The voice is harder now. It has an edge to it. I recognise it this time, and the shock hits me like a punch in the gut.

‘What’s wrong?’

I still can’t quite get my mouth to emit any actual human words. I feel her sit up and reach across to the other side of the bed. A light comes on, and the sudden brightness forces my eyes shut.

‘Oh my God, you look awful! You’re white as a sheet!’

I try a few painful blinks, but as my surroundings swim gradually into focus, I find there is simply too much worrying information here to process. The first piece of worrying information is that I definitely do not recognise the bed or, indeed, bedroom I am currently in. The second, more worrying piece of information is that I definitely do recognise the half-naked woman sitting next to me.

All I can manage to say is: ‘Alice …’

She wrinkles her forehead, and clambers out of bed. ‘I’ll go and get you some Nurofen. You can’t be ill today, Ben. You seriously can’t. It’ll be so embarrassing.’

She wriggles into a dressing gown and clomps out of the room.

I lie in the unfamiliar bed, in the unfamiliar room, paralysed with panic. Alice was right: I really am shivering – trembling all over – and I can’t seem to stop. I thought that by now I’d be used to it – the abrupt madness of finding myself suddenly transported to a different time and place. But this is something else. This is somewhere completely new, somewhere I’ve never been before.

I’ve only woken up next to Alice once in my entire life, and that was in her Paris flat.

This is not her Paris flat.

Which means …

I look down at my wrist to check the watch is still there. It very much is, the hands stuck in the exact same place. I reach slowly for the unfamiliar iPhone on the bedside table. I can hardly bring myself to touch the screen.

I must have imagined it. Surely.

I tap the phone tentatively with my thumb, and as the screen lights up, my stomach drops out from under me like I’ve just plunged into the first loop of a roller coaster.

The date reads: 25 December 2023.

I click the phone off and then on again. The date still reads 25 December 2023.

My heart is now beating so fast I think I might actually pass out. ‘After Christmas past comes Christmas present,’ the watch-seller told me outside the pub. But I never stopped to think about what comes after that …

On the chest of drawers opposite me, there’s another phone charging – it must be Alice’s. I run over to check the screen. The date reads: 25 December 2023.