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Bruce Rowland walked three kilometres with his wife, Sarah, every day. It was part of their new regime commenced not long after his release from hospital for heart surgery, two years ago. She waited for him in the living room and had already changed into her track suit and shoes. She heard the car arrive and the front door open. He was thirty minutes later than normal.
'Sorry, I did try to get away on time,' he called from the hallway.
'That's okay, I've laid out your sweats on the bed.'
Their walking route was the same each day, the three miles took them up two steep hills and down another long one coming back home. Sarah swore it was harder coming down that long hill than going up. It took them forty minutes, less if they really stepped it out. It had grown dark by the time they had left the house.
'I told McKeon today,' he said softly.
Sarah knew immediately what he meant and took him by the arm and squeezed.
'Oh, darling... '
She wanted to say she was sorry, but she knew he didn't want to hear her say that. It was a difficult decision for him, she knew. It was as if he had conceded he was too old and battle weary to go on. It was all true of course, but she knew it was difficult for any man to confess he was past his prime. And soon he'd even have to declare it publicly.
'What did he say?'
'Oh, he didn't say much, just looked at me with that P-I-T-Y sign attached to his face.'
He suddenly began to laugh.
'He looked stupid really, completely stupid and he was struck dumb.'
'Yes... well, he could have helped you more these past few years. He knew you were struggling, loaded down.'
'That's a bit unfair, we were all loaded down as soon as we first came to office, he more than most.'
They walked in silence again as they approached the first steep grade, sucking back the chilly air into their lungs. The sun had set two hours previously but the sky still held a warm orange glow near the horizon. Birds summoned their sort to join in their end-of-day ritual and the traffic on the state highway below was dotted with lights of vehicles pouring from the central business district.
'It looks busy down there tonight,' Sarah said when she saw him glance at the scene.
Bruce looked again at the long line of cars and trucks, their drivers aggressively claiming space in the exit line from the city; crackling lights rushing past tall trees, weaving a way through the darkened unlit parkland which stretched beneath the hillside on which he was standing.
'Rats in their race,' he said philosophically.
'Or sheep... '
'Yeah, or sheep,' Bruce agreed as he bent forward.
Sarah continued on for a few paces before she realised her husband had stopped then she turned.
Bruce was stumbling backwards clutching his left arm.
'No!' she shouted loudly. 'Somebody... help!'
Bruce was struck mute. The pain in his chest became severe at the slightest movement, he couldn't exhale and he couldn't inhale. He searched Sarah's face for information - her facial contortions confirmed his own thoughts - then he fell heavily onto his back and lost consciousness.
She was at once over him screaming for help. But no one came, no one was near.
At his last, Bruce could feel Sarah's mouth on his; her breath of life inflating his lungs; her tears wetting his cheeks; all sounds slowly faded to nought; and behind closed lids, colours dissolved from red to blue to green, then yellow to black.
––––––––
Robin McKeon gave the eulogy at the service for his friend. Hundreds filled the old Anglican church in Canberra, politicians of all persuasions were in attendance and the crowd spilled from the stone Gothic building onto the steps and lawn outside. It was midday, overcast and still.
'Goodbye my friend,' McKeon began, facing the coffin. 'We shall all miss you.'
He paused, turned and looked at those in attendance.
'I first met Bruce Rowland at the Bat and Ball pub near the Sydney Cricket ground. We had a few mutual friends and they had arranged to meet there before a rugby league grand final, the idea being we were to have a few schooners before the game. I liked Bruce instantly and, over the years, he became like a brother to me.
'St George won that grand final by the way - they were his team. This was in the days of Gasnier, Raper and big Norm Provan. So you might say, he really enjoyed that day.
'Bruce was already active in the Liberal Party when I met him and eventually he talked me into getting involved as well.
'When I say he was active, I mean really active, a dynamo. And it didn't stop when he was elected to office.... a lot of people may not know that when he was Attorney General, Bruce put forward the first detailed bill of law reform in this country since federation. Coming from a successful legal background, he could see the courts struggling to cope with enormous backlogs, delays were rife, hearings dates had been stretching past twelve months - he did something about it and it took him years to sort out the mess. The Family Court amendment was another of his innovations; child victim identity protection was another.
'Bruce took the rocky road as well, such as the year he implemented controversial funding for Aboriginal legal services throughout the country, so that quality representation was available to indigenous people.
'In many of these cases I assisted Bruce, so I know just how hard he worked and how difficult it was for him personally, considering the intolerant climate in which he was operating at the time.'
McKeon paused to look around the room and recognised many of those in the congregation: in addition to many politicians from all major political parties, there were celebrities, sports men and women, show business sorts and many people from the arts.
'Bruce was a patron of the arts. In one of his early ministerial portfolios he addressed our cultural cringe and shook the listless Australian arts portfolio out of its apathy when he unveiled his United Artists' Council concept. This idea, as some of you will know, is one in which he enabled artists to take control of their industries - managers and administrators are now employed to work for them. Bruce had expressed this idea to me many, many years earlier.'
McKeon gestured to the Rowland family seated together in the front row.
'And those who knew him will tell you, Bruce was a family man. Bruce and Sarah were lifelong partners... they first met at university. They have three children - Nora, Peter and Bruce Junior. I watched these kids grow. Such gifted and talented children, all are now active in the arts. Nora is a successful dancer with the Australian Ballet, Peter is a composer and Bruce junior is a playwright.
'In the early days in Canberra, Bruce and I used to go rock climbing, bushwalking and camping. This is where we learned to rely on each other - our lives depended on it. Hanging by a rope off the side of a sheer five hundred foot drop, you have to have confidence in your mate. After a very short while, I knew I could place my life in Bruce's hands and I did it without hesitation. We developed trust in one another and that trust saw us through many extraordinary situations. He was at my side through some difficult circumstances, but always he unselfishly weighed into the welter.
'One of those occasions was our military commitment in support of our allies in the Middle East.... '
McKeon stopped momentarily and shuffled his feet. He had lost his concentration, lost his composure. Head bent he attempted to regroup but could not. Turning he faced the florally adorned casket and cut short his tribute.
'Goodbye my friend,' McKeon said simply, concluding the way he had commenced. 'We shall all miss you.'
Grasping the brass balustrade, he stepped cautiously down the narrow steps from the pulpit. He noticed Sarah nod her approval.
Sarah smiled broadly past her tears. She wanted to applaud McKeon's inspiring eulogy; applaud his generous praise of her husband's public service; for giving Bruce credit for so many things she knew were actually McKeon's own achievements. In reality he was the preceptor, the innovator, the motivator. Her husband had done a lot of the hard work, but it was McKeon who was the intellectual, not her husband.
Sarah came to recognise McKeon's eulogy as a personal display of remorse, an act of obvious regret that he hadn't elevated Bruce publicly in his lifetime. She easily understood how he might have seen Bruce as a threat to his leadership but she also knew Bruce would never have challenged his dearest friend whom he had loved as a brother; whom he'd helped in every way possible to take on the highest office in the land. Bruce had told her on numerous occasions that he thought him a genius, a leader their country needed and deserved.