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

It was 1995, and I had spent the evening carousing and drinking neat vodka. Now I was trapped in a friend’s flat in Paris, with no phone – and he had flown to New York

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.

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.