He wouldn’t be cured, of course. You were never cured if you were an alcoholic. Four of them shrugged and thought that perhaps he wasn’t really an alcoholic – these things were so exaggerated nowadays. There was a time when a man took a drop too much, but now it was all endogynous, and in the glands, and in the bloodstream, and there were allergies and addictions that had never existed before. Two people knew very well that he was an alcoholic, and the remaining one, waking up that morning, looking forward to his release, had never believed for one moment that there was anything the matter with Gerry. He had gone into that home for a good rest, and that’s all there was to it. * * * Gerry’s mother was seventy-three, and there had never been any scandal in her life before and there wasn’t going to be any. She had reared five boys on her own. Three of them were abroad now, all of them making a good living; only two were in Ireland, and of those Gerry was easily her favourite.
