Hilary and her husband, Gerald, came into my life nine years ago, yet it feels as though I’ve always known them. It was the autumn of 2013 at the Royal Shakespeare Company rehearsal rooms on Clapham High Street in south-west London. I had been cast to play Thomas Cromwell in the stage adaptations of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, and the company had met for a read-through. I had devoured the novels earlier that year and now, somewhat starstruck, I approached Hilary, who was sitting – as she so often did – with Gerald close by. I told her that her stories had made me rethink what it meant to be English. She absorbed this with a genial “Oh”, accompanied by a nod, a smile and a look into the middle distance. Gerald did likewise with a kind neutrality. We said little else that day, but from that point on Hilary became a lifeline. There wasn’t much opportunity to talk in rehearsals. Time was short, and in those early days, being new to the process, Hilary was not entirely sure of her place in the rehearsal-room hierarchy. We soon discovered that the best way to communicate was by email.
The first thing Hilary ever wrote to me was: “Dear Ben, are you OK?”
