It’s like Harv has been gently inflated, or suffered some traumatic allergic reaction. His sharpened cheekbones and laughter lines are all gone, and his face is younger, rounder, doughier. I notice a solid pouch of belly hanging stoutly over his belt buckle. He has a can of lager in one hand and what appears to be a peanut butter and cheese toastie in the other.

‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ he says.

‘I … have no idea,’ I stammer, quite truthfully.

‘Do you know what time it is?’

Instinctively, I glance down at my wrist. My watch says one minute to twelve. The watch I’m still wearing. I’ve woken up in completely different clothes, in a completely different place, and yet this watch is somehow still fixed around my wrist. My brain is poking fruitlessly at this fact when I realise Harv is snapping his fingers in front of my face.

‘Hello? Hellooooo?’

He looks at me strangely, and then takes a large bite of his toastie. ‘It’s after six, man, you’d better get a shift on,’ he says, stickily. ‘Marek just called me. He’s going mental. You weren’t answering your mobile. They’re all already at the Drama Barn.’

I shut my eyes for a second, hoping that when I reopen them I’ll be back in the attic, nursing the mother of all hangovers, with Daphne glowering down at me.

But no. Inflatable Harv is still right there, swigging his lager and staring at me through narrowed eyes. ‘Are you stoned or something?’ he says. ‘Or are you just being a twat?’

‘No, I’m …’ I have no clue what I am. I feel like I’m in some sort of highly advanced virtual-reality video game.

A door opens behind Harv and a small blonde girl emerges, smiling at us. Fuck. It’s Geordie Claire. She lived opposite me in halls. I haven’t seen her since … well, since uni. She waves two little red tickets at me. ‘Good luck, Ben! Me and Stu will be front row.’

I squint at the tickets. They say: DRAMA SOC PRESENTS: THE CAROL REVISITED.

Suddenly I know where I am. And, more importantly, when I am. I have to grab the door frame to steady myself.

‘Shit, Ben, are you OK?’ Claire asks, rushing towards me.

Harv laughs and slips an arm round my shoulder. ‘Must be first-night nerves. Come on, man, we’ll have a quick drink and then I’ll walk you down there.’

Claire looks slightly concerned, but just nods goodbye and heads out.

Harv leads me through to our corridor’s shared kitchen, and the milky-cheesy-rotten-fruit stench that hits me is almost as strong as the déjà vu. I am now one hundred per cent certain that this is not a dream. Only reality could smell this bad.