2 hours ago
2
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.
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 can leave a parcel. In a mix of French and English, I try to strike a deal with him: I will buzz you in if you rescue me. I can hear how mad I sound, and I can also hear his voice getting fainter as he backs away from the speaker. My only remaining strategy is to wait to be reported missing.
I go back to circling. An indeterminate amount of time passes. At some point I return to the little bedroom off the kitchen which, I notice, has a window that looks on to the courtyard behind the building. I open it. The courtyard is deserted, so I practise calling for help. The first attempt emerges as a choked whisper. Gradually I increase the volume, until I’m yelling. After the fifth effort, a little man appears at a window in the building opposite.
“What is it?” he says.
“I’m trapped in this apartment!” I shout.
“What can I do?” he says. This strikes me as a very good question.
On my instructions the man comes down to the front door. I buzz him in; he walks up four flights and opens the stairwell window. We’re now separated by 20ft of narrow ledge. After a long moment of hesitation, I put on my coat, grab my bag and climb out.
My new friend is not encouraging – he wants no part of this. He thinks, at the very least, I should let go of my bag. But I think watching it fall four stories to smash on the cobbles below will be bad for morale. I hold the bag close to my chest, inching along the ledge crabwise, 5ft, 10ft, 15ft.
I reach the corner, where the ledge takes a 90 degree inward turn. There’s a drainpipe to step round, clinging with one hand. From there it’s possible to shuffle to a point where I can more or less throw myself through the window, into his arms.
I shake his hand, and thank him profusely. Then I run: down the stairs, down the street, away.
The lesson I draw from this episode changes every couple of years. Initially it felt like a triumph – I didn’t even miss my train. Later on I thought of myself as merely lucky, and also an idiot. Eventually I came to regard it as an example of how, when faced with a choice between doing something humiliating and doing something life-threatening, you sometimes end up doing both. Best, when possible, to pick just one.
