My big night out: I was hungover and locked in an apartment. The only escape? A high, narrow window ledge | Life and style | The Guardian

Winter 1995: I wake to the sound of a vacuum cleaner repeatedly striking the door near my head. I’m in a small bed in a tiny room. Wherever I am, I’m hungover. ‘My new friend thinks, at the very least, I should let go of my bag.’Illustration: Mark Long/The Guardian I remember: I’m in Paris, after a big night out. Just the one night - I’d arrived on the Eurostar the previous afternoon with a friend. We’d gone out for drinks, then to a cool restaurant, then somewhere to drink more. The rest was blurry, but we ended up back at this apartment - owned by the company my friend worked for - drinking neat vodka until my friend remembered he was catching an early plane to New York. The last thing he’d said as I retreated to the little bedroom off the kitchen was something about the weekly cleaner coming in first thing. If you can sleep through that, he’d told me, you’ll have the place to yourself all morning. I hold a pillow over my throbbing head until the vacuum cleaner retreats. I doze off again. An hour later, I hear the door slam shut. I am alone. My train isn’t until the afternoon, so I dawdle: a long bath, two black coffees, a snoop through the cupboards. It’s an elegant apartment, with big windows and parquet floors, but it’s also under-furnished and a little soulless. I decide to spend my remaining time walking around Paris. I put on my coat, shoulder my bag and head for the door. I turn the handle and pull, but nothing happens. I try turning it the other way. Nothing. I examine the door: it has a big security lock at its centre, which appears to drive bolts into the door frame - top, bottom and both sides. Evidently the cleaner has engaged it from the outside, locking me in. To open it, you need a key. I decide not to panic. There is, I’ve noticed, a bowl full of keys on the kitchen table. Methodically, I try each on the door in turn. When none of them fits, I try them all again. And a third time. The telephone, I discover, isn’t connected (some people had mobiles in 1995; not me). I look out of the window, where Paris is going about its business, four floors down. I can’t remember the French word for help, and anyway, I wouldn’t be prepared to shout it to the whole street below - not yet. I try to calculate how long it might take for desperation to override embarrassment. A day? Two? At this point, I embrace panic. I spend some time - maybe an hour - walking in circles around the flat making an involuntary keening sound, not really expecting a result. Amazingly, I get one anyway: the bell rings. I run to the door and pick up the entry phone: it’s a postman asking to be buzzed into the building so he...

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