Little Miss Neverwell

Hilary Mantel continues her memoir

By the time I was twenty I was living in a slum house in Sheffield. I had a husband and no money; those things I could explain. I had a pain which I could not explain; it seemed to wander about my body, nibbling here, stabbing there, flitting every time I tried to put my finger on it.

When I packed my bags for London, at 18 years old, I went to live in a women’s hall of residence in Bloomsbury. It was a haven of warmth, calm and order. My course was engrossing, and it was taught by lawyers and academics of stature and reputation. I got involved in student politics: meetings that dragged on towards midnight. It was what I liked, and student politics at the London School of Economics had at least some crossover with the real world. The rattling, down-at-heel, overcrowded buildings pleased me better than any grassy quad or lancet window. And I was doing well; my tutors were beginning to talk to me about where my interests lay, about how I might like to specialise, in my third year. My path seemed to have taken a new turn; it seemed I was a step or two from success.