Every CLOUD

Sinéad’s mother had a wise saying – but life wasn’t like that, was it?

- Sandra Moran

The rain was falling heavier now. Orla and I stood very still looking down at the man who lay on the wet ground.

‘Is he dead, Sinéad?’ Orla screamed.

‘I hope not! I’m getting married next week and this isn’t in my wedding plan,’ I said, trying to ignore the knot forming in my stomach.

Orla began bouncing from one foot to the other, her long blonde hair moving in unison. In times of crisis, even at 35, Orla would hop from one foot to the other. I hadn’t been at all surprised when her partner Eoghan rang me from the delivery room 10 years ago to say she had given birth to a bouncing baby boy.

Orla and I had lived next door to each other most of our lives in Buttercup Tower. She lived in flat 5E, and I lived in 5F. It was a 1960s-built block of flats in the middle of Dublin. A place bubbling with life and beauty.

Orla lived there with her mam and dad – Sheila and Thomas. Her mam was much younger than her dad. Sheila had been a dancer. She used to tell everyone she had performed on stage in London’s West End. Mrs Foyle two doors down said she had performed in the West End all right, but not on the stage. Orla and I never could work out what she had meant by that.

Sheila had to stop dancing after Orla was born due to a difficult birth, and she would often remind Orla of what she had given up for her as she grew up. This had left Orla feeling she never really deserved to be happy.

Orla’s mother left her watching TV one day to go and get milk. Well, Orla thought that’s what she had said. Turns out she may have said, ‘I’m going to get the milkman.’

Her mother ran off with Toby, the lad from Milky Moo Dairy. Her dad never drank another drop of milk for the rest of his life.