A personal reflection by David Holland.
In a small gift shop in Budleigh Salterton back in 2010, a fellow shopper was engaged in an articulate and witty conversation with the owner and I confess I could not resist eavesdropping on her every word, while feigning to be looking at a shelf of nondescript greeting cards. I even moved closer to the interchange to get a better vantage point. I was spellbound by her vocabulary, her wonderful sentences, her quick wit, her positivity, and most of all her friendly charm. My adult son was with me at the time and when we finally left the shop, we looked at each other and asked in shared admiration, ‘Who was that?’
It was years later when I finally realised the fellow shopper was the two-time Man Booker Prize winning author of the Wolf Hall Trilogy. Fast forward to 2022 across the years of Hilary’s growing recognition as one of the greatest English authors of the century, I was deeply shocked when I read of her sudden death. When the news broke I was almost at the end of the final novel in the trilogy, The Mirror and The Light and for a reason difficult to explain, I decided not to complete the last chapter in which her main protagonist of 2000 pages, Thomas Cromwell, meets his end. I have still not read those pages because I do not want to say goodbye to his creator, Hillary herself.
Because of my decision to hold the Wolf Hall Weekend coming up in 2024, I was invited by my one time employer, HarperCollins, to Hilary’s Memorial Celebration at Southwark Cathedral on the 20th April 2023. I arrived an hour and a half early and decided to eat my packed lunch in the Cathedral garden, where with the exception of William Shakespeare’s bronze statue on the bench next to me, I was alone in the sun, sheltering from an unseasonably cold wind. I opened my copy of Diarmaid MacCulloch’s masterful biography, Thomas Cromwell – A life and reflected that I was now immersing myself as much as possible in Cromwell’s life, not only because I wanted to read Diarmaid’s insights into the ‘person’, but also because Hilary had raised his ghost; whom I now willingly allowed to haunt me.
The celebration was beautifully conducted by colleagues and close friends of Hilary. We laughed and cried together as we listened to her own words read by celebrity actors and tributes from those for whom Hilary was a significant part of their life. Everyone present at the event seemed to be sharing my desire to hold onto Hilary for one moment longer. Part way through, the small TV screens around the Cathedral blasted out the song I Won’t Back Down by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, accompanied by a collage of old photographs and some home-video footage from across the span of Hilary’s life. It was then I felt closest to her, as I recalled her final words from her wonderful memoir Giving Up The Ghost:
‘At 20 Brosscroft, the windows printed on our curtains are alight from within, their flowerpots spilling scarlet blooms, the candle flames swelling, flickering boldly against the fading northern afternoon. The table is laid, and the dead are peering at their place cards, and shuffling into their chairs, and shaking out their napkins, waiting, expectant, for whatever is next. Food or entertainment, it’s all one to the eyeless, the shrivelled and the thin: to the ones who have crossed into the land where only the living can provide their light. I will always look after you, I want to say, however long you have been gone. I will always feed you, and try to keep you entertained; and you must do the same for me. This is your daughter Ilary speaking, and this is her book.’
As I mingled with the other attendees after the celebration, each recalling their personal attachment to ‘Ilary’, I began to wonder on which side of the veil we were now living. Have we become characters in her world of ‘otherness’ and she is letting us write our own parts in her ongoing story? Have we become her literary family at the table and keepers of her written legacy, always entertained by her creative and mischievous spirit?
As I went to leave the Cathedral, my heart full and hopeful, I literally bumped into Thomas Cromwell and offered some complimentary words of thanks for his performance as the ghost in Hilary’s imagination. He smiled and said, ‘That’s very kind of you,’ as he walked off into the body of the Cathedral.
Dame Hilary Mantel, who died in September 2022, will always be remembered as a truly original writer. Her remarkable body of work inspires readers around the world.
Discover all Hilary mantel’s books here: https://amzn.to/3PR9H4D