«Vincent, Vinny… why are you still asleep? Listen? Get up, you’ll sleep your whole life away if you dont. Look at him, will you? Still snoring… Victor, wake up, I tell youyoull miss your chance if you dont!»
«Adelaide Margaret, for heavens sake, let me sleep!»
«Sleep? Youll have plenty of time for that when you retire.»
«Oh, rightor maybe Ill catch up in the afterlife.»
«You wont get that chance. Up you get, come on!»
Vincent staggered to the mirror, bleary-eyed and unshaven.
«Well?»
«Dont dawdle. Go wash up, shave, make yourself presentabletheres still time. Get on with it.»
«What time, Adelaide Margaret?»
«The time I say.»
Vincent shuffled to the bathroom, muttering under his breaththough not too loudly, lest he earned a slipper to the back of the head. She still ruled him, even now.
«Vinny, did I ever tell you? I can hear thoughts sometimes. Did I? No? Well, now you know.» Adelaide settled cross-legged on his bed. «Side effect, I suppose. Go on, wash up, brush your teethproperly, mindand dont forget to shave. You look like a tramp.»
Arguing was pointless. Shed never listened in lifewhy start now?
Adelaide wasnt just any mother-in-law. She was, well… a ghost.
Yes, really.
No, he hadnt lost his mind, nor drunk himself into delirium. One day, Adelaide Margaret had simply appeared in his flatweeks after theyd buried her.
«I hear you, you know,» she murmured, drifting closer. «Almost always. How did my Lydia ever put up with you? Youre a relic, Vinny. A proper dinosaur.»
Vincent waved her off and shut the bathroom door.
He and Lydia had divorced a year ago. The children were grown, living their own lives. Lydia had snapped, called him a tyrant, accused him of stifling her growth, packed her things, and slammed the door behind her.
Vincent had stood there, bewildered.
Hed called her. Shed said she wanted nothing more to do with a backward, misogynistic relicwords hed never been called before.
And how, according to Lydia, could he stop being a «backward relic» when he literally built houses for a living? Strange woman, that Lydia. And with all that foul language shed picked up from her new «life coach,» whoever that was.
Apparently, her life with him had been misery. Hed «yoked her like a plough-horse,» forced her to cook stews and fry cutlets.
Though, admittedly, no one fried cutlets like Lydia…
Vincent nearly choked on his own drool at the thoughtthen froze. Half-shaved, he bolted into the hallway.
«Adelaide Margaret! Adelaide Margaret!»
«What in blazes are you shouting for?»
«Adelaide Margaretteach me to make stew. Please.»
«Oh, now he asks! As if Id hand over my secret recipe to just anyone!»
«What do you need it for where you are? Cooking for demons?»
«Ugh, you wretch.»
«Well, serves you right… Lydias stew was better than yours.»
«Ha! As if. I taught her everything she knows!»
Vincent kept shaving, bathroom door wide open. Decorum was long goneit was his day off, and hed been dragged out of bed at seven. She wouldnt let him be.
«Exactly. And then she surpassed you.»
Adelaide flickered indignantly, then settled onto a chair. Early on, shed tumbled about like an acrobat, but shed learnedeven managed to grip things. Like a slipper.
«I taught Lydia, you daft sod.»
«Im not arguing. Just saying the student outdid the teacher.»
«WHAT? Go on, thenwhat meat does Lydia use in her stew?»
«Beef, obviously.»
«You absolute berkits lamb!»
«Oh, and I suppose it has to be cooked in that pot, not this one?»
«Dont be daftthat one over there!»
Between them, Vinny scribbled notes and cooked.
Clean-shaven and seated at the kitchen table, he took a bite.
«Mum… youre a genius.»
«Eh?»
«Your stew. Its… divine.»
«And Lydias?»
«Pfft. Doesnt come close. Waitare you crying? Can ghosts cry?»
«Dunno,» Adelaide sniffed. «Youre a right rotter, Vinny.»
«Here we go. Whatve I done now?»
«Oh, nothing. Called me Mum, didnt you? And now Im blubbering. I was trying to sort your life out, you know.»
«Hows that?»
«I was going to send you out with the rubbishclean, shaved, at half-six. And just then, Geraldine from next door wouldve come out. Forty-seven, never married, just moved in. Youd have bumped into her, literally, and»
«Right. And then?»
«Nothing, Vinny.» Her eyes dartedas much as a ghosts could.
«Out with it, Adelaide Margaret.»
«Well… youd have… you know. And Id have been free to go. That was the deal.»
«What deal?»
«To make you happy.»
«So youve known all this for a year?»
«Course.»
«And you didnt do it because…?»
Her eyes darted again. «You had to go on about stew, didnt you? Like a dog with a bone.»
«Me?»
«Yes, you! Now Im stuck here untiluntil»
«Until what?»
«Until I make you happy, thats what!»
«Happy? Seriously? Who decided Id be happy with some stranger? Im happier than you think.»
«Hows that?»
«Im alive. Breathing. Ive got the best stew recipe in the world. And Ive got youmaking sure I dont starve, or rot, or mope about. Im not lonely. Ive got you… Mum.»
«Oh, go to the devil!» she shrieked, vanishing into the wardrobe. Sobs and howls echoed from within.
Vincent decided to tidy up.
«Thats not how you clean a mirror! For heavens sake, Vinnyuse that cloth!»
***
Lydia hadnt slept well. Shed dreamt of her motheryoung, beautiful, reaching for her.
Shed tried to watch her life coach, Everard Wonderley, but the video wouldnt load. She called instead.
This divine man, whod «opened her eyes,» was available day and night.
Everard didnt answer.
«Hello?» A groggy voice croaked. A red face filled the screen. «Who the devil calls at seven in the morning? Lost your mind?»
Lydia slammed the laptop shut. No, that wasnt Everard. That was… some ogre.
She sat awhile, then decided to visit the man whod «enslaved» her. She was free now. Happy. Almost. Something was missing.
She didnt know why, but she needed to see Vincent.
***
Vincent and Adelaide were playing chess, laughing loudly.
«Hes lost it,» Lydia thought, watching her ex-husband chat and laugh with… no one.
«Lydia! Hello… Mum, your move. Check!»
Lydia swore 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.»
«Vin… are you alright?»
«Me? Why wouldnt I be? Mums promised to teach me her cutlets next.»
«Vin… what mum? Shes… gone. A year now.»
«Right. Shes been living with me since.»
«Vincent… darling, whats wrong?»
«Nothings wrong. Im happier than ever. Come on, try the stew.»
Lydia decided not to argue with a madman.
But the stew… the smell… just like her mothers.
«Vin… you made this?»
«Yep. Mum shared her secret. Oh, stop crying, Adelaide Margaret… You dont believe me? Ask her something only you and she would know.»
«Vin, I»
«Go on. You think Im mad anyway.»
«Mum… what secret did I tell you in Year Three?»
«That you fancied… what? Me? You fancied me back then?»
Lydia sat down hard.
«What colour was my pram? How old was I when my first tooth came in? Whos Auntie Kath?»
Every answer was right.
«This cant be… Vin. My mum… shes really here?»
«Yes. Just… not quite solid. Mum, show yourself.»
For a fleeting moment, Lydia saw her. Then again.
«Shes fading, Lyd. But she loves you. Wants you happy. Wants us happy. Whats that mean, Adelaide Margaret? Waitwhere are you?»
Mum…
Vincent woke with a shout. Lydia jolted upright beside him.
«Lydia?»
«Vincent?» She clutched the blanket. «I dont understand how this… Wait. Was that…?»
«A dream,» Vincent whispered.
«You dreamt it too? That Mum was a ghost… and I left you for some life coach…»
«Lydia!»
«Vincent!»
A fist hammered on the door.
«Honestly! Still lazing about?»
«Mum?»
«Adelaide Margaret… youre alive?»
«Not for your sake! Lydia, stop filling your head with nonsenselife coaches, indeed! I had the queerest dreamspent a year haunting you, Vinny, you great lummox. Up you getwere going to the cottage. Plenty of work. Well knock some sense into you yet, Lydia. And you, Vincentyoure learning to make stew. Just in case…»
***
«Vinny… why, in thirty years with Lydia, did you never once call me Mum?»
«Dunno… Mum. «Always seemed too bold, I suppose. Like stepping over a line.»
«Thirty years and it takes a dream to say it?»
«Better late than never, Mum.»
She sniffed, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. «Oh, hush. Go start the car. And dont you dare burn the stew.»
Vincent smiled, slow and real, as he pulled on his coat. The cottage waited, the pot simmered, and for the first time in years, the house didnt feel empty at all.
