Tara lifts her head and pokes me in the ribs. ‘Megs,’ she says. ‘You sure you’re all right?’
No, I’m not. How can I be?
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I’m fine.’
Tara pauses. ‘Is this about that Al?’ she says. ‘I know you knew him a bit from art and that, but I dunno.’ She wraps her arm round me. ‘Maybe some people aren’t as strong as others.’
I don’t even know what she means by that.
She pulls me in closer to her and I can smell her shampoo and hairspray. She doesn’t say anything for a minute. She just sits there, holding on to me, like she did the day my dad died. She breathes out slowly and a part of me thinks that she knows. That she can tell that this Al stuff has brought up all these feelings about my dad.
I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek cos I don’t want to start crying.
‘I know you ain’t fine,’ she says, lowering her voice. ‘But, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about life, it’s that there ain’t nothing a Zinger burger and a McFlurry can’t fix.’ I shake my head, but I can’t help but laugh.
‘Am I right?’ she says.
‘You’re right,’ I say.
Tara squeezes my hand and, even though I still miss Al, I feel better. Cos it makes me think that maybe I am being stupid. Al might be gone, but everything else around me is still the same.
I used to send Nate message after message, trying to get him to come to the museum with me. I’d send pictures over WhatsApp, or try and tell him about something I’d seen there, but he’d just shrug it off and say, ‘That boring shit ain’t for me.’ He didn’t get it, but I just wanted something to make us feel close again. Something we could talk about. So that maybe he could understand why I liked the museum so much. And maybe it would help him to understand me.
I head along the pavement, stepping round all these puddles so that my trainers don’t get too wet. I look up at the uni building. It’s massive, stretching along most of Oxford Road. It’s one of those really old places, made up of long windows and grey stone. Pillars and roofs that spike at the top. There’s a million different archways as well, all leading to a different part of the uni.
The rain starts to get heavier, so I run towards the archway that leads into the museum. Al was so smart that he could’ve gone here if he’d wanted to, but he was always going on about moving away from Manchester. I didn’t think to ask him why cause I didn’t really care and, if I’m honest, part of me just thought he was saying it to show off. To prove how clever he was, how much better he was than the rest of us. But now I think that maybe he wanted to get out cause he was running away from summat, not running towards it.
I walk inside the main entrance of the museum, passing a big group of tourists. There’s an old couple and a few people with cameras round their necks. I feel them all stare at me as I walk past. The old woman moves her handbag closer to her chest, pressing her hand over the top like I’m about to rob her or summat. I’m used to that, but it still pisses me off. That people just look at me, then make their mind up – council-estate chav, dangerous, bad – before they’ve even given me a chance. They’re probably wondering wot I’m even doing here cause someone who looks like me doesn’t belong. Al could always go to places like this and fit in. No one would look at him all strange. It was like they could tell he was clever and that one day he’d do summat proper good with his life. It hurts to think that. Knowing that someone like Al, who could put his mind to anything, who had all these dreams, won’t ever get to do any of them.
I want to find that glass cabinet, with those paper cranes in, that Al put up on his Insta. I came here with him once before, so I kinda know where I’m going. My trainers make a squeaking sound on the polished floor as I walk, but I try to ignore it. As I make my way up the stairs, I imagine wot Al was thinking the last time he was here. Was it just like the other times he’d come, just thinking about drawing summat in one of those cabinets? Or did he know? Maybe he knew that this was gonna be his last visit.
I reach the top of the stairs, looking around me, but I can’t see that cabinet with the birds in. Then summat outta the corner of my eye catches my attention. And I’m suddenly sure that I see Al standing there. He’s wearing his long navy coat, his Afro sticking up at the side. I catch a glimpse of his face, his thick jawline, the shape of his nose. I know it can’t be him cause I’d seen the ambulance people zip him up into one of those body bags and wheel him away, but it looks so much like Al that, when the figure walks off, I follow anyway. I walk as quickly as I can, pushing past people, barging them out the way.
‘Al!’ I shout. ‘Al!’
I slam straight into someone, and I hear them tut, but I don’t care. I start running, passing glass cases of weapons – spears, revolvers, arrows – looking around, tryna see where he went. There’s crowds of people taking pictures, some kids laughing and crying. I start to feel all hot and sweaty, but I keep running. My heart is thumping, slamming hard against my chest, and there’s sweat gathering at the bottom of my back, making my T-shirt and hoodie stick to me, but I need to find Al . . . I can’t stop till I do.
I wipe away some of the sweat on my forehead, trying to stop myself from feeling dizzy. I look around at all the people, who blur into the background, merge into one, and then I turn and see him. He’s standing beside one of the display cabinets, near this glass case that’s got these two mummies in it, two brothers that I remember Al telling me about. I walk towards him, my throat drying out. He just stands there, slowly moving his hand across a large sketchbook, tugging at the curls at the nape of his neck.
‘Al?’ I say. The words come out hoarse, croaky, and seem to echo all around me. He stops drawing and I grab the sleeve of his coat.
‘Al?’ I repeat. He pulls his arm away as he turns round, and I expect to see Al’s light brown eyes, his dark skin, the gap in his teeth . . .
But the guy standing there looks nothin like Al. He stares at me and I move backwards, shaking my head.
‘Soz, yeah?’ I say. ‘I thought you were someone else.’
The guy looks at me like I’m some sort of weirdo, then closes his sketchbook and walks off. I lean back against one of the glass cabinets and press my hands over my face. The museum lights suddenly seem too bright and it’s like there’s hardly any air in here. A few people are staring at me and I can feel the sweat pouring from my forehead. They look away when I make eye contact, and I pull my rucksack tighter on to my shoulders, and move away from the cabinet.
One of the security guards in the far corner eyes me up, then takes out his radio and begins to talk into it slowly. I still wanna find those birds, tho. I walk off, in the opposite direction, my rucksack making this slapping noise as I move. I turn round another corner and pass more cabinets with stuffed animals in. I keep going, staring down aisle after aisle. I head into another room and the museum seems to open up. It feels bigger, lighter here and there’s less people about.
Then I see it. That same cabinet that was on Al’s Insta. I walk towards it, staring at all the tiny bits of paper that have been folded into small birds. The bits of string make them look like they’re flying. Not just in the case, tho. There’s more of them on the outside of the cabinet, hanging down from the ceiling and making their way across the museum. Al didn’t get all that in his photo.