«Vic, Vic… wake up, you lazy sod! Youll sleep your life away if you carry on like this. Look at him, will you? Still dead to the world… Victor, get up, or youll miss your chance at happiness!»
«Adelaide Margaret, for pitys sake, let me sleep!»
«Sleep? Youll have all eternity to sleep when youre retired!»
«Yeah, or in the afterlife, more like.»
«You wont be sleeping then, either. Up you getcome on!»
Victor dragged himself to the mirror, bleary-eyed, his stubble rough against his palm.
«Go on, then. Wash up, shave, make yourself presentable. Youve got time. Get to it.»
«What time, Adelaide Margaret?»
«Dont argue.»
Victor trudged to the bathroom, muttering curses under his breath. One wrong word, and hed have a slipper hurled at his head. Bloody womanstill bossing him about, even now.
«Vic, did I ever tell you I can read minds? No? Well, now you know.» Adelaide Margaret perched cross-legged on his bed, like some meditating spectre. «Comes with the territory. Now, wash properly, brush your teethand for Gods sake, shave. You look like a vagrant.»
Vic knew better than to argue. You couldnt reason with her in lifelet alone now.
Because Adelaide Margaret wasnt just his ex-mother-in-law. She was also, well a ghost.
Right.
No, he wasnt going mad. No, he wasnt seeing things. One day, shed simply appeared.
After theyd buried her.
«I can hear you, you know. Almost always.» She floated closer, nodding sagely. «How my Lily ever put up with you, Ill never know. Youre a fossil, Victor. A proper dinosaur.»
Victor waved her off and shuffled into the bathroom.
He and Lily had divorced a year ago. The kids were grown, off living their own lives. Lily had snapped one day, called him a tyrant, accused him of holding her back, packed a bag, and slammed the door behind her.
Victor had stood there, bewildered.
Hed called her. Shed spat venomcalled him a misogynist, a relic. Words hed never been called before.
And how, according to Lily, could he stop being a domestic dictator? He built houses for a living! Sheds, extensionswhat did that have to do with anything? The woman had lost her mind. Probably from listening to those life coacheswhoever they were.
Shed decided their marriage wasnt a life but a prison. Claimed hed shackled her to the stove, forced her to make roasts and puddings.
Though, God, the way she made steak and kidney pie
Victor nearly choked on his own saliva as a thought struck him. Half-shaved, he bolted into the hallway.
«Adelaide Margaret! Adelaide Margaret!»
«What in blazes are you shouting for?»
«Teach me how to make your steak and kidney pie. Please.»
«Oh, now he wants my secrets! As if Id hand them over!»
«What do you need them for? Cooking for the devils lot down below?»
«Cheeky sod.»
«Lilys is better than yours, anyway.»
«Better? I taught her, you daft git!»
«Doesnt change the facts.» Victor kept shaving, door wide open. Decorum was long gonethis was his Sunday now, thanks to her.
Adelaide Margaret flickered, agitated. It had taken her months to master solid movementat first, shed spun like a top, crashing into walls. Now she could pick things up. Like slippers. «I taught Lily everything, you ungrateful wretch.»
«Im not arguing. Just saying the student outdid the teacher.»
«What? Go on, thenwhat meat does Lily use?»
«Beef, obviously.»
«Idiot! Its lamb!»
«Oh, and I suppose its got to be that old chipped pot of yours, not the new one?»
«Dont be daft, the blue one»
By evening, Vic had scribbled every step into a notepad. Clean-shaven, he sat at the kitchen table, devouring the best bloody pie hed ever tasted.
«Christ, Mum youre a genius.»
«What?»
«This pie. Its sublime.»
«And Lilys?»
«Pfft. Doesnt even compare. Waitare you crying? Can ghosts cry?»
«Dunno,» she sniffed. «Youre a right bastard, Vic.»
«Here we go. Whatve I done now?»
«Nothing. Just called me Mum. Now Im blubbering. I was supposed to sort your life out, you know.»
«Hows that?»
«Well I was meant to send you out with the bins at half six. Spotless, shaved. And from next door, Gladysforty-seven, never married, just moved inshed have been coming out too. Youd have bumped into her, quite literally, and then»
«And then what?»
Her ghostly eyes darted. «Well, youd have you know. Got on. And Id have been free to go. Those were the terms.»
«Terms?»
«To make you happy.»
«So youve known this whole year?»
«Course I have.»
«Then why didnt you do it?»
Her gaze skittered again. «Youyou distracted me with all this pie nonsense!»
«Me?»
«Yes, you! Now Im stuck here until I sort you out!»
«Happy? You think Id be happy with some strange woman? I am happy. Im breathing, livingand now Ive got the best steak and kidney pie recipe in the world. Ive got you nagging me, keeping me from rotting away. Im not lonely. Ive got you Mum.»
«Oh, piss off,» she shrieked, vanishing into the wardrobe. Sobs and wails echoed from inside.
Vic decided to tidy up.
«Not like that, you oaf! That cloths filthyuse the yellow one!»
***
Lily hadnt slept well. Shed dreamt of her motheryoung, beautiful, reaching out to her.
She tried to watch a video from her life coach, Wilfred Marvel, but it wouldnt load. She rang him instead. The man was a visionary, available day and night.
No answer.
«Hello?» A groggy snarl. On screen, a red-faced man squinted. «Who the hell calls at seven in the bloody morning? You off your rocker?»
Lily slammed the laptop shut. That wasnt Wilfred. That was some ogre.
She sat there, then made a decision. She drove to Victors flatthe man whod enslaved her. Except now she was free. Happy. Almost. Something was missing.
She didnt know why, but she needed to see him.
***
Victor and Adelaide Margaret were playing chess, laughing loudly.
«Gone mad,» Lily thought, watching her ex-husband chat to thin air.
«Lily! Mum, your moveaha! Check!»
Lily swore the pieces moved on their own.
«You look well,» Victor said. «Mum says youve lost weight. Not eating? Fancy some pie? Mums recipe.»
«Vic are you all right?»
«Me? Never better. Mums promised to teach me her Yorkshire pudding next.»
«Vic what mum? Shes been gone a year.»
«Right. Shes been living with me.»
«Vic darling, whats wrong?»
«Nothings wrong. Mum, show yourself.»
For a fleeting second, Lily saw herthen again, in flashes.
«Shes fading,» Victor said. «But she loves you. Wants you happy. Wants us happy? Whats that mean, Adelaide Margaret? Waitwhere are you?»
«Victor!» Lily gasped, jolting awake.
Victor sat up, chest heaving. «Lily?»
«I dont understand was that?»
«A dream,» Victor whispered.
«You dreamed it too? Mum as a ghost?»
«Yeah. And you left me for some life coach»
«Vic!»
«Lily!»
A fist pounded the door.
«Up, you layabouts! Enough lazing about!»
«Mum?»
«Adelaide Margaretyoure alive?»
«Not for long if you keep this up! Lily, stop filling your head with nonsense. Life coaches, my foot. Had the strangest dreamspent a year haunting this idiot. Now get dressed. Were going to the cottage. Plenty of work. And you, Victoryoure learning to cook. Just in case.»
***
«Vic whyd you never call me Mum in thirty years?»
«Dunno Mum. «Never thought I needed to. But maybe… maybe I shouldve.»
She smiled, the lines around her eyes softening. «Well. You called me now.»
And for the first time in years, the cottage filled with the smell of baking pastry, laughter, and the clatter of potslike a home should.
