Maria Gouveia

Myself and Maria Gouveia at her front-door garden on 16 Beach Road, in Bondi, Sydney. 

The Ritz Cinema, next to the Royal Prince of Wales Hospital, in Randwick, in a photo taken in 2018. When Maria was staying at the Hospital in the last stretches of her illness, circa September 1998, I went to visit her on a late afternoon and she decided she'd like to go and see 'There something about Mary', a screwball comedy starring Cameron Diaz & Matt Dillon which was showing at the Ritz. Maria didn't even change; she just stood up, got hold of one of my arms and there we went walking through the Hospital byways, entered Saint Paul Street, crossed Avoca Street, kept walking another block, crossed Perouse Road and finally arrived at the Ritz. 

We bought tickets and sat down at comfortable seats to wait for the show to begin. I acted as everything was right but I knew Maria was feeling pain even though she had an intravenous cannula in a vein on her belly to apply morphine in case the pain increased. I noticed Maria fumbled with the contraption once which meant she was feeling pain but was adamant to keep watching the movie. 

Soon, the two of us had a pleasant surprise: Ray Conniff's rendition of Ary Barroso's 'Aquarela do Brazil' exploded on the big screen and both of us were taken back to São Paulo in 1962, when this record was Number One for a few weeks. It was like having taken a shot of morphine mixed with some upper!!! I'll never forget that moment... 

indeed, it was Maria's last picture show...