CHAPTER SIX #4
Her face performs several emotional overtures, until she lands on something earnest. ‘I like your fox,’ she tells him and then run-walks in the other direction the way children seem to do.
When Lachlan follows her journey, he sees Jules waiting in the doorway leading to their wing, waiting for his baby sister to come running back into his arms. He doesn’t look at Lachlan once, only her.
Jules smiles at her while she excitedly bounces on her toes, telling him of her bravery.
Another three days go by, and Mimi very shyly asks Lachlan if he likes foxes, to which he answers in a gentle tone that yes, he does.
‘What’s his name?’ she asks of the fox backpack while Lachlan mills around on his day off in jeans, pink tee and sneakers.
Lachlan hadn’t thought that far ahead but he picks a name, having spied an opportunity. ‘Why don’t you guess?’
Mimi seems suspicious. ‘Why?’
‘Because you’re so smart, I bet you’ll guess it.’
‘Where he from?’
‘He’s…’ Lachlan looks down at the label. Confectionné en France. ‘French. He came here from France.’
Mimi actually smiles. ‘France?’
‘He had lots of adventures there.’
‘Is his name…?’ She narrows her eyes, thinking hard as if reaching for a real name. ‘I forgot… is… it… Jonmarry?’
Lachlan feigns astonishment. ‘No way you figured that out!’
‘I got it right?’
‘You did. Jonmarry is his name.’
‘You saying the last bit wrong.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. How do you say it?’
‘Ma-ri,’ she echoes stretching it out to master the sound, Mah-Ri. Her eyes then brighten with realisation. ‘Wait, Mari is like Mimi!’
‘You’re so right,’ he tells her. ‘That’s his nickname. He likes to be called Mari.’
She waves. ‘Hi, Mari.’ Then she eyes Lachlan again. ‘Mari your friend?’
‘Yup. He’s here on vacation from France with me for a while.’
‘Only while?’ Her face falls. ‘He has to go far, far away?’
‘Well, actually,’ Lachlan confides, looking around to craft performative secrecy before kneeling down in front of her. ‘Mari told me he really wants to stay here, but I didn’t know if he was welcome.’
‘What’s welcome?’
‘Welcome is when someone is wanted and you’re happy they’re here and you want them to stay.’
Mimi frowns, processing the new word. ‘Welcome,’ she echoes slowly. ‘Mari is my welcome. He stay with me, yes.’
‘Really? Oh, well that’s perfect,’ Lachlan says, slipping the pack off. ‘Because did you know, Mari is a bodyguard fox? That means if you’re scared, you can put him on your back and you’ll be safe.’ He slowly brings it around with both hands, offering it.
Mimi takes it with fascination, turning the pack over and then sniffing it.
‘Jewel told me bodygardens are all bad mans.’
‘Do you think you could give Mari a chance? Maybe you could teach him how to be a nice bodygarden.’
‘Teach him?’
‘Yeah, he really needs a good teacher, Mimi.’
‘I am good teacher!’
‘I bet you are. Well, here. Mari is all yours.’ Lachlan stands up, feeling that he’s done all he can and doesn’t want to push it, but as he steps away, she moves towards him.
‘You got no Mari now.’
‘He’s safe with you.’
Mimi frowns. ‘I like when you had a Mari.’
‘Maybe I’ll get another one,’ he says, ‘a secret one.’
‘Secret one?!’ she whispers excitedly. ‘Whassa a secret Mari?’
‘You’ll just have to wait and see,’ he tells her, winking.
She beams toothily. ‘OK then.’
?
The tattoo artist chuckles when he hands over the sketch.
‘Did you lose a dare?’
‘I want it here,’ he explains, showing her the outside of his left wrist, and not dignifying her question with a response. ‘And I want it very colourful. As bright as you can get it. Practically neon, OK?’
She shrugs. ‘You got it.’
In the final week of that slow fourth month, Blaire has implanted subtle changes so that the East Wing no longer resembles the quarters of a rich man under house arrest. Jules is eating better and his mood slightly improves.
Mimi no longer cowers or cries when she sees Lachlan, although much to his confusion, it’s only Lachlan that she seems to have taken a cautious shine to.
The others she still doesn’t like or approach, including her childminders who increasingly have less to do.
When he shows Mimi the tattoo he got, something changes between the two of them forever. Lachlan knows it was both a monumental mistake and the best thing he ever did.
She touches it with delicate wonder and whispers, ‘Mari,’ reaching behind for the swishy tail of the backpack she wears almost every day to bring it around and brush over Lachlan’s newly healing skin.
He lets her do what she likes, stays kneeling the whole time.
Then she looks up at him and asks, ‘What’s your name?’
‘My name is Lachlan.’
She pronounces it in three bright, careful syllables. ‘Locken. Lockern.’ Mimi wrinkles her nose. ‘That’s not right.’
‘You’re so close,’ he tells her patiently. ‘Say Lock.’
‘Lock.’
‘Lan.’
‘Lan.’
‘Lock-lan.’
‘Lockerlan. Locklan. Lachlan.’
‘Perfect.’
She beams again, saying it over and over.
‘Lachlan, Lachlan! I gonna teach Jewel, he doesn’t know it.
He calls you bodygarden,’ she informs him and then runs off.
Lachlan lets her go, resists the urge to follow.
He has work to do besides, although he maybe does feel a little bit lighter as he checks each security measure that makes this house the prison that it is.