Naked Hero - The Journey Away

was another awkward subject. “Thanks again for intervening... I suppose that’s what you really want to talk about.”
    “You got it!” confirmed Scott. “So, have you worked out why it started to go wrong for you yesterday?”
    “What – beyond all the homophobic abuse?” quipped Lewis, still a little touchy to put it mildly.
    “You know what I mean.”
    “Yeah, sorry... You’re right of course – it went deeper than the abuse. And it’s something I need to sort out - I already decided that.”
    “Of course you do, and do it soon, or else you might find that you’re doing it on court, and that’s the wrong place to have to deal with that sort of experience.”
    Lewis took a moment and allowed painful memories to come back - Scott’s presence beside him like a sort of confessor making it bearable to drag them up then spill them out. “I suppose that’s what happened yesterday – why it started to go wrong. I wasn’t just dealing with the crowd here in Melbourne - I was dealing with what happened at Wimbledon last year. I ran away from that one - couldn’t cope with it at the time, so I just blocked it out and forced it down every time the memory came back. The call triggered it – and I was back there, trying to deal with it and failing miserably.”
    It was now Scott Taylor’s turn to take a moment to reflect. He felt touched that Lewis had opened up to him so much; warmed by the vulnerability that he wore on his sleeve as clear as the tattoo; and sympathy for the burden Lewis had brought upon himself. All of it added to the young man’s attraction which was powerful in Scott’s opinion. But openness could also be a dangerous weakness – an infection that the American didn’t feel inclined to catch – not yet at any rate. Scott knew he needed to keep up his guard. But there was a burning question that he had to ask, and now he had an opening.
    “Okay, so Wimbledon was a bummer – but you need to deal with it or what happened on Monday will happen again. You were lucky there was someone who managed to snap you out of it... Is he a friend?”
    Lewis drew a deep breath. It was the second time that question had been posed to him and it felt just as awkward as the first. But he reckoned that Scott’s motives were different from Jim’s, so there was no acid in his voice when he replied on this occasion. “Yes. I suppose you’d class him as a friend of sorts. I don’t know him all that well though. He’s just someone who’s appeared in my life lately. Quite dramatically you might say – but then he is a bit of a showman.”
    Scott made no immediate reply. Instead he made his assumptions about what Lewis had meant. Assumed that there was a relationship in its infancy, despite what Jim Murdoch might think. He had watched the man as he left the court yesterday, just as Jim had done, wondering who he was, and what part he played in Lewis’s life. He had seen the looks that were exchanged, both during and after the match. There was definitely something between them, and he sensed that this man would have a further role to play in the fortnight to come. In an objective sense that might be good as he’d certainly worked wonders yesterday. But at the subjective level Scott had serious reservations, which in itself was a concern to the American. It was with a mixture of professionalism and personal curiosity that Scott pressed further.
    “Why was he able to turn things around for you? He did, that was obvious. Was it what he said, about prejudice and shame, or was it just because he was there?”
    Lewis was stunned by the question. It was sailing a bit close to the wind, and not what he would have expected from someone like Scott. Most people would have been told to mind their own business, but not this man - there was too much respect and a huge amount of gratitude to take that sort of stance against him. But how should he answer an either/or question that missed the central truth? It was neither one thing nor the other, but a combination of Lee’s dramatic appearance and the poignancy of the words he had used – not about prejudice and shame which was neither here nor there – but about making his dead father proud, for that had always been the driving force behind Lewis’s tennis – the platform on which he had built his young life. Lee Porter had perceived this through mystical means, and used it subtly, masked in high drama, reminding Lewis of what was really important, while