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

she’ll be right. Come and I’ll show you where your entrance will be.’
    They walked back through the melaleuca gate and over the closely mown section of the block towards the road. Now Dom Khouri began to steal glances towards what would become his land. He liked what he saw. As they reached the three flowering gums near the road, Ron showed Dom Khouri the potential entrance through the old post and rail ironbark fence.
    â€˜I’ve had a chat with the estate agents and they reckon it’s worth a fair bit,’ he said. He waited for a response.
    â€˜I reckon it is too,’ Dom Khouri said, patiently.
    â€˜It’s just that the mother’s getting crook,’ Ron said.
    Dom Khouri waited. He thought of
Il Shmandar
again as Ron blushed bright red in front of him.
    â€˜Well, they said a million and a half for the land but I say a bit less. One million three hundred thousand.’
    Dom Khouri smiled. He’d expected to pay more.
    â€˜What about one point four, Ron, and you keep your shed where it is. It’s no skin off my nose. As it is it’d be on the far corner of my land.’
    â€˜No, it might block your view.’
    Dom Khouri put a gentle hand on Ron’s shoulder. ‘I must tell you, Ron, that I will build a very large house here, very large and very high. Your shed will not block the view.’
    Ron blushed again, reminded of Dom Khouri’s wealth and stature.
    â€˜It’ll be your land. You can build what you like,’ he said bluntly.
    â€˜Don’t worry, Ron. Either way we’ll work something out with the shed, won’t we?’
    â€˜Yairs, we’ll work something out.’
    After Dom Khouri had gone and Ron told Min about the conversation concerning the shed, Min pointed out to her son that he wouldn’t be comfortable playing music on someone else’s land because he would be overheard. Ron hadn’t even thought of that, so accustomed was he to his mother and the birds being his only audience. But she was right. The shed would have to be moved. There was no way around it.
    That night Ron and Min had crème de cacao in Papa Mahoney’s liqueur glasses to celebrate the handshake agreement Ron had made with Dom Khouri by the gate as he was leaving. They felt sad but excited. And when he thought of his father, Ron felt proudthat he was looking after Min. Min, on the other hand, didn’t spare a thought for Len McCoy once that evening. There was no point dwelling. She was getting very old, she was with her dear son, and things had taken a happy turn.
    â€˜He’s the nicest millionaire I’ve ever met,’ she said to Ron as they made the toast.
    â€˜Nicer than me, Mum?’ Ron drawled, with a gleam in his eye.
    That night Ron McCoy went to bed half drunk and proud of having struck a deal with a man like Dom Khouri. He fell asleep smiling and dreamt of becoming a partner in Dom Khouri’s construction empire. Specialising in sheds.

SEVEN
T HE N EW A COUSTICS
    O nce he’d decided that he wouldn’t be comfortable playing the organ where all Dom Khouri’s family and friends could hear him, Ron got cracking and moved the shed straightaway. He rang Dom Khouri and told him that he could begin the house excavations as soon as he’d been granted the planning permits. But what a load of gear Ron had to move! A whole lifetime of stowing, and his father’s whole married lifetime before that, stuff everywhere, strewn in an order that no-one could expect to fathom.
    He hitched his wooden trailer to the ute, drove in through the flowering gums on what was now to be Dom Khouri’s land, and began to fill it with whatever was first at hand. Under the boobial-las nearby he threw all the things that were destined for the tip.
    He realised that six cracked plastic plumbing pipes on a painted treated pine frame, which he’d rigged up for hydroponic vegetables in 1977, had to go. Not to mention the