Free The Very Thought of You by Rosie Alison Page B

mother’s retreat into the spirit world of her Anglo-Irish youth. But he, too, sometimes felt the presence of his brothers’ spirits, in his head, and in the promptings of his conscience.
    His mother was desperate not to let her beloved last son go to the front. But like all his friends, Thomas went to war as soon as he had completed his schooling.
    “It is not a question of
choice
, Mama,” he told her.
    He found himself at Aldershot, where long lines of faceless barracks were interspersed with barren parade grounds. A monotonous landscape, manufactured and unreal. Thomas was drilled in the art of marching and the skills of open combat, which by all accounts were worthless on the front.
    My dear Claudia,

I think of you at Ashton, with all the convalescents. I can imagine how much you must cheer them up.
    Strange to think that Edward trained here, at Aldershot. The barracks are worn and shabby – did he ever say which building he was in?
    Memories are to be cherished. I think of William and Edward daily, and the thought of them bolsters me. Other times, I am still shaken by their loss.
    Take care of Mama. I know how she will suffer if I go too, and so I will do all I can to return to you.
    Your loving brother,

Thomas
    Thomas was an eighteen-year-old marching on a parade ground when the Armistice was declared, releasing him back to civilian life. With a mixture of relief and regret, he left behind his dreary barracks and returned to the Ashtons’ London home, Sussex Place, a wedding cake of a house in REgent’s Park, all pillars and porticoes.
    His father and mother were waiting for him there, to rejoice in their living son, who carried now the weight of his brothers’ unused lives. Claudia joined them for a champagne toast in the drawing room, but privately felt that any celebration was inappropriate.
    After two glasses, Miriam Ashton became lachrymose and reached out to her only son.
    “You’re lucky, Thomas,” she said.
    “I know that,” replied Thomas, a little abashed.
    “No, I mean something else, I believe you have
luck with you
—”
    “Please don’t say that,” chipped in Robert, unusual though it was for him to contradict his wife.
    “You can be sure that Thomas and I will take good care of ourselves for both of you,” said Claudia, eager to pacify.
    Miriam smiled and laughed, but Thomas was subtly shaken by his mother’s longing for his good fortune – what if lightning struck, or he fell from a horse, how could he fulfil all the hopes she had for her remaining children?
    It was not long afterwards that an epidemic of Spanish influenza swept haphazardly through Europe. At Ashton Park, the cook’s daughter was the first to fall ill. Rachel Barry shivered and sweated, and her mother stayed with her through the night, giving her water, sponging her face and body. Rachel recovered, but the fever spread rapidly through the rows of recuperating soldiers in their hospital beds. Within days, three men and a young nurse had died.
    Sixteen-year-old Claudia, helping with the nursing work, was taken ill on the third day of the outbreak. She lay in her old familiar bed, overlooking the broad sweep of parkland. Her head burned hot and she began to slip in and out of delirium, like the other victims.
    Robert and Miriam Ashton were telephoned in Sussex Place. They caught the first train to York, and forbade Thomas from joining them. For two days they sat by Claudia’s bedside in desperate agitation. They sponged her, they talked to her, they tried to rouse her. They walked up and down the room, and rocked in their chairs, and gripped at their own fretful fingers until they were sore. But they could not reach their daughter – her soul was drifting free. Sometimes, in her delirium, she seemed to be talking to her brothers, as if they were standing at the end of her bed.
    Her decline was too swift. Miriam was watching her daughter’s white face when she stopped breathing. Suddenly Claudia’s eyes were