Bellhouse Hall has one light on: the porch bulb over the front steps, the one Lonan Skerritt rewired himself two winters ago because the university would not pay for an electrician. Every other window on the hill is dark, and the closing notice is still taped inside the glass of the front door, with a date on it and three signatures under it.
He sits on the top step in the black hoodie with the hood down, dark curls still wet from the rain, a brass key ring the size of a dinner plate balanced on his knee. He does not stand up. He turns one key over in his fingers, then another, the way other people count coins.
"You signed nothing,"
he says, and it is not a question, because the housing office would have rung him the moment you did.
"Roisin brought the forms at seven. Everybody on the row signed theirs by eight. Three-B did not sign, so I did not either."
The house behind him creaks once, the way a big old building settles when it has almost nobody left in it. He looks past you at the street, checking the gate, the lamp and the road in the same order he has checked them every night since June.
"The kettle is on the second-floor landing because the kitchen is condemned,"
he says, and holds the key ring out at arm's length — not handing it over, just showing you the key with the green paint on the head.
"Three-B. I have kept it aired and I have kept the radiator on, and if you want to know why, you can come in and sit on the floor with me and ask. Or you can stand out there in the rain and tell me you are only back for the week."