A Finer End

delicious Jack? I’m beginning to think you’re conspiring to keep me from meeting him, so that I can’t judge for myself.’
    ‘I’ll give a dinner party. Soon, I promise. It’s just that all our spare time seems to vanish these days.’
    ‘The automatic writing? How is that going?’ Fiona was the one person outside the group in whom Winnie had confided.
    ‘It’s fascinating — the material itself, I mean.’
    ‘This can’t be comfortable for you.’
    ‘Ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night?’ Winnie teased in a fair parody of Fiona’s Scottish brogue. Then she continued more soberly. ‘You know, it’s odd, but somehow Edmund seems too real to be a ghost. Too human. And I suppose I’ve got used to it.’
    Fiona raised an eyebrow. ‘Then what’s giving you the pip?’
    "Ibo much experience with committees gone sour, I suppose,’ Winnie said with a sigh. ‘The group dynamics seem to be changing, and that doesn’t bode well.’
    ‘I thought it was all sweetness and light and save-the-world enthusiasm.’
    ‘It was, in the beginning. But we’ve not had any luck finding out just what it is that Edmund wants, so all that energy is finding other outlets. Nick — the young man from the bookshop — is besotted with
    Faith-’
    ‘Your pregnant teenager.’
    ‘Right. Faith, on the other hand, seems totally oblivious. The girl has something about her that inspires devotion. She’s quite self-contained in a way I’ve never seen... and yet there’s something vulnerable about her.’
    ‘Family trauma?’ mused Fiona.
    ‘I don’t know. I’d like to help her, but I haven’t been able to find a chink in her armour.’
    ‘There’s more,’ Fiona prompted, nibbling on a shiny black olive.
    ‘Nick is terribly jealous of Simon — understandably so. I think Nick saw himself as a necessary part of the equation; then Nick introduced Jack to Simon Fitzstephen—’
    ‘And now Jack’s spending more time with Fitzstephen than Nick, and Nick feels abandoned.’
    ‘Classic, isn’t it? Damn Simon. I suspect he’s playing up Jack partly out of spite towards me and you can bet that whatever other motives he has aren’t unselfish. I don’t trust him as far as I could throw him. 1 And then there’s Garnet—’
    ‘Garnet Todd?’ Fiona’s hazel eyes widened. ‘You didn’t tell me Garnet was part of your group.’
    ‘Didn’t I? Do you know her?’
    ‘Who doesn’t? Garnet’s a fixture round here. She always had a talent for stirring things. I take it that hasn’t changed?’
    ‘She seems to have taken a dislike to Nick,’ admitted? Winnie.
    ‘And you end up as peacemaker?’
    ‘Not very successfully, obviously. But what bothers me most is Jack. His obsession with this seems to be growing. You’d think he’d be discouraged by our lack of progress, but it seems to have the opposite effect. It’s as if he feels there’s a clock ticking. And I can’t hear it.’ As Winnie spoke she realized just how alone that made her feel.
    ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself. Here you’ve tumbled into this unexpectedly wonderful relationship, then he goes and gets into bed with a rival you can’t even see.’
    ‘It’s not like that’.’ Winnie protested, then laughed at her own discomfort. ‘Well, maybe it is, a little. Tell me about you,’ she added, eager to change the subject. ‘Not much to tell, unfortunately.’
    Winnie studied her friend’s face. ‘You look a bit transparent round the edges.’
    Fiona shrugged. ‘It’s not that I expect to control what I paint — that’s never been the case — but nothing like this has ever happened before.’
    ‘You’re still painting the little girl, then?’
    ‘They’re so dark, these paintings. There’s no happiness in them. I’ve begun to dread the urge to paint. And Bram hates them; I can tell—’
    The banging of the back door silenced her.
    ‘Sorry I’m late, Fi,’ Bram Allen said, coming into the kitchen and kissing his wife’s cheek. ‘Waiting on an international call. Winnie,’ he added, favouring her with a perfunctory nod. ‘Good to see you.’
    As Fiona readied her husband’s meal, Winnie watched the couple with a stirring of envy. Married more than twenty-five years, they still seemed as devoted as newlyweds. Did she and Jack have such a future ahead of them? Or would Jack’s involvement with Simon lead him down a path she couldn’t follow? She had been happily self-sufficient until she’d met