“Bloody hell, Vic… Wake up, will ya? Youll sleep your life away at this rate. Look at him, would you? Still snoring… Victor, get up, or youll miss your chance!”
“Adelaide Margaret, for pitys sake, let a man sleep.”
“Sleep? Youll have plenty of time for that when youre retired.”
“Right, or maybe in the grave.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it. Up you get, come on.”
Victor glared at his reflectionbloodshot eyes, stubble, the works.
“Well?”
“Not even dressed yet. Go on, wash up, shave, make yourself presentable. Theres still time. Get moving.”
“What time, Adelaide Margaret?”
“Never you mind.”
Victor shuffled to the bathroom, muttering under his breath. One wrong word, and hed get a slipper to the back of the head. Shed been a terror in life, and death hadnt softened her.
“Victor, did I ever tell you I can hear your thoughts sometimes? No? Well, now you know.” She perched on his bed, cross-legged. “Side effect of the whole ghost business. Now go on, wash your face, brush your teethproperlyand for heavens sake, shave. You look like a vagrant.”
Arguing was pointless. Shed been impossible in life, and now, as a spectre, she was worse.
His mother-in-law wasnt just formershe was spectral.
No, he wasnt mad. No, he hadnt hit the bottle too hard. Shed just… appeared one day, weeks after her funeral.
“I hear you, you know,” she said, floating closer. “Nearly always. How did my Lucy ever put up with you? Youre a dinosaur, you are.”
Victor waved her off and headed to the bathroom.
He and Lucy had divorced a year ago. The kids were grown, living their own lives. Lucy had snapped, called him a tyrant, accused him of stifling her growth as a person, packed a bag, and slammed the door behind her.
Victor had stood there, bewildered.
Hed called her. Shed said she wanted nothing to do with such a “backwards, misogynistic relic.” No one had ever hurled such language at him before.
And how, according to Lucy, was he supposed to stop being a relic when his whole job was building houses, sheds, and the like? Strange woman, his Lucy. Always picking up odd ideas from those life coacheswho even were they?
Shed decided their marriage had been misery. That hed treated her like a workhorse, forcing her to cook roasts and fry sausages.
Though, come to think of it, Lucys sausages were heavenly…
Victor nearly choked on his own drool. An idea struck him mid-shave. Razor in hand, half his face still lathered, he bolted into the hall.
“Adelaide Margaret!”
“Whats all the shouting about?”
“Teach me to make your beef stew. Please.”
“As if Id give away my secret recipe!”
“What, you gonna feed it to the angels?”
“Cheeky devil.”
“Lucys is better anyway.”
“Better? I taught her everything she knows!”
“Maybe, but she improved on it.”
From the bathroom, Victor kept shaving, door wide open. Decorum was out the windowthis was his Sunday now.
“Listen here, you ungrateful lump,” Adelaide huffed, struggling to settle on a chair. Early on, shed somersaulted like a circus act, but shed since mastered hovering. “I trained Lucy. Understood, you daft sod?”
“Not arguing. Just saying she outdid you.”
“Outdid? What meat does she use in her stew?”
“Beef, obviously.”
“See? Youre clueless. It should be lamb!”
“Oh, and I suppose its got to be that pot over there, not this one?”
“Thats the one!”
By the time they finished, Victor had scribbled every step in a notebook. Freshly shaven, he sat at the kitchen table, spooning up the most divine stew hed ever tasted.
“Mum… youre a genius.”
“What?”
“Your stew. Its… bloody brilliant.”
“And Lucys?”
“Pfft. Doesnt hold a candle. Waitare you crying? Can ghosts cry?”
“Dunno,” she sniffed. “Youre a right git, Victor.”
“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, all clean-shaven. At the same time, Geraldine from next doorspinster, forty-seven, just moved inwouldve been leaving. Youd have bumped into her, and…”
“And?”
Her eyes dartedas much as a ghosts could. “And youd have… you know. Hit it off. Then I couldve moved on.”
“So youve known this whole year?”
“Course.”
“Why didnt you do it?”
“Because you!” She flapped her arms. “You and your bloody stew! Now Im stuck here till I make you happy.”
“Happy? With some strange woman? Im happy enough! Ive got air in my lungs, your legendary stew recipe, and a ghost who wont let me wallow. Ive got you… Mum.”
“Oh, sod off,” she wailed, vanishing into the wardrobe, where muffled sobs echoed.
Victor decided to tidy up.
“Not like that! Use the other cloth, for pitys sake”
***
Lucy hadnt slept well. Shed dreamed of her motheryoung, beautiful, reaching out, calling her name.
Shed tried watching her life coach, Eustace Wonderly, but the video wouldnt load. She rang him instead. The man was a saint, available day and night.
No answer.
“Who the blazes calls at seven in the morning?” a raspy voice growled. A red-faced brute glared from the screen. “You off your rocker?”
Lucy slammed the laptop shut. That wasnt Eustace. Some foul imposter.
She sat, restless. Then, for reasons she couldnt explain, she needed to see Victor.
***
Victor and Adelaide were deep in a chess match, laughing loudly.
“Gone mad,” Lucy thought, watching her ex-husband banter with thin air.
“Lucy! Your move, Mumcheck!”
Lucy swore the pieces moved on their own.
“Looking well,” Victor said. “Mum says youve lost weight. Not eating? Fancy some stew? Mums special.”
“Vic… are you alright?”
“Never better. Mums promised to teach me her Yorkshire puddings next.”
“Vic… what mum? Shes been gone a year.”
“Ah, shes been haunting me.”
“Vic, love, youre not well.”
“Im grand. Come on, try the stew.”
Lucy humoured him. The stew was there. The smelljust like her mothers.
“Did you… make this?”
“Mum gave me the recipe. Stop crying, Adelaide Margaret. You dont believe me? Ask her something only you two would know.”
“Vic, I”
“Go on.”
“Fine. Mum… what secret did I tell you in Year Three?”
“That you fancied… what? You fancied me back then?”
Lucy sank into a chair.
“What colour was my pram? When did my first tooth come in? Whos Auntie Marge?”
Every answer was right.
“This cant be… Vic, is she really here?”
“Aye. In ghost form. Show yourself, Mum.”
For a fleeting second, Lucy 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?”
“Vic!”
He woke with a gasp. Lucy bolted upright beside him.
“Lucy?”
“Vic? How did I? Was that…?”
“A dream,” he whispered.
“You dreamed Mum was a ghost? And that I left you for some life coach?”
“Lucy!”
A fist hammered the door.
“Up already! Lazy sods!”
“Mum?”
“Alive and kicking, much to your dismay. Lucy, stop filling your head with nonsense. Coaches, quackshad the strangest dream. Spent a year haunting this daft lad. Were going to the cottage. Plenty of work. Knock some sense into you. And you, Victorlearn to make stew properly. Just in case.”
***
“Vic… whyd you never call me Mum in thirty years?”
“Dunno… Mum.”
**Life’s too short for grudges. Sometimes, the people who nag us the most are the ones who love us best.**
