An Hour After Complaining About Migrants, My Dad Made One Tea

A broken fence, a handwritten note, and a cup of tea in rural Ireland

Phot credit: Author

I went for a run this morning with my cousin Paul. A 10 km loop through the parish roads, past fields and hedgerows, the kind of run where you talk more than you should and your pace suffers for it. We finished back at my parents' house. I noticed the fence was knocked down, one of the wooden posts split clean through and the panels collapsed into the grass. I said nothing.

My mother made us a full Irish. Sausages, rashers, pudding, eggs, the works. Paul just had the tea. He's on intermittent fasting now, which meant more rashers for me. The conversation drifted where it often drifts these days. Migrants. The government rolling over for Brussels. The state of things. I listened more than I spoke. Paul nodded along. My parents have their views. They're not cruel people, just worried in the way people get when the world feels like it's changing faster than they can track.

As Paul was leaving, my mother spotted the fence.

"Oh God, would you look at that." She stood at the window, tea in hand, shaking her head. "We're very unlucky at the moment, aren't we?"

My father barely looked up from his paper. "That's not unlucky. That's just annoying." He turned a page. "More important to get Aidan back to full health."

I went outside and photographed the damage. Tried the security cameras, scrolling through footage, looking for anything useful. Nothing. I posted on Facebook asking if anyone had seen what happened. Long shot, but you try these things.

I came back inside and started setting up the new phone I'd bought my mother. That's when the front door opened.

My father walked in with a man I didn't recognise. Black. Nigerian, it turned out. My father was almost grinning.

"This man owned up to knocking down the fence," he said.

His name was Lucky. He’d been living in Limerick for nine years, working in healthcare. My father looked at him. “Your name is Lucky,” he said, “but not so lucky this morning.” Lucky laughed. He had a handwritten note ready, explaining what happened. He offered to pay for the repairs.

My father took his details. "We'll price it up first," he said. "I'll ring you when we know the cost."

Then he offered Lucky a cup of tea and some biscuits.

Lucky accepted. He sat at the kitchen table, the same table where an hour earlier we'd been talking about migrants and EU policy and the government's open door. My father asked him did he follow the hurling at all. Round here, hurling is the second religion. Maybe the first.

The fence is still broken. It'll get fixed. Lucky will pay what it costs.

But that's not the story.

The story is a man driving away from an accident he caused, then turning around. Writing a note. Knocking on the door. Owning it.

The story is my father, an hour after lamenting the state of the country, offering tea to a stranger named Lucky from Nigeria.

All is good with the world.