«Vic, Vic… wake up, will you? Look at the timeyoull sleep your whole life away if you keep this up. Just look at him, will you? Still snoring… Victor, get up, or youll miss your chance at happiness!»
«Adelaide Margaret, for heavens sake, let me sleep.»
«Sleep? Youll have plenty of time for that when youre retired.»
«Oh, ayeor when Im six feet under.»
«Not a chance. Up you get, come on.»
Victor dragged himself to the mirror, bleary-eyed and groggy.
«Well?»
«Not even dressed yet. Go on, wash up, shave, make yourself presentable. Theres still time. Get to it.»
«What time, Adelaide Margaret?»
«Never you mind.»
Victor shuffled to the bathroom, muttering under his breaththough not too loudly, lest he earn a slipper to the back of the head. Bloody woman, still bossing him about even now.
«Vic, did I ever tell you I can hear your thoughts sometimes? No? Well, now you know,» Adelaide said, perched cross-legged on his bed like some meditating sage. «Side effect of the whole business. Now go on, wash your face, brush your teethand dont forget to shave. You look like youve been hiding in the woods.»
Arguing was pointless. Shed been impossible to reason with in life, and death hadnt softened her.
Adelaide wasnt just any mother-in-lawshe was his *former* mother-in-law, and a ghost to boot.
Aye.
No, he hadnt gone mad. No, he hadnt drunk himself into seeing things. One day, Adelaide Margaret had simply appeared in his flatweeks after theyd buried her.
«I hear you, you know,» she said, drifting smoothly through the air. «Almost always. How did my Lydia ever put up with you? Youre a proper dinosaur, you are.»
Victor waved her off and trudged to the bathroom.
He and Lydia had divorced a year ago. The children were grown, living their own lives. Lydia had snapped one day, called him a tyrant, said hed stifled her growth as a person, stuffed her things into a suitcase, and slammed the door on her way out.
Victor had stood there, baffled.
Hed rung her up, only for her to declare she wanted nothing more to do with such a «domestic oppressor» and «misogynist.» Never in his life had he been called such foul things.
And how, pray tell, was he supposed to stop being a «domestic oppressor» when his very trade was building housesand sheds, and barns, and the like? Strange woman, that Lydia. And now shed gone and filled her head with nonsense from some self-styled «life coach.» Bloke called Percival Wonderly or some such rubbish.
Shed decided her life with Victor had been a prison. That hed yoked her like a plough horse, forced her to make stews and fry cutlets.
Though, bless her, Lydia made the finest cutlets
Victor nearly choked on his own drool at the thought. Then, mid-shave, an idea struck him. He dashed into the hallway, half his face still lathered.
«Adelaide Margaret! Adelaide Margaret!»
«Whats all the shouting for?»
«Adelaide Margaret, will you teach me to make stew? Proper stew, like yours?»
«Ha! As if Id hand over my secret recipe!»
«Whatll you do with it where you are? Cook for the devil himself?»
«Cheeky beggar.»
«Aye, well Lydias stew was better than yours anyway.»
«Oh, was it now? *I* taught her, you ungrateful sod.»
Victor shrugged, leaving the bathroom door open as he scraped the razor over his chin. Hed given up on decencyor on having a proper lie-in. She wouldnt let him rest, this ghost of a mother-in-law.
«And whats *that* supposed to mean?» Adelaide fizzed with indignation, wobbling mid-air before settling onto a chair. (Shed been hopeless at first, tumbling about like a circus act, but shed learnedeven managed to grip objects now, like a well-aimed slipper.) «I taught Lydia everything, you daft git.»
«Im not arguing. Just saying the pupil surpassed the teacher.»
«*What?* Go on, thenwhat meat does Lydia put in her stew?»
«Beef, of course.»
«You great fool! Its *lamb*!»
«Oh, aye? And I suppose its not this pot you use, but *that* one?»
«Now youre just daftits *that* one over there!»
Between the two of them, Victor managed to brew a stew worthy of legend, scribbling notes in his ledger.
Clean-shaven and freshly dressed, he sat at the kitchen table, spooning up the most glorious stew hed ever tasted.
«Mmm Mum youre a genius.»
«Eh?»
«Your stew its divine.»
«What about Lydias?»
«Pfft. Doesnt hold a candle to yours. Waitare you *crying?* Can ghosts cry?»
«Dont know,» Adelaide sniffed. «Oh, Vic, you rotten thing.»
«Here we go. Whatve I done now?»
«Oh, nothing called me Mum, didnt you? And now Im weeping like a bairn. Vic I was trying to sort your future, you know.»
«Hows that?»
«Well I was meant to send you out with the rubbishall spruced upat half-six. Just then, from the next building, wouldve come Geraldine, the spinster from number twelve. Forty-seven, never married, just moved in. Youd have bumped into her, quite literally, and then»
«Right and then what?»
«Nothing, Vic.» Her eyes dartedas much as a ghosts eyes could.
«Out with it, Adelaide Margaret.»
«Well youd have *ahem* got on with her. And I Id have been free to move on. That was the condition.»
«What condition?»
«To make you happy.»
«So youve known all this for a year?»
«Aye.»
«Then why didnt you do it?»
Her eyes flickered again. «Because you had to go and pester me about stew, didnt you? Clinging like a wet shirt.»
«*Me?*»
«Aye, you! Now Im stuck here until until»
«Until what?»
«Until Ive made you happy, thats what!»
«Happy? You think Id be happy with some strange woman? Im happier than you know.»
«Hows that?»
«Im alive. Breathing. Ive got the best stew recipe in England. And Ive got *you*keeping me fed, clean, and never lonely. Youre here, Mum.»
«Oh, go to the devil!» she shrieked, vanishing into the wardrobe, where muffled sobs echoed long after.
Victor set about tidying up.
«Not like *that*honestly, Vic! Use the *other* cloth!»
***
Lydia hadnt slept well. Shed dreamt of her motheryoung, beautiful, reaching out to her, calling her name.
Shed meant to watch another of Percival Wonderlys videos, but the connection failed. She tried ringing him insteadthis paragon of wisdom, available day and night.
No answer. Then
«*Who in blazes calls at this hour?*» A rasping voice, a face like a boiled beetroot. «*Have you lost your senses?*»
Lydia snapped the laptop shut. No, nothat couldnt be Percival. Some imposter, surely.
She sat awhile, then decidedfor reasons she couldnt nameto visit the flat where *he* lived. The man whod once made her a slave. Now she was free. Happy. Almost. Something was missing.
She needed to see Victor.
***
Victor and Adelaide were deep in a chess match, laughing like old friends.
«Gone completely mad,» Lydia thought, watching her *ex*-husband banter with thin air.
«Ah, Lydia! Hello! Mum, your moveaha! Check!»
Lydia wouldve sworn the chess pieces moved on their own.
What fresh madness was this?
«You look well, Lydia. Though Mum says youve lost weight. Not eating? Fancy some stew? Mums recipe.»
«Vic are you alright?»
«Me? Never better. Mums promised to teach me her cutlets next.»
«Vic what mum? Shes been gone a year.»
«Aye. And shes been haunting me since.»
«Vic darling, whats happened to you?»
«Im splendid, Lyd. Come, try the stew.»
Lydia decided humouring him was safest.
The stew *was* there. And the smelljust like her mothers.
«Vic did you make this?»
«Aye. Mum gave me her secret. Oh, stop your blubbering, Adelaide Margaret. You dont believe hers here, do you? Lydiaask a question only you and your mother would know.»
«Vic, I»
«No, you think Ive lost the plot. Ask anyway.»
«Mum what secret did I tell you when I was eight?»
«That you fancied *what?* You fancied *me* back then?»
Lydia sank into a chair.
«What colour was my pram? How old was I when my first tooth came in? Who was Auntie Kath?»
Every answer was correct.
«This cant be Vic is my mother really here?»
«Aye. Just not as you remember. Shes a ghost, Lyd. Mumshow yourself.»
For a fleeting moment, Lydia saw her. Then again, in flickers.
«Shes fading, Lyd. But she loves you. Wants you happy. Wants *us* happy. Whats that mean, Adelaide Margaret? Waitwhere are you?»
«*Mum?*»
Victor woke with a shout. Lydia bolted upright beside him.
«Lydia?»
«Victor?» She clutched the blanket. «I dont understand how this Wait. Was that?»
«A dream,» Victor murmured.
«You dreamt it too? That Mum was a ghost?»
«Aye. And that youd left me for some charlatan.»
«Vic!»
«Lyd!»
A furious banging at the door.
«Enough lazing about! Up, the pair of you!»
«Mum?»
«Adelaide Margaret so youre alive?»
«Not for *your* sake. Lydia, stop filling your head with nonsensecoaches, indeed! Had the queerest dreamspent a whole year haunting this lump, Vic. Get dressed. Were off to the cottage. Plenty of work to knock sense back into you. And *you*» She jabbed a finger at Victor. «Youre learning to make stew. Just in case.»
***
«Vic whyd you never call me Mum in thirty years of marriage?»
«Dunno Mum. «Never seemed right, somehow. Now it does.»
«Mmm. Took you long enough.»
And as the kettle began to sing, the three of themalive, mostly alive, and not alive at allsat down to breakfast, the stew simmering gently on the stove, and the cottage filled with the warm, unshakable hum of home.
