I have been married to Mr Gunn for a considerable number of years, and during that time we have managed to survive disagreements about central heating, the correct way to stack a dishwasher, and whether a cupboard is still full if you can get the door shut.
But last Saturday we very nearly came unstuck over a duvet cover.
It began because I had decided to change the bedding.
There was nothing unusual about this. I change the bedding regularly, and although I don’t particularly enjoy the business, I have always regarded it as one of those household tasks that must be endured if one wishes to live in a civilised society.
Mr Gunn was downstairs reading something on his phone.
I had removed the old cover, put the clean one on the bed, and was attempting to persuade the duvet to go inside it without folding itself into a large white lump.
This was not going well.
I had one corner in place, but when I shook the duvet the opposite corner came out. I put that one back, and the first one disappeared. Eventually the whole thing twisted itself into a shape which bore no resemblance to the bed it was intended to cover.
I called downstairs.
“Could you give me a hand with this?”
There was a pause.
“With what?”
“The duvet.”
Another pause.
“What about it?”
“I need you to help me put the cover on.”
I heard him put his phone down.
Then he appeared in the doorway.
He surveyed the bed.
“What’s happened here?”
“Nothing’s happened. I’m changing the cover.”
“Well, you’ve got it all twisted.”
“Yes. I know.”
He examined the duvet from the foot of the bed, like a farmer assessing an animal that had become entangled in fencing.
“You’re doing it the hard way.”
I looked at him.
“Am I?”
“Yes. There’s a much easier way of doing that.”
Now, I have been changing duvet covers since before Mr Gunn and I were married. I have changed them in small bedrooms, large bedrooms, holiday cottages, and once in a caravan where there wasn’t enough room to stand up straight.
Mr Gunn, on the other hand, has managed to avoid changing a duvet cover for most of his adult life.
I thought this might be an excellent opportunity for him to demonstrate what I had apparently been doing wrong.
“Go on, then.”
He looked at me.
“What?”
“Show me.”
“Show you what?”
“The easy way.”
He hesitated.
“Well, first of all, you’ve got to get everything the right way round.”
“Yes.”
He picked up the cover.
“Is this inside out?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I was trying to put it on.”
“Well, that’s your first mistake.”
I moved aside.
Mr Gunn shook the cover vigorously, laid it on the bed and began examining the corners.
After a moment he turned it over.
Then he turned it back.
“Where’s the opening?”
“At the bottom.”
“Which bottom?”
“The bottom with the buttons.”
He found the buttons.
“Right.”
He reached inside the cover with both arms, feeling for the far corners. I watched with interest as he gradually disappeared into it.
First his hands went in.
Then his arms.
Then his head.
Within a few seconds he was bent almost double, with most of his upper body inside a large blue cotton bag.
“Can you see the corners?” I asked.
His voice came from somewhere near the pillows.
“Of course I can.”
“Well, which one have you got?”
“Hang on.”
There was a great deal of movement beneath the fabric.
The duvet cover began to rise.
One of his slippers came off.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t look all right.”
“I’m trying to find the corner.”
I sat on the edge of the bed.
After another minute he emerged, red in the face, holding two pieces of fabric.
“There.”
“Those are both corners of the cover.”
“I know.”
“You’re supposed to have the duvet as well.”
He looked down at his hands.
“Well, give me the duvet.”
I handed it over.
He tucked two corners inside the cover and began shaking everything.
The duvet went in approximately halfway.
Then it rolled itself into a ball.
He shook it again.
The ball moved to the other side.
He tried a third time, somewhat more forcefully, and the pillow on my side of the bed went flying onto the floor.
“Careful.”
“I’m being careful.”
“You’re shaking it like a dog.”
“You’ve got to shake it.”
At this point my phone rang.
It was Effie.
“Are you busy?” she asked.
“Very.”
“What are you doing?”
“Changing the duvet.”
“Oh, I hate doing that.”
“So do I.”
“What’s that noise?”
I looked towards the bed, where Mr Gunn was now wrestling with a considerable quantity of blue fabric.
“Mr Gunn is helping.”
There was a short silence.
“Good Lord.”
She asked whether I had tried the inside-out method. I told her that was how we had started.
“Well, there’s another way,” she said. “You roll the whole thing up like a sausage.”
I looked at Mr Gunn.
“Effie says you roll it up like a sausage.”
He stopped shaking.
“What?”
“The duvet. You roll it up.”
“Why would you do that?”
“I don’t know. Effie says it works.”
He took the phone.
“Hello, Effie. What are you talking about?”
She explained.
I could hear only his side of the conversation.
“Yes.”
“Right.”
“No, I’ve got the duvet here.”
“Yes, it’s inside the cover.”
“Well, half of it is.”
There was a long pause.
“I don’t see how that’s going to work.”
Another pause.
“Well, you can’t roll a thing that’s already rolled up.”
He handed the phone back.
“She’s talking nonsense.”
Effie heard him.
“Tell him to watch the video.”
“What video?”
“The one Agnes sent round.”
I had forgotten about the video.
Several weeks earlier Agnes had shared a demonstration of what she called the Scandinavian duvet method. It involved an extremely tidy woman who placed a duvet on top of an inside-out cover, rolled both together, performed a complicated movement at one end and then unrolled the entire thing.
In eleven seconds she had a perfectly made bed.
We had all been impressed.
None of us had tried it.
I found the video and showed it to Mr Gunn.
He watched without speaking.
When it finished, he said, “That’s been edited.”
“It hasn’t.”
“Of course it has.”
“Why would somebody edit a video about changing a duvet cover?”
“Because nobody can do that in eleven seconds.”
I played it again.
He watched more closely.
“See? She does something with her hands at the bottom.”
“Yes. That’s how you do it.”
“Well, she doesn’t explain it properly.”
By now the duvet had fallen off the far side of the bed.
I retrieved it.
Mr Gunn suggested we start again.
This time he laid the cover flat and spread the duvet on top. He rolled everything towards the foot of the bed until we had a long, uneven sausage.
Then he stopped.
“Now what?”
“Turn the end over.”
“Which end?”
“The end with the opening.”
He examined it.
“There isn’t an opening.”
“Of course there is.”
“Not now there isn’t.”
He picked up one end of the roll.
The other end fell off the bed.
Something tore.
We both stopped.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“It sounded like something.”
“Well, it’s a button.”
I looked.
He had pulled off one of the buttons.
I said nothing.
There are moments in a marriage when silence is the only sensible response.
Mr Gunn put the button on the bedside table and began unrolling the duvet.
Somehow he had managed to get the entire thing inside out again.
He stood looking at it.
“There’s something wrong with this cover.”
“No, there isn’t.”
“It doesn’t fit.”
“It’s the same cover we’ve had for four years.”
“Well, it’s shrunk.”
“It hasn’t shrunk.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it fitted on Wednesday.”
He folded his arms.
“I don’t remember it fitting on Wednesday.”
“You weren’t here on Wednesday. You were getting your truck serviced.”
He looked at the duvet.
“Well, that explains it.”
I had no idea what that explained.
At this point Agnes sent me a message asking whether I had tried the video.
Effie had evidently been reporting our progress.
I replied that we had, and that it had not gone according to plan.
Agnes wrote back immediately.
You’re doing it wrong.
I passed the phone to Mr Gunn.
He read the message.
“How does she know?”
“Effie told her.”
He handed it back.
“There’s no need for a committee.”
A moment later Morag joined the conversation.
My daughter does it by standing on the bed.
Agnes replied:
That’s dangerous.
Morag wrote:
She’s only twenty-six.
Effie asked:
Has he got it on yet?
I looked towards Mr Gunn, who was once again searching for the corners.
No, I wrote.
Morag replied:
Put him inside it and shake him.
I laughed.
Mr Gunn looked up.
“What’s funny?”
“Nothing.”
“Are they talking about me?”
“No.”
He held out his hand.
“Give me that phone.”
I put it in my pocket.
Eventually, after forty-five minutes, we succeeded.
Not through the Scandinavian method. Not through the sausage method. Not through any of the techniques recommended by Effie, Agnes or Morag.
We simply took the cover off again, turned it the right way, each held two corners and shook the thing until the duvet fell into place.
It was the method I had been using in the first place.
Mr Gunn smoothed the finished bed.
“There you are.”
I looked at him.
“Yes.”
“That’s the way to do it.”
“Is it?”
“Much easier with two people.”
I opened my mouth.
Then closed it.
Sometimes preserving a marriage requires sacrifices.
We went downstairs for tea.
Mr Gunn appeared quite pleased with himself. He had successfully resolved a household problem and was already beginning to discuss improvements.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said.
I continued making the tea.
“You know what they do in Scandinavia?”
I didn’t answer.
“They have separate duvets.”
“Do they?”
“Yes. Two single duvets on one double bed. Much more practical.”
I put the milk back in the fridge.
“Really?”
“Absolutely. No fighting over the covers, either.”
He was warming to the idea.
“We could get two single duvets and have one each.”
I considered this.
Two duvets.
Two covers.
Four corners on each.
Twice as many buttons.
Twice as much washing.
Twice as many opportunities for Mr Gunn to explain how easy everything would be if I did it properly.
“No,” I said.
He looked disappointed.
“Why not?”
“Because we are not getting two duvets.”
“But it would solve the problem.”
“What problem?”
“Changing the cover.”
I placed his tea in front of him.
“You’re quite right,” I said. “It would certainly solve your problem.”
He looked pleased.
Then I added, “From now on, you’re changing the duvet cover every Saturday.”
He stared at me.
“Every Saturday?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re so much better at it.”
He took a sip of tea and considered this development.
After a while he said, “Actually, I think the one we’ve got is perfectly fine.”
And for once, we were in complete agreement.
