Naked Hero - The Journey Away

“And then what?” he asked prodding for more. “You can’t hide forever, you know.”
    “I know… Look, I’m keeping you from your work.”
    Lee knew he’d pushed too far. “No, please. It’s alright.”
    “I have to go anyway… thanks for listening to me. You should do an Agony Aunt section on the website. You’d be good.”
    Yeah, he’d pushed too far. But Lewis had gone a darn site further than Lee had ever expected. “Any time, Lewis,” he said accepting the limit.
    “Thanks… I liked the new pictures by the way. Goodnight... Lee.”
    The line went dead. Lee looked at the mobile and the smile came back bigger than ever. “Goodnight, Lewis,” he whispered. “Sleep tight.”

Chapter 14
    With two days to go before his opening match at the Australian Open, Lewis was starting to feel the heat. It was only to be expected. Melbourne Park was notorious for the hot conditions that the tournament was usually played under, and it was living up to its reputation as Lewis went through his final training session on one of the practice courts. The temperature had climbed steadily during the two hours which had been allocated to him, and now hovered around the thirty-five degree mark. Lewis would have guessed higher.
    Jim had enlisted the help of an Italian journeyman who had failed in his bid to qualify for the tournament and now seemed content to take his frustration out on Lewis by dragging him around the court with his relentless ground strokes. For most of the session Lewis had been under instruction to keep the rallies going. Get used to the heat. Get used to staying in the points. That was Jim’s justification for the torture. Get used to Gonzales’s game, that’s what was really going on as far as Lewis was concerned. But he was already used to his game - he was well conditioned to losing to it. He needed to work out how to beat it, not just put up a good show. But he could understand Jim’s reasoning: hang on in the points and bide your time. Lewis had rushed too much in the past, going for winners and missing too many, rather that endure the endless shot making that was the trademark of Alberto Gonzales’s game. But the heat! So tempting to just strike out and end the draining rally one way or another.
    Jim was sitting at courtside, shouting out a mixture of encouragement and criticism with a singularity of tone that made it difficult to distinguish between the two. But the edginess of the previous few weeks had gone from his voice. As the start of the tournament grew closer, Jim was feeling more confident about Lewis’s prospects. The ‘walkabouts’, as Jim referred to Lewis’s earlier lapses in concentration, seemed to have been eradicated. He had thought that the call from Mary would have set things back, but instead Lewis seemed to have focused even more, and he was enjoying the preparation process. Jim was pleased to see the lad smiling again - it had been a while since he could remember Lewis looking so happy, even though it was interspersed with the odd period of melancholy. He just hoped that Lewis was still smiling come Monday night.
    It was the first round match that was Jim’s one big concern for the opening week of the tournament. He had come round to Lewis’s way of thinking - that there was no major threat from the players he was likely to face in the early rounds - certainly given the way he was playing and the attitude he had adopted. But the crowd! That could still be an issue. There was a history which Jim was all too aware of – one that he was still annoyed with himself about for not foreseeing and preparing Lewis in advance. With the lesson learned, he had no intensions of leaving anything to chance this time around. Jim checked his watch thinking about the meeting he had arranged for the afternoon. ‘Another hour,’ he thought, ‘and then we’ll see what can be done about the crowd.’
    But that was for later. At present, Jim was more concerned with Lewis’s performance on court, and how it would square up against his likely opponent in the quarter-finals, assuming that his man got that far. He could see that the backhand needed more work. Lewis didn’t look too comfortable with the high balls on that side, and Jim knew it was a weakness that Gonzales was more than capable of exploiting with the heavy topspin he normally employed.
    “Mario, I want more over to his backhand, plenty of top on it,” shouted Jim. “Lewis, I want you to start attacking now,