Free Ron McCoy’s Sea of Diamonds by Gregory Day Page A

followed. Ron could feel the rich man’s awe but didn’t begrudge him it. He knew he’d pay a good price. As they clicked through the melaleuca gate, Ron felt again the excitement he’d always known the cliff to arouse in people. He was its keeper. He knew Dom Khouri realised that. He led him to the bench his father had built, where they sat down. It was Dom Khouri’s turn to speak.
    Dom Khouri hunched his shoulders forward and turned his hooded eyes to face Ron McCoy. Ron’s lips were pursed, not for any other reason than to keep a lid on a sudden upwelling of emotion.
    â€˜If you would like to sell your land to me, Ron, I would like to buy it,’ Dom Khouri began, speaking formally. ‘In the case of such a piece of land as this, no money can be the measure of it. And forme, money is not an issue. But it is money that must pass between us. I would like you to name the amount. I will pay whatever you feel is appropriate.’ He paused. ‘For me this place reminds me of where I grew up, Ron. And it’s the picture my old uncle painted of this country when he came and found me. What is the point of all my wealth if I can’t go home? Do you understand?’
    As he spoke, Dom Khouri’s voice grew strong with emotion and Ron could recognise a hint of what must’ve been his original accent, something he’d not noticed earlier.
    â€˜I have driven with my wife past your place to the Meteorological Station before. And never noticed. But from here, with no bitumen or powerlines or people . . . it is a haven.’
    Ron’s gaze turned from the black birds with their wings spread on top of King Cormorant Rock to Dom Khouri.
    â€˜Do you like music?’ he asked.
    Dom Khouri was taken aback by the question. ‘I love music,’ he replied, quickly.
    Ron opened his mouth and breathed in. ‘I believe that when I was born, I had no music in me. If I had lived anywhere else I would never have played music. It’s this place.’ For a moment he thought he was going to tell this man he’d only just met about the sea of diamonds, but he didn’t. He stopped there.
    â€˜You play music?’ Dom Khouri asked, surprised. The shy man next to him had just offered a piece of his soul.
    â€˜I play the pump organ,’ Ron replied. ‘In my shed over there.’
    â€˜The pump organ?’
    â€˜Yairs. Priests call it a harmonium. Never played a piano.’
    The wind was dropping now, the whitecaps disappearing. Dom Khouri leant back on the bench and said, laughing: ‘If I had lived here all my life, Ron, I think I could sing like Beniamino Gigli.’
    Ron smiled a little along with him. His disclosure had not been wasted.
    â€˜Do you know Gigli?’ Dom Khouri asked.
    Ron pursed his lips again, this time in nervousness. Opera intimidated him a little.
    â€˜A friend used to play Gigli on his gramophone for me,’ Ron managed to get out. And then: ‘It was like seein’ a big whale. Bit overwhelming.’
    Dom Khouri looked out to sea. He wanted to say to Ron that once he’d built his house on the land the two of them could listen to Gigli together.
    â€˜I’ll have to move my shed,’ Ron said.
    â€˜Can it be moved?’
    Dom Khouri could tell by the way Ron said ‘my shed’ that this structure was more than just a storehouse.
    â€˜Well, yes. I’ll have to take it apart and maybe reassemble it. It’s a bit rusted through. Been there the best part of a century. But yair, I’ll have to get that off first thing.’
    â€˜Where will you put it, Ron?’
    â€˜Oh, I’ve got a place in mind, over there a bit.’
    He pointed towards the far side of the house, at the pine tree boundary where the little headstone they’d erected for his father sat amongst the unmarked graves of his working dogs.
    â€˜It’s not too close to the house there, is it?’
    â€˜Yairs, but