We sidle up the road to the farmhouse on a hill and enter the dark gap that forms a door.
The ‘broken thing’ hangs heavy in my hand.
The floor is bare except for a big pile of metal scrap, the ingredients for the fix.
Two shadows have their backs to us and are deep in conversation.
Heads are nodded and words are exchanged about the near miss and the loss encountered.
The Fixer enters stage left complete with Macbeth bowl haircut.
Hands fat with muscles he approaches me and grasps the broken thing with a swift tug.
‘Not good, not good, bad job, bad job’.
He is working it out.
His skill is not taught.
This is instinct, blood and sweat.
He disappears for several minutes stage right.
The big pile does not have what he needs.
More conversation goes on about cattle and sheep.
The accents are harsh. We are deep, deep in the country.
The fixer returns.
A flush of oxy-acetylene ignites and suddenly two become one.
A rush of steam comes from the barrel that the patient has come out of.
‘Better than new’, the Fixer says.
‘Better than new’ Dad replies.
‘What’s the damage? ’
’That will be…30’
‘OK 30”
No negotiation here, no debate on price.
This work is understood.
This is graft and money hard earned.
This poem is based on my dad and me going up to a blacksmith in Northern Ireland in the 1980s with broken farm machinery. ***** Finlay is 'the fixer' and his famous phrase 'better than new' has stuck in our family. He could fix anything that you brought him. The scene is set deep in the countryside in Aughnacloy County Tyrone.