A Fluffy Tale (9 page)

He didn’t really mind. All the ferrying
back and forth to the hospital, at least twice, if not three times a day, the
minor administrative details to do with sorting out Zachary’s affairs, and
Leo’s back home, kept him busy, and he was all too aware that active and bright
though Leo was, he was still seventy-eight and under a lot more stress than
someone that age should be.

Zachary was also aware of this and as he
grew stronger, spent more time awake, he began to try and make his great-uncle
go home. Leo, easily as stubborn as he was, simply refused.

“My dear boy,” he finally said in
exasperation when Zachary had been more than usually insistent. “What do I have
to do that’s more pressing than visiting you?”

“I'm fine now,” Zachary said—and this just
two days out of surgery to have his femur pinned. “They’re looking after me and
I don’t need visitors to get well. Julian, tell him.”

“I won’t. You’re being an idiot, Zachary
Ledbetter. Shut up and let him fuss. He won’t be told any more than you would.”

That had made them—great-uncle and nephew
both—look at each other with identical raised eyebrows, and then Leo grinned.
“He’s got the measure of you, my boy.”

“And you, Uncle Leo.” Zachary lay back on
his pillows. Linis, always mindful of the many sore and injured parts of his
host, took up a careful position by his cheek. “Will you go back when I get out
of here?”

“Perhaps. I rather like this city. I was
thinking of buying my own apartment, in fact.”

“You were?” Zachary said, blinking.

“You are?” Julian asked, equally surprised.

“Perhaps,” Leo said, smiling to himself.
“Now, don’t concern yourself with me, Zachary.” He held his back and groaned.
“Oh dear. I think I’ll just go on a little stroll. I'm all
stiff from sitting. Amuse him, will you, Julian? I won’t be long.”

Could you be more obvious, Leo?
Julian thought, smiling at the old bastard as he faked a hobble out of the
room.

Zachary wouldn’t look at him, instead
petting Linis slowly, his lips thin and annoyed—or perhaps he was in pain. The
thigh surgery had been pretty agonising, he’d admitted.

“You’ll only upset him if you keep this up,
Zachary. He needs to do this.”

“I don’t need him—or you. That’s what the
doctors are for.”

“Oh, so kems need affection and care but
humans don’t? You just want to lie here on your back for a month or more on
your own?”

“I have a laptop and phone. I have things
to amuse me.”

“Things, yes. I don’t understand why you
want to hurt Leo. What did he ever do to you?”

Zachary’s eyes widened. “Nothing. I just
think a man of his age shouldn’t be wasting time sitting around in hospitals—”

“Looking after a nephew he adores and is
worried sick about? Yes, it would be so much better for him to fly home and
worry himself sick there, without even being able to see you and reassure
himself. Look—even Linis wants him here. Stop being an arse.”

“One of these days you’ll be one of my
subordinates again, Julian.”

“Okay, then you can put a complaint in
about me then. And Leo can tell Mr Clarke you’re an arse too.” Julian folded
his arms and delivered his best glare. “You finished? This is getting boring,
Zachary.”

“Don’t talk to me about boredom.”

“And you want to get rid of the little
entertainment visitors can give you? You’re nuts.”

Zachary shifted a little, winced as if he
was in pain again, which he almost certainly was, despite the medication. “I
don’t like depending on people.”

“Because people aren’t dependable, I know.
Unless they’re you or they’re Leo.”

“Or you,” Zachary said quietly, turning his
head so he could look at Julian again. “I don’t know why you’re doing this.
We’re not friends. You don’t even like me.”

Julian shrugged. “You’ve got a thing about
sick kems. Maybe I’ve got a thing about sick people. I'm doing this for Leo, mostly, so don’t get all guilty and rude about it. He
worries about you, I worry about him. You just need to get well so we can all
move on with our lives.”

He was being mean but he was seriously
annoyed. ‘Not friends’? Enemies didn’t visit every day for two weeks or look
after someone’s elderly great uncle.

“Then I will,” Zachary said, chin tilted
haughtily. ‘As soon as I'm back in my apartment, your obligation—whatever you
conceive that to be—is over.”

“If you say so, Mr Ledbetter. I'm going to
find Leo and take him to lunch. You sit there and amuse yourself. We’ll be back
later.”

“No need.”

“Zachary, just shut up, will
you? Pyon, come on.”

Pyon yawned, gave Linis a quick lick, then got up from where he’d been lounging on Linis and
Zachary both. Julian fancied Zachary would miss Pyon a lot more than he’d miss
Pyon’s host, if Julian stopped coming.

He scooped Pyon up and walked out,
irritated at Zachary and himself. The man was just such a prickly sod but
Julian should be more patient. He knew Zachary was having a tough time but he
just never gave up on this crap.

He found Leo chatting to one of the
patients in the dayroom.

“Stiff, my left foot,” Julian muttered as
he sat on the arm of one of the sofas. He waited for the patient to wander off
and leave them in privacy. “He doesn’t want to talk to me, you know.”

“Are you so sure about that, Julian?”

“Yes. And I don’t want to talk to him. He’s
a stubborn, irritating, irritable, impolite, ungrateful arse.”

“What he is, my dear boy, is a very good
actor, and does far too good a job at hiding his real feelings.”

Julian brushed this explanation away.
“Maybe but digging down under the act just hurts him and me both. He doesn’t
want me around. He even pulled the ‘I’m a solicitor and you’re just a lowly
assistant’ crap on me and seriously, when you’ve seen someone’s backside, they
shouldn’t be able to do that anymore.”

Leo chuckled and shook his head. “No, they
really shouldn’t. Very well—let’s give him a break for a week or so. You could
do with it too. I’ve got a little job I need you to do and you can deal with
that while I smile and smile and wear him down to the point where he’s begging
you to return.”

“It’ll never happen.”

“Perhaps not, but my nephew isn’t as
stubborn as me. I'm sorry he’s upset you, though.”

“I upset him, so we’re even. Why does he
have to
be
like that?”

“Because it’s all he knows, and it’s worked
well enough until now. He hasn’t figured out yet he can’t do this on his own.”

“Well, he’s technically right. He can hire
people to help, and the medical staff do all he needs here.”

“Not ‘all’, Julian.” Leo offered his arm to
him. “Let’s go eat lunch, take a walk, clear our heads. He needs time to think
as well.”

The ‘little job’ turned out to be researching
what was needed to make Zachary’s apartment suitable for a wheelchair-bound man
with a broken arm, leg and ribs, and finding out which nursing agency offered
the best service. It made a welcome change from the hospital visits, but
prowling around Zachary’s home without his presence (or knowledge, Julian was
damn sure), poking into his secrets, or watching workmen do that for estimation
purposes, was just a little bit creepy. There were no boxes waiting to be
unpacked—the spare sterility was just how Zachary chose to live. Julian
couldn’t understand how anyone could live like that—not and be a heartless,
soulless bastard. Zachary was certainly a bastard—but he had emotions, he cared
about kems if not people, and he appreciated beauty. So why did he live like
this?

Every day, twice a day, Leo visited his
nephew on his own, while Julian ran around getting quotes and measurements and
booking workmen. Every evening, the two of them went over Julian’s notes to
make sure nothing was being done that couldn’t be undone, or that Zachary
wouldn’t consider a liberty too far. Then Leo had the thankless task of
conveying the decisions to Zachary, conversations which
he tried to have in the morning, so he said, so that lunch with Julian could
take the taste out of his mouth. For two cents, Julian would have charged up to
the hospital and given Zachary a damn hard shake—or possibly a slap—every time
Leo showed up looking tired and drawn and clearly worn out from arguing.

“Does he really think he can organise this
stuff himself when he gets out?”

“He doesn’t think he needs any of it.”

They’d been discussing the inevitability of
live-in attendants, an idea raised with Zachary and immediately vetoed—as had
the suggestion of Julian staying with him to help. Leo was too frail to
consider the idea, and, he said, he’d probably murder his nephew in under a
week.

“I think we hire the people and if he
complains, you get an order of incompetency slapped on him,” Julian said,
stabbed a piece of chicken with his fork and imagining it was one of Zachary’s
fingers.

“Now there’s an idea. We still have a week
or more before he can leave the hospital. I haven’t given up hope of persuading
him. Now—I have two other things I need your help with.”

“Anything, you know that.” Julian rather liked
being Leo’s personal assistant and would be sorry when the old man left.
Clerical work seemed rather dull in comparison, even if Zachary was the most
annoying invalid on the planet.

“Excellent. I think now would be a good
time to reconsider the car issue—Zachary has garage space and it will save a
lot of time. He’ll be going back and forth for physiotherapy and other
appointments and wheelchair taxis take such a long time to arrange.”

“I uh…already started looking into it,
actually.”

“Of course you did. Julian, you’re very
good at this, you know.”

Julian shrugged. “It’s a lot more fun than
the office. It’ll be hard, going back.”

Leo smiled. “I hope you’re in no hurry to
because I really do need your help at least until Zachary’s mobile again. So,
I’ll let you sort out the car—you’ll be the driver so you have to be happy. The
other matter is an apartment.”

“I thought that was a joke to wind him up.”

“It was—but now I think I would like a
place here. There’s an apartment for sale in his building, in fact, and several
others in the neighbourhood. I’d like you to arrange viewings for us both.”

“You haven’t mentioned this to him, have
you?”

“No, I thought I’d surprise him.” Julian
pulled a face and Leo laughed. “Oh, come on, it won’t be that bad.”

“He’s going to throw a tantrum to end all
tantrums.”

“Well, then, we should make sure it’s worth
it. Are you ready for dessert? I think I deserve chocolate today. Definitely
chocolate.”

It only took a day to locate and purchase a
suitable second-hand vehicle, since Julian had already done all the research
into the dealers. The following day, Leo and he viewed the vacant apartment in
Zachary’s building, and two others nearby. Julian was privy to Leo driving a
hard bargain with the agent and the sellers over the first place, and learned
it was no secret how his family had hung onto their fortune over several
generations. The agent, thinking he was dealing with an amiable, elderly
gentleman who wouldn’t stoop to haggling, found out very quickly that Leo was
no fool and had no intention of paying a penny more than the property was
worth.

The offer was accepted that afternoon, to
Leo’s delight. “I’d have offered ten thousand more, if they’d pushed it. I
really wanted that apartment.”

Julian’s mouth fell open in shock. “But you
got it for thirty thousand less than asking.”

“Well yes, because it wasn’t worth more to
anyone else. It was overpriced, but I’d have paid it.” He winked at Julian.
“Remember that when you come to invest in property yourself.”

“Hah. Me, own an apartment? Maybe when I'm
your age.”

Leo patted his arm. “You’re only a lad now.
Plenty of time. Now—let’s go to the park for a walk
and then I want to take you out to the theatre. We both need a treat, I think.”

Now they had transport of their own,
Julian’s days got even busier, ferrying Leo to the law firm to deal with the
conveyancing (and Julian getting a lot of curious questions from his work
colleagues when he dropped in to say hello. Pyon was beyond excited, rushing
around and greeting all his friends—it was the first time Julian had seen a
downside to his unexpected vacation. Not that Pyon had exactly been suffering,
but still.)

Then to the hospital, back to Zachary’s
apartment to inspect the outfitting or to other appointments to do with Leo’s
personal affairs. There was also an incredible amount of furniture and other
goods to locate and order for the new apartment. Spending other people’s money
was fun, but Julian was heartily sick of refrigerators by the end of it.

All of it made easier by Leo’s genial
humour and wise approach to the world. Julian felt like he was earning another
education, just being with him. He wondered if Zachary appreciated his uncle
the way Julian was coming to do.

Their irritable invalid was progressing
well and after four weeks, his internal injuries had healed. The broken bones
would take longer, and he’d require more surgery on them, but the doctors had
set a release date target for a week’s time. By then, the modifications to the
apartment would be ready, the nursing agency had been lined up to supply
attendants, and all Zachary had to do was cope with a wheelchair until his
broken arm and ribs healed enough for him to use crutches. It could have been
very much worse for him—something else Julian wondered if Zachary appreciated.

The plan for today was looking for sofas
and armchairs—something they had been doing on and off for a week, but which
hadn’t turned up anything Leo liked. Julian would drive him to the hospital for
a quick drop in on Zachary, and then out of the city to a designer workshop
since it looked like the pieces Leo wanted, might have to be made especially.