She talked to me about a recurring theme in her work and life being “A sense of big forces driving through people’s lives, operating outside knowledge, outside their ken of what they know or have imagined.” We agreed Alison would not be able to perform her psychic show in Lewes. “Impossible!” says Mantel. “There are too many ghosts”.

Hilary told me one thing she finds fascinating about Lewes is the fact that there is so much ‘layering’ here. For example, she found out when she was staying at Shelleys Hotel, that the car park used to be a medieval chantry. She also talked about a friend who dislikes the anti-Catholic sentiment of Bonfire in Lewes. Hilary holds the view that “you need to weigh in the balance the persecution of the Protestant Martyrs here”, and believes “Lewes is a place that successfully holds conflicting ideas”. The same could be said for Hilary Mantel. Her work is deft and piercing, but also uncomfortable. It refuses to comfort the reader by offering answers to difficult questions about life and death, and how they connect. Instead we are invited to tolerate the ambivalence and uncertainty with her. EC