Read Online Ron McCoy’s Sea of Diamonds by Gregory Day - Free Book Online Page B

that his team seemed like ‘a nice group of boys’, but that she never shed a tear when her beloved Collingwood beat them for the pennant in 1990. Then she told him that the best game of football she had ever seen was the 1937 Grand Final between Geelong and Collingwood.
    â€˜And that,’ she turned around to say with a look of mock seriousness, ‘is even despite the fact we got trounced.’
    â€˜And what about you, Ron?’ Dom Khouri said, turning on his chair but not so much that he would embarrass anyone. ‘Are you a Magpie lover too?’
    Ron broke into a large smile and threatened to laugh. ‘No fear,’ he said. ‘I’ve always been a Bulldogs man, like my father.’
    â€˜Yes, but Ron’s never taken much interest in the footy,’ Min told their guest. ‘And nor did his father. But I grew up in the thick of it. My father used to cut the players’ hair. We never missed a game.’
    She made a clicking sound in her gums as she pulled a dish out of the oven. ‘Fancy me marrying a Bulldogs fan from Winchelsea,’ she said, smiling. ‘Wonders’ll never cease!’
    Min had prepared her fish pie because from experience she guessed Dom Khouri would appreciate it. The pie was famous locally. And appreciate it he did. Trevally caught between the Two Pointers, King George whiting from further round in Snook Bay, smoked trout from the catchment dam, crab from the rock pools at Boat Creek, yabbies from the Poorool dam, a cheese and parsley roux, topped with mashed potato. They got to talking about fish and Ron found that the millionaire from Brunswick knew a thing or two. He listened with interest as Dom Khouri told them of the fishing culture he’d grown up amongst, how they used to dive precariously deep for sponges, and how the seas were being ruined for his friends back in the Mediterranean. Ron had heard about the perils of modern fishing methods, but was interested to talk to someone who had experienced it almost first hand. They agreed that these days it was often an unfair battle between man and fish.
    â€˜The hook and drop-net is as far as man should go,’ Ron said.
    â€˜I agree,’ said Dom Khouri, leaning forward with passion, ‘otherwise it’s like shooting into a barrel.’
    As they ate and drank tea and talked fish, Dom Khouri avoided asking about the local area and its fishing potential. He remembered when rich people from France had bought properties in Tripoli when he was a young man. He recalled how elegant most of them had been but how careless they remained of the relationship between the coast and its people. It was not just that the locals of Tripoli had lived there for centuries, it was more that they were part of the land itself, like the olive trees or the rocks at the shore,or the cedars which sat as witnesses in the mountains behind them. No questioning or seeking information could reveal more than what could be felt just by being in Ron and Min’s company. He could see it in their eyes. If he had stayed in Lebanon he might eventually have gathered the same atmosphere about him but now he felt he lived with the two knowledges: of deep belonging on one hand, and of being a stranger on the other. It was a life of juxtaposition and from the enormous energy its tension had given him he had made his substantial fortune.
    What a pleasure it was to meet a rich man who could put you at your ease, Min was thinking as they polished off the pie. Look at him. He wouldn’t be out of place in the shed with Ron and Sweet William.
    â€˜Do you mind if I smoke?’ Dom Khouri asked and Min waved her hand and got up to fetch him an ashtray.
    Ron had sworn to himself that the most important issue in meeting Dom Khouri was to find out whether or not he could live next door to him. He needed to gauge if he was a trustworthy man, or some kind of stickybeak who’d be checking up on his often illegal hunting