These months always one question: was he really dying
or were my fears groundless? In India last year
he collapsed in his room. He shook, could scarcely speak,
saw a vision of his mother, refused a doctor.
I stayed awake all night, thinking him dead.
Next day he made the most moving speech of the tour.
So it went on. Last April when he needed rest
why did he think of travelling up the Wanganui
to Baxter’s grave? Then it was the Bay of Islands.
He phoned me nightly in pain. No one was to know.
Coming home he lay on the back seat of his car
coughing blood-balls while they drove it into a transport.
His doctor, a Nat, described him as ‘uncomplaining’.
The specialist wouldn’t make house-calls. ‘You’re the P.M.’
I reminded him. He smiled. ‘And this is New Zealand.’
Driving home in May he hit the curb four times.
When he sneezed, his nose bled; when he urinated
the bowl was scarlet. ‘Four P.M.s have died in office,’
Truth crowed. He quoted that in a Conference speech
and added, ‘Some who didn’t had to be prodded
to check they were really alive.’ Sixty-nine words
in a shaky hand his speech-notes. It rallied the Party.
Tonight we have it – the answer to my question.
In his last phone-call he told me he was happy.
I drove away up the coast and watched hang-gliders
soar up and out over water in the winter sun.