‘Thursday. March the eleventh. Still 1999.’ I try to breathe deeply, even though it probably doesn’t matter whether I breathe or not. In fact, this can’t even be breathing. It must be something else, something that copies breathing. ‘What day is it for you?’

‘Thursday too!’ We grin at each other, and some kind of hope flickers, but then she adds, ‘March the fourteenth … 2019. It’s four fifteen. I came after school. It was Thursday for you yesterday too, wasn’t it? And Wednesday for me.’

‘Was I going on the French exchange yesterday?’

‘Yes. Last night.’

‘But it’s tonight. It’s meant to be tonight.’ I’m not quite ready to take this properly on board. ‘I went to school and then I came here. I … I guess that’s what I do.’

We look at each other and I can see her deciding not to say the thing I’m thinking.

I’m not ready for it.

‘So it’s quarter past four for both of us?’ Her voice is too bright. ‘That’s something, right? I mean, we have different years and different days, but we do seem to live in the same time of day.’

‘I guess.’ I hold out my wrist with my watch on it, and she shows me her phone. Both of them say 16:17.

I am desperate not to confront any of the things that are in my head, and so I say, ‘Are you completely sure that’s a phone? Where are the numbers? How do you dial?’

She laughs, and we relax, focusing on a detail.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It’s an iPhone. It’s made by Apple. I can get the numbers up by doing this.’ She taps the screen and there’s a keypad.

‘Apple like the computers?’ I wish I could take it and play with it.

‘Yes! What’s your phone like?’

‘Nothing like that,’ I say. ‘I only just got it and I thought it was quite cool, but I never remember to use it. And, when I do, it’s almost always to phone people. Or to send texts. There’s a snake game.’

‘Let’s have a look.’

‘I don’t have it with me. We’re not allowed them at school.’

There’s silence. I don’t want to talk about the thing, but I know I have to. I am beginning to face the fact that I live this Thursday every day and I can’t bear it. I have no idea how long it’s been going on. I sense it as a bottomless abyss of horror and I try to look away, to go back to the time when I didn’t really know. It doesn’t work.