For nearly twenty minutes he sat watching the small semi-detached council house. In the garden a man was watering the plants. Trevor watched, studying the man with the watering can.
It had taken Trevor only a few minutes to work out where he believed Van Mason lived. His profile told how he had grown up in a small town called Tremwell in the north of England. And a poem Van Mason had written talked of the dreary street he lived, naming it as Cromwell Estate. The poem finished with the lines: “As days go by, and time rolls on, I find myself stuck here in number twenty one.”
It had been a long drive, nearly two hours to reach the small town in the north east and search out the Estate. As he drove along the road, reaching number twenty one he sat and looked at the house. It was no different from the rest in the street, gloomy red brick with a small garden consisting of various colourful flowers that encircled a green freshly cut lawn.
As he watched he’d noticed a man and a woman moving about inside, as the windows gave up two of it’s inhabitants. Ten minutes passed and the man had then come outside, carrying a watering can and proceeding to care for the plants of his garden.
“Is it you?” thought Trevor as he studied the man dressed in dark worn jeans and baggy chequed shirt. It seemed to fit, a guy around the same age as himself (between thirty and forty), was this Jack Van Mason.
Of course he knew there was only one way to find out. And so building up the courage inside he opened the car door, stepped out and approached the man.
“Hello there”, he said. The man turned to look at him, a cheery grin meeting that of Trevor’s.
“All right mate”, he said in a broad northern tone. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Yes well….err. Hmmm”. Trevor said as he tried to think of how to put it. “This might sound a little odd but I’m looking for someone called Jack Van Mason.”
A startled look spread across the man’s face. “Jack van Mason. Your looking for Jack van Mason”, he said with a touch of surprise in his voice.
“Yes…I believe he lives….Well first let me introduce myself. My name is Barry Hopkins. I tutor at a college down south. Erm…St. Edmunds in Suffolk, perhaps you’ve heard of it?”
“Hold on a minute mate. I’m just ganna give the wife a shout”, said the man with a small laugh. He then turned, shouting into the house “LINDA…LINDA YOU THERE DEAR”…
The woman who Trev had seen scuttling about inside the house, came out, looking slightly cross. She was a plain looking woman, slightly plumpish with shoulder length brown hair. She walked slowly out, limping slightly as she did.
As she took a few steps down the path towards them she said: “What’s the matter, what are you shouting about. The whole street can hear you barking on like a”… She stopped talking as she realized her husband was not alone.
“Ere, you’ll never guess who this fellows looking for”, said her husband. She shook her head as she studied Trevor.
“Jack Van Mason. His come looking for Jack Van Mason”. The woman, who Trev now knew to be called Linda, looked at her husband confusedly.
At this point Trevor decided to butt in and explain why he was here. Giving the same account as before, only adding that after he had heard from his students about Jack Van Mason, he too had began reading him and becoming a fan himself. He then explained how he had come to decipher where Van Mason lived and that he thought that by interviewing the writer and getting to know a bit more about him that he could impress one or two at the college.
“Some of the students actually write a school paper and are always looking for stories”, he said recounting his back-story that had taken him only a few minutes to dream up. He’d actually decided to use a semi-truth as to make it as believable as possible, this being that some of the students he taught would always write a weekly school paper and be sniffing around teachers for any interesting stories.
“They ask me questions about my life and stuff, if I’ve got any interesting stories for there paper, but I fear that the stories I give them are a bit on the boring side.
However, if I could tell them I’ve met and interviewed one of there favourite writers then…well they might start to look at me in a new light, instead of boring old Mr.Hopkin’s yattering on yet again about precious little.”
“Oh”, said Linda after hearing Trevor’s story. “Well perhaps you had better come inside and I’ll introduce you to him”.
As Trevor made his way into the house he heard her husband asking Linda if she was sure she knew what she was doing. They whispered to one another a little in a way so Trevor could not hear what was being said between the two but he guessed when the husband said in an overly loud way that he’d be just outside in case she needed him that he was showing a little concern about his wife inviting the stranger in and if he was to try any funny business no doubt the husband would be on hand to sort him out.
Once inside Linda told Trevor to take a seat and make himself comfortable as she put the kettle on and made the pair a cup of tea. Glancing round the room he noticed a laptop on a desk. He gritted his teeth as he imagined the still unknown writer typing out his dross at the machine.
Five minutes later she came in carrying two steaming hot cups of chow on a silver tray adorned with ginger biscuits. Then seating herself down in the opposite chair to him she told him to help himself to the biscuits as he enjoyed his tea.
“So…erm”, he started. “Jack Van Mason, I take it you know him then.”
“Oh, I know him very well” she said with a smile. “His me.”
“Really”, said Trev, genuinely surprised. “But your…well your not what I expected.”
She gave a shrug. “Sorry to disappoint you but Jack’s just my pseudonym. You see when I first started writing I thought that seeing as I’ve always liked horror and fantasy writing, and with these being more a male orientated genre’s, although I now think actually just as many women read them as men. Any way at the time I guess I’d guessed I would get more response writing under the name of a bloke, plus I figured that plain old Linda Wilson was a bit boring, where as Jack Van Mason sounds so much more exiting.”