah – I’m forever getting supportive messages shouted out. But I try not to give them too much to work with. Until now that is.”
    Lee considered this for a moment, and recalled their earlier conversation. It was starting to fall into place why Lewis shied away from the scene. “Is that why you keep your distance from us, Lewis? So people might accept you again?”
    “I suppose,” Lewis confessed. “I never really thought about it quite like that. But I suppose that’s what I was doing – keeping a low profile, so that maybe they’d forget about me being gay and just judge me on the tennis. Does that make sense?”
    “In a way,” answered Lee. “But it must be a tough act to keep up... when you’re young and famous... and can have anyone you want.”
    There was another moment of silence then a choked ironic laugh. “It was getting pretty tough… and during the winter off-season… well... I didn’t feel that I could keep the act up for much longer. It wasn’t working anyway. That’s why I agreed to do the SLAGSS thing… and probably why it all went totally pear-shaped in Sydney.”
    “And what are you doing now, Lewis?” Lee dared to ask. “Still keeping your distance?”
    There was a pause.
    “Yes… till after Melbourne anyway.”
    Okay was Lee’s view. I can wait.