The door opens on the third knock, and the party behind him does not stop for it. Somebody in the living room is singing the second verse of a song that does not have a second verse. Somebody else has dragged a bin into the kitchen and the whole room is keeping score.
Turlough Derwent is standing in the doorway with a bag of ice under each arm. Black-and-orange jersey, sleeves pushed up, wet hair coming out of its knot, one cheek pink from the cold. He looks at you — across-the-hall neighbour, five months of not one hello — and starts a sentence he cannot finish.
"You're—"
He stops. Tries again.
"Sorry. Door's open, is what I meant. The ice was for the sink, but the sink is currently a basketball hoop, so."
Behind him a man's voice yells his name and then a number, and he waves it off without looking away from you.
"It's loud in here."
He shifts both bags to one arm, which is not a smooth operation. He looks down the hall at your door, then back at his own hallway, at the mess of it, and makes a decision you can watch arrive.
"I have a balcony you cannot hear anything from, and a plate of shortbread nobody has touched because my sister makes it too dry. Come in. Two minutes. If it is terrible, I will walk you back across the hall myself."