'The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher' allows Hilary Mantel to imagine what might have been
Hilary Mantel, whose brilliant, engrossing historical novels, "Wolf Hall" and "Bring Up the Bodies," achieved the surprising feat of humanizing the sinister Thomas Cromwell, provokes such addictive interest that audiences evidently could not bear the wait for the third volume in the series, "The Mirror and the Light." A new collection of her short fiction,The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, has emerged to give readers a quick Mantel fix. The deliberately provocative title story 鈥� the only previously unpublished chapter 鈥� appeared last month in both the Guardian and the New York Times Book Review, heightening the head rush.
Her new collection begins and ends with a story (eight chapters divide them) in which a woman opens the door of her apartment to an unknown man in the summer of 1983. The action of each tale in this coincidental duo takes place on a different continent and involves wholly unrelated characters and plots; yet each projects a similar, hallucinatory reality, whose mingled sharpness and blur are relayed with disconcerting exactness by its narrator. In the first story, 鈥淪orry to Disturb,鈥� set in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the stranger at the bell is a rumpled Pakistani businessman who has got lost in the maze of Jeddah鈥檚 streets and seeks directions. A wary British housewife lets him in. In its opposite number, set in Windsor, England, the man at the door is an IRA assassin. He has learned that the British prime minister is in Windsor for an eye operation and will soon stand directly in sight of the bedroom window of the home he has invaded, giving him the chance to accomplish his mission: the assassination of Margaret Thatcher. The gunman has done his homework. He knows that the woman who has let him in loathes Thatcher (as does Mantel) and likely will not impede his plan 鈥� not that she could stop him, once he assembles his sniper rifle. 鈥淵ou can be a help if you want, and if you don鈥檛 want, we can do accordingly,鈥� he tells her. But she does want, even if she insincerely tells him she doesn鈥檛 believe 鈥渧iolence solves anything.鈥� She brews him a pot of tea and waits, complicit.
Behind the two doors of these stories 鈥� and the many doors of the others that come between them 鈥� stand obscure but distinct individuals. Even if they are not Cromwells, Mantel invests them with motive and personality, rooting them in place with the scents and sights of their daily activities, and with habits and pettinesses that make them feel knowable and real. The woman in Jeddah (where Mantel lived with her husband before she began publishing novels) hates living in Saudi Arabia, where the air in her apartment is 鈥渉eavy with insecticide; sometimes I sprayed it as I walked, and it fell about me like bright mists, veils.鈥� The woman in Windsor (where Mantel lived in 1983) resents but enjoys her quaint bourgeois town, where in the spring, 鈥渃herry trees toss extravagant flounces of blossom鈥� until the wind 鈥渟trips the petals, they flurry in pink drifts and carpet the pavements, as if giants have held a wedding in the street.鈥�
鈥淥ther lives鈥� lurk behind any door, Mantel writes. 鈥淒ifferent histories lie close; they are curled like winter animals, breathing shallow, pulse undetected.鈥� Anyone鈥檚 life, she suggests, could resemble anyone else鈥檚; or not: 鈥淗istory could always have been otherwise.鈥� Her stories in this book, as in the Tudor novels, sport with the infinite possibilities of otherwise.
A characteristic darkness tinges the mood of each tale, and while Mantel may extol actual nature 鈥� cherry blossoms and the occasional butterfly 鈥� she has no interest in prettifying human nature or outcomes. Several of the stories revolve around children and family ties. In 鈥淐omma,鈥� two little girls, middle-class Kitty and lower-class Mary, spy on a rich family鈥檚 deformed baby. Kitty鈥檚 status-conscious aunt despises Mary and forbids Kitty to associate with her, but Kitty cannot resist Mary鈥檚 ragged, sniggering charisma. To pacify her aunt, Kitty denies the friendship, lying: 鈥淢ary鈥檚 got fly-strike鈥� or 鈥淪he鈥檚 got maggots.鈥� The invented afflictions make the aunt scream with cruel laughter. In 鈥淭he Long QT,鈥� a slim fable of marital vengeance, a man accidentally frees himself of his neat-freak wife; while in 鈥淲inter Break,鈥� an intentionally childless couple, on holiday in Greece, receive a jolt that strips their pedophobia of its feigned high-mindedness. And 鈥淭he Heart Fails Without Warning,鈥� a haunting story about an anorexic girl and her callous little sister, Lola, starkly avoids sentimentality. 鈥淚f I die, I want a woodland burial. You can plant a tree and when it grows you can visit it,鈥� says the older sister. 鈥淵eah. Right. I鈥檒l bring my dog,鈥� says Lola.
Three other stories turn the same focused detachment on the professional sphere. In 鈥淗arley Street,鈥� a forbidding, self-satisfied receptionist in a medical practice shows an almost sociopathic obtuseness in her inability to perceive the lesbian bond between her co-workers; in 鈥淥ffenses Against the Person,鈥� an undutiful daughter recalls the year in her youth when she worked in her father鈥檚 legal office and dispassionately observed his disastrous affair with a secretary. The longest of these, the wry episode, 鈥淗ow Shall I Know You?鈥� features a jaded author, bedeviled by migraine, who has accepted a small-town speaking engagement. Entering a grim hotel, following a 鈥渄iminutive and crooked鈥� young employee with a face of 鈥渇eral sweetness鈥� up the 鈥渟carlet stinking stairs,鈥� she thinks, 鈥淲hat would Anita Brookner do?鈥� Eventually, pitying the girl, she gives her money; but later the author feels the pinch of condescension when she realizes that others pity her. The penultimate story, 鈥淭erminus,鈥� contains a ghostly sighting of the narrator鈥檚 unfond father 鈥� long since dead 鈥� prompting her to reflect that 鈥減eople are divided by all sorts of things,鈥� and 鈥渇rankly, death is the least of them.鈥�
For Mantel, frankly, death often acts as an organizing force; what history, what historical fiction could exist without the deaths of the powerful? It is certainly death that unites the characters of the standout title story in this collection: the premeditated, retributive execution of Britain鈥檚 Iron Lady. Novelists often deny the real-life models for their characters, but Mantel has freely discussed the rancor she felt for Thatcher. She told an interviewer last month that the view she gives her IRA sniper was the very view she had in her Windsor apartment on August 6, 1983, the day Thatcher emerged from eye surgery. 鈥淚 was exactly where the narrator of my story is standing,鈥� she said, watching the prime minister 鈥渨ith the eye of an assassin. So the story began there.鈥� The story did not come together, though, Mantel explained, until 2010, when, after she had undergone surgery herself, a morphine dream showed her the right door to knock on, allowing her to complete her vision. 鈥淣ow that we are here at last, there is all the time in the world,鈥� she writes in 鈥淭he Assassination of Margaret Thatcher.鈥� 鈥淭he gunman kneels, easing into position. He sees what I see, the glittering helmet of hair. He sees it shine like a gold coin in a gutter, he sees it big as the full moon.鈥� All it will take to erase it is 鈥淥ne easy wink of the world鈥檚 blind eye.鈥�
In reality, of course, that wink never happened; Thatcher left the Windsor hospital unscathed and died of a stroke 30 years later, in 2013. But behind fiction鈥檚 door, Mantel shows, anything can happen; and in the mind鈥檚 eye, perhaps it already has.
