“Victor, Victor… wake up, will you? Look at him, still asleep… You’ll sleep your whole life away if you let you. Up with you now, or youll miss your chance at happiness!”
Adelaide Markhamnathough everyone called her Addiestood over him, arms crossed, her voice sharp as ever.
“Addie, for heavens sake, let me sleep a bit longer.”
“Sleep? Youll have plenty of that when youre dead. Get up!”
“Fine, fine if I dont, I suppose Ill sleep forever in the grave.”
“You wont get that chance either. Up with you!”
Victor dragged himself to the mirror, his eyes bloodshot, his face unshaven.
“Well?”
“Still dawdling, I see. Go wash, shave, make yourself presentable. Theres time yet. Hurry up.”
“What time, Addie?”
“The right sort.”
With a grumble, Victor shuffled to the bathroom, muttering under his breath. One wrong word, and hed get a slipper thrown at himshed perfected the art, even in death.
“Victor, did I ever tell you I can hear your thoughts sometimes? No? Well, now you know.” She settled cross-legged on his bed, serene as a ghost could be. “Side effect, I suppose. Now go onwash, brush your teeth, and for pitys sake, shave. You look like a vagabond.”
Arguing was useless. In life, shed been impossible; in death, she was worse.
Addie wasnt just any mother-in-lawshe was a phantom.
Yes, a ghost.
No, he hadnt lost his mind, nor drunk himself to delirium. One day, shed simply appeared in his flatafter theyd buried her.
“I hear you, you know,” she said, drifting closer. “Almost always. How my Lydia ever put up with you, Ill never know. Youre a proper dinosaur, you are.”
Victor waved her off and retreated to the bathroom.
He and Lydia had divorced a year ago. The children were grown, busy with their own lives. Lydia had snapped, called him a tyrant, accused him of stifling her, packed her bags, and left with a slam of the door.
Victor, bewildered, had remained alone.
Hed called hershed said she wanted nothing more to do with such a relic, a man stuck in the past. No one had ever called him such foul words before.
And how, Lydia demanded, could he stop being backward if he spent his days building houses, sheds, and the like? Strange woman, that Lydia, with her newfangled ideas and coarse language.
Shed taken up with some self-styled life coachVictor didnt know who the bloke was, nor did he care. Shed decided her life with Victor had been a prison, that hed yoked her like a plough horse, forced her to cook stew and fry cutlets.
Though, Lord, the way she fried those cutlets
Victor nearly choked on his own drool at the thoughtthen froze. Half-shaved, he bolted into the hall.
“Addie! Addie!”
“What on earth are you shouting for?”
“Addie, could youwould you teach me to make your stew? Please?”
“What, hand over my secret recipe? Not on your life!”
“What use is it to you now? Going to cook for the devil?”
“Ugh, you wretched man.”
“Lydia made it better than you, anyway.”
“What rubbish! I taught her everything she knows!”
Victor, still shaving, left the bathroom door open. Hed long given up on proprietiesthis was his Sunday now, waking at dawn to a ghosts nagging.
“The student surpassed the teacher, thats all.”
“What? Say that again, you ingrate!”
“Fine. What meat does Lydia use in her stew?”
“Beef, of course!”
“Wrong. She uses pork.”
“Then shes a fool! Beef is proper!”
“Oh, and I suppose it must be cooked in *that* pot, not this one?”
“Thats the one, yesoh, youre hopeless!”
Between the two of them, Victor scribbled notes as he cooked. Later, clean-shaven, he sat at the kitchen table, savoring the most divine stew hed ever tasted.
“Mum youre a genius.”
“What was that?”
“Your stew its heavenly.”
“And Lydias?”
“Pales in comparison. Waitare you crying? Can ghosts cry?”
“I dont know,” Addie sniffed. “You rotten man.”
“Now what have I done?”
“Nothing you called me Mum. And now here I am, weeping. Victor, I was meant to arrange your happiness, you know.”
“Hows that?”
“I was to send you out with the rubbishclean, shaved, at half-sixjust as Gladys from next door stepped out. Forty-seven, never married, new to the building. Youd have bumped into her, and well”
“And then?”
“Then nothing.” Her eyes dartedas much as a ghosts could. “Youd have well, you know. And Id have been free to go. Those were the terms.”
“What terms?”
“To make you happy.”
“So youve known all this for a year?”
“Yes.”
“Why didnt you do it?”
Her eyes flickered again. “Because you had to go and pester me about stew! Now Im stuck here until”
“Until what?”
“Until I make you happy, blast you!”
“Happy? With some strange woman? Im happier than you think.”
“How so?”
“Im alive. I breathe. I have the recipe for the best stew in England. And Ive got youMumto keep me from starving, rotting, or moping. Im not lonely. Ive got you.”
“Oh, go to the devil!” she shrieked, vanishing into the wardrobe, her wails muffled behind the door.
Victor sighed and set to tidying up.
“No, not like thatoh, Victor! Use *that* cloth!”
***
Lydia hadnt slept well. Shed dreamt of her motheryoung, beautiful, reaching for her, calling her name.
Shed meant to watch another video from her life coach, Everard Marvell, but the page wouldnt load. She tried calling instead.
The man was divine, enlightenedavailable day and night.
Everard didnt answer.
“Who the devil calls at this hour?” A rough voice snarled through the speaker, a bloated face filling the screen. “Are you mad?”
Lydia slammed the laptop shut. That wasnt Everardthat was some foul creature.
She sat awhile, then decided to visit the flat where *he* livedthe man whod enslaved her. But now she was free! Happy! Almost something was missing.
She didnt know why, but she needed to see Victor.
***
Victor and Addie were playing chess, laughing loudly.
“Gone completely mad,” Lydia thought, watching her ex-husband converse with thin air.
“Ah, Lydia! Hello! Mum, your moveaha! Check!”
Lydia couldve 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? Let me fix you a bowl of stewMums special.”
“V-Victor are you all right?”
“Me? Why wouldnt I be? Mumyour motherpromised to teach me her cutlets next.”
“Victor what mother? Shes been gone a year.”
“Right. Shes lived with me since.”
“Victor darling, whats happened to you?”
“Im splendid, Lyd. Never better. Come, have some stew.”
Lydia decided humoring him was best.
The stew *was* in the pot. The smelljust like her mothers.
“You made this?”
“Yes. Mum shared her secret. Oh, stop crying, Addie! Lydia, ask her something only you and she would know.”
“Victor, I”
“Go on. You think Ive lost my mind. Ask.”
“Mum what secret did I tell you in Year Three?”
“That you fancied *what?* You fancied me even then?”
Lydia sank into a chair.
“What color was my pram? How old was I when my first tooth came in? Whos Auntie Kat?”
Every answer was correct.
“This cant be Victor is my mother really here?”
“Yes. Though not entirely solid. Shes a ghost, Lyd. Mumshow yourself.”
For a fleeting moment, Lydia saw her. Then again, in flashes.
“Shes fading, Lyd. But she loves you. Wants you happy. Wants *us* happy. What does that mean, Addie? Waitwhere are you?”
“Mother!”
Victor woke with a shout. Lydia jolted upright beside him.
“Lydia?”
“Victor?” She clutched the blanket. “I dont understand how thiswait. Was that?”
“A dream,” Victor whispered.
“You dreamed it too? That Mum was a ghost”
“And that you left me for some charlatan”
“Victor!”
“Lydia!”
A fist pounded the door.
“Honestly! Still abed? Up with you!”
“Mum?”
“Addieyoure alive?”
“Not for your sake! Lydia, stop filling your head with nonsensecoaches, quacks! I had the queerest dreamspent a year haunting this fool.”
“Get dressed. Were going to the cottage. Plenty of work thereknock some sense into you yet. And you, Victoryoull learn to make stew. Just in case.”
***
“Victor why, in thirty years with Lydia, did you never once call me Mum?”
“Dont know Mum. “Always called me Addie, like some spinster landlady. And then, in a dream, you do. Funny, isnt it?”
“Maybe it took the end of the world to make me see what was right in front of me.”
She sighed, the autumn light catching the silver in her hair. “Well. At least one of us is learning.”
Victor reached for her hand, and this time, she didnt pull away.
