Page 8 of Just One Look

Henry Asks Some Questions

Tokyo,Japan

March

Facing the media was never Luka Darkovic’s favorite thing. All those questions. He reckoned that his actions spoke for themselves. If people needed more than that, he didn’t have much else to give them.

The media was especially not his favorite thing after a Friday night game that had come six days after the last game and with a full day of travel from Australia in there, a game in which he’d been tackled with bone-crunching intensity by two forwards at the same time, in a hit that had resulted in some extremely annoying shooting pains down his left arm that he was going to have to do something about if he wanted to play next week. Not to mention that the forwards had been Japanese, and he was nearly a full head taller and had at least twenty Kg’s on both of them. Embarrassing, was what you’d call that. Not so bad if you were a back, but for a No. 8, whose job was to break the line and run through everything in your way?

Embarrassing.

Here he was, though, sitting at the table beside Hugh Latimer, his captain on the Auckland Blues, and Rhys Fletcher, the coach, fronting up at the postgame press conference. Both he and Hugh were hastily showered and crammed into their dress shirts, their forearms resting on the table, trying to look relaxed. Maybe Hugh actually was. Luka always felt, at these things, like somebody was about to spring something on him. Why else would they have asked him? It was probably going to be about that double tackle this time, and whether he’d lost a step in his thirteenth season.

They could ask. He was ready.

Questions for the coach, for Hugh, that they answered. Praise for the Sunwolves, like you’d expect, even though the Blues had won by seventeen. You respected your opponent, during the game and after it. Discussion of the drop goal that Will Tawera had executed after the hooter had sounded for the end of the first half, and whether that had been practiced. Of course it had been practiced. What did they think, that a first-five pulled a droppie like that out of his hat? He kept the answer off his face the same way he generally did: by staring straight ahead.

A boy stood up from the group of reporters, then. Eight or nine, something like that. A European boy with sleek blonde hair. He said, in an extremely posh accent, “Hello. My name is Henry Willoughby. I’m the reporter for my school paper at the English School, and I’m here to interview Luka Darkovic.”

“Right, then,” Rhys said. “Interview away.” The twitch at the corner of his mouth told Luka that he was going to enjoy this, and Hugh was outright grinning.

Ah.Thiswas the reason Luka’d been chosen for this media duty, instead of getting a massage that might lessen those electric shocks of pain, not to mention having a beer like a normal person before he climbed onto the plane for the twelve-hour night flight back to New Zealand.

“My first question,” Henry pronounced, “is: What qualities are important to succeed in rugby?”

Exactly what you’d expect him to ask. Luka answered, “Same things you need to succeed at anything. Practice. Focus. Determination. You’ve got to be willing to put in the effort, not just go through the motions. Turning up isn’t enough. You’re training to get better, not just because your coach said you should. You’re teaching your muscles and your mind something new every time. A bit of pain tolerance probably doesn’t come amiss, either.”

He could do this in his sleep. That was the one benefit of all those years in the professional game. Any minute here, he’d be telling Henry that it was a team sport, and that you had to focus on the fundamentals.

“What do you think you’d be doing if you weren’t a rugby player?” Henry asked.

“Physiotherapy,” Luka said. “Sorry it’s not something more exciting,” he added, when Henry looked distinctly disappointed. “Commando, astronaut, brain surgeon, whatever it is you’re hoping for. If I weren’t doing this, I’d just be pushing people to get stronger like the sadistic fella I am.”

Wait. Were you allowed to say “sadistic” to a kid?

Never mind. He’d already said it.

“That’s what he does anyway,” Hugh put in from beside him. “Easy transition.”

“It seems like you’d want to do something more exciting, though,” Henry said, because Henry, clearly, was persistent.

Luka may have agreed with him. He wasn’t going to say so, though. “Think I should’ve been a lawyer instead? Battle it out in court? Nah, mate. Physio’s as good as it’s going to get. Could be worse, eh. My family are avocado farmers.”

“So are you going to do that, too, after you quit rugby?” Henry asked. “Since you’re getting old?”

That got a good laugh from Hugh, and some careful not-laughing from the Japanese press corps. “Mate,” Luka said, “I’m notthatold.”

“Except that a No. 8 can’t usually play as long as other positions,” Henry said, “because you get knocked about too much. And you turned thirty-three on Christmas Eve, which makes you the oldest player on the team this season, and you’ve already had seven surgeries. Those are the ones I could find out about, anyway.”

“Good research,” Luka said. “That’s why I keep fit, though, so I don’t get injured, and so the coach doesn’t use me as an inspirational role model for the younger boys and then leave me at home when the plane lifts off. I focus on the moment I’m in, not on what may happen next. None of us knows what’ll happen next anyway.”

There. Sounded good.

Rhys said, “Time for one more question, Henry.”

The boy looked worried, like he had sixteen more of them on his notepad, which he probably did, and wasn’t going to get to ask them. He flipped a page, frowned at it intensely, looked up, and said, “Why aren’t you even married, when all the other players who are old like you have kids already?”

A little stir in the room, a murmur from the polite Japanese, and Luka said, “Why do I feel like I’m on a chat show? Never found the right girl, I reckon. It happens.”