Page 1 of Fever Dream
CHAPTER 1
harrison
It’s amazing what a difference a week can make. Just one week ago I was pondering my future, hoping, wishing, praying that the twelve-month residency program I was weeks away from completing would be extended with an offer of permanent employment with Tottenham Hotspur’s physiotherapy team.
Three days ago, that answer came-and boy was I not expecting this outcome.
As it turned out, Ihadbeen offered the position on Tottenham’s physio team, my literal dream come true. But life threw me a curveball, another opportunity, one that came with a choice that could completely uproot my entire life.
Two options. Two wildly different paths.
I’m still not entirely sure I chose correctly. The thing is, I knew I could have happily stayed at Tottenham Hotspur when they offered me the job I’d spent years trying to make my own. It is my literal dream job. I love the team, have made loads of friends there and have a great flat in London that was hard to find. The medical team is incredibly well equipped and even better funded and it had been the best learning experiencea fresh King’s College London university graduate could have hoped for.
The other choice? That was the stuff of the wildest of dreams—the kind you barely dare to chase. And the chance of fulfilling a lifelong dream was simply too good to resist. I mean, who wouldn’t grab at a chance for a fully funded, twelve-month secondment to work for a top Australian sporting club?
Sign me up, baby.
It’s just that nobody told me exactly how long this endless flight from London to Sydney was going to be. And I mean yes, my new Australian team have paid for business class flights so I can stretch out my six-foot-two frame legs so I know it could be far worse.
But still. Twenty-two hours and thirty minutes stuck in a flying steel cylinder is not the way I would have chosen to spend my day. No wonder all those Aussies who flock to London never leave. Who’d want to put themselves through this again?
The other, ever so slight drawback to this whirlwind adventure—the one that gave me exactly two days to farewell my friends and family and pack up my entire life to ship off to the far-flung colonies—is the very minor fact that I have never actually seen an Australian rules football match before.
That seemed to be less important than the actual reason for this dramatic and sudden life detour—that being my specialised sports physio skills and know-how that I have finetuned in Tottenham’s graduate program. But it is right about now I’m thinking I probably should have investigated further before rifling through my drawers for my British passport and tube of SPF 50+.
So I did what any dedicated, professional, slightly football mad (in the English sense) guy would do and Googled the details on the layover in Singapore.
And excuse my French, but what in the holy mother of pearl have I just signed up for? Because let me tell you, the Australian game is brutal, basically a free-for-all with a confusing array of indiscernible rules and absolutely no protective gear whatsoever save for a flimsy mouthguard.
It’s certainly not thebeautiful gameI have grown up with.
No wonder they have a need for specialist physiotherapy skills.
As for my new team, they had apparently gone searching high and low for some kind of new, groundbreaking physio treatment for their new superstar recruit and landed on the work we have been doing at the Hotspurs. Best in the biz is what they are calling Tottenham’s sports medic team. It is no coincidence that the football squad’s on-field success has gone hand in hand with their impressively low injury rate.
The East Coast Fever is the Australian Football League’s newest franchise, based in the northeastern edge of Sydney in what is reportedly deep-seatedRugby League territory—at least according to every single webpage I have so far stumbled across. The AFL were hoping to bring their brand of Australian rules football to the masses and are not afraid to take on the competing league for the hearts and minds of its citizens.
As for my client? That’s Casey Calloway, the club’s highest profile recruit, and the Fever are apparently prepared to spend whatever it takes to get their star midfielder in tip-top shape for season launch which is just over two weeks away.
Thus the reason for this mad dash across the seven seas.
It has just ticked over to March, and it has not escaped my notice that I have voluntarily left the wintery climes of the northern hemisphere just when the south is transitioning into their own brand of winter.
Still, it had been a miserly nine degrees when I had boarded the plane in London, and I feel my first smile of the pasttwenty-four hours when I finally,finallystep out into Sydney’s balmy twenty-five-degree sunshine. A gentle southerly breeze is blowing in from the ocean and I smell the freshness in the air combined with the distinct tang of salt.
Divine.
“Harrison Thornfield?”
I look up to find the smiling face of the most stereotypical Australian man approaching me—the kind of face that one might expect to find basking on the shores of Bondi beach. Sun-streaked blonde hair and glowing tan for miles.
“Sure is,” I answer with a smile.
“I’m Ben. Ben McLean,” he replies, thrusting his hand out for a warm and hearty shake. “We’ve been talking on the phone. Welcome to Sydney.”
“Thanks,” I reply, forcing back the wave of jetlag that suddenly threatens to hit so I can focus on my new line manager at the East Coast Fever. Ben had been the one to contact Tottenham with the offer of a wad of cash in exchange for a twelve-month secondment of one of their finest residents and I had been the lucky beneficiary of that phone call.
“How was the flight?” Ben asks affably, reaching out to take my suitcase.
