I have two pairs of shutters on the windows and a twitch in both eyes

Last summer in Lefkada, I took a photograph of a pair of window shutters; double-panel, hardwood, painted palest sunbleached olive.

“I’m going to get someone to make five pairs of those for the front windows of our new house,” I said, “I’m going to mix the paint myself so I can get them that colour exactly.”

“We haven’t even signed contracts yet,” my husband said, “it’s way too soon to be thinking about aesthetics.”

“Whatever,” I said, “the shutters can serve as an encouraging endpoint, something I can fix on to stop my spirits from flagging when I’m sweating blood in my boiler suit with a bag of six-inch nails, a mallet and broken fingers.”

Now, six months later, it’s Wednesday, 5pm, and time to hang my painted shutters. We stare up at the house.

“How are you going to hang them?” I say, “I just can’t see it.”

“We,” he says, “we are going to hang them.”

“You’re going to have to help me see it,” I say, “especially now that my right eye’s started twitching.”

“We’ll work it out as we go along.”

“Let’s work it out now.”

“We’ll do the bottom ones first,” he says “and then tomorrow, we’ll just apply the same principles to doing the top ones.”

“What is my role, exactly?”

“You’re going to be standing behind me on the ladder,” he says, “I need someone to hold the hammer-drill and other stuff.” I recoil.

“Right now,” I say, “I feel exactly like a sea anemone.”

“A sea anemone?” he says.

“When poked,” I say.

“I’ll need the Philips-head electric screwdriver up there,” he continues, “and screws, pencil, hammer and rope. I think that’s it.”

“By the way,” I say, “when you say hammer drill do you mean the masonry one? The one I have to use with two hands because it weighs as much as my Nissan?”

“Yes,” he says.

“Well, in that case,” I say, “you’ve forgotten something.”

“What?” he says.

“Scaffolding,” I say.

“We don’t need scaffolding,” he says.

“Ahhh,” I say, “I see it now. I see it very clearly.”

“You do?”

“I do.”

“Oh good,” he says.

“No.”

“No what?”

“Just no.”

9pm. I have two pairs of shutters on the downstairs windows and a twitch in both eyes.

“So basically,” he says, “it’s like hanging a door. I see absolutely no reason why we can’t apply the same principles tomorrow to the top windows.”

“Except that the principles should be totally different,” I say, “because when you hang a door, your feet are on the ground.”

“My feet will be on the ladder. What’s the difference?”

“Thirty feet,” I say.

“I think we should do a trial run on our bedroom window first,” he says, “I’m just a bit worried about the shutter swinging out. Look, if it works, then great, if not then we’ll both just...”

“... die,” I say.

Thursday, 9am. I am in bed, when I hear knocking. I sit up. I can see the top of my husband’s head outside the upstairs bedroom window. I open the window and look down; he’s standing on the ladder with a four- foot long shutter.

“Listen carefully,” he says “this isn’t working out quite as I thought. I want you to stand on the bed and lower me the hammer drill out of the window very slowly by the lead.”

“Where’s the drill?” I say.

“On the landing.”

“Can I put some trousers on first?” I say.

“This isn’t the time,” he says.

9.20am. I am standing on our bed, hanging half-in, half-out of the upstairs bedroom window lowering the hammer drill to my husband with one hand.

“Wait until I get right to the top,” he says, “I’ll take the hammer drill and you take the end of the rope.”

“What rope?”

“This one,” he says, reaching up and passing it to me, “wind it round the bedknob then tie it off when I tell you to. Hold the tension in the rope all the time. Whatever you do, YOU MUST NOT LET IT GO SLACK or the shutter will swing outwards and knock me off the ladder.”

9.25am. “Do you know how to do a round turn and two half hitches?” he shouts up.

“What’s that?” I shout back.

“A bowline knot then?”

“Do I look like Ellen MacArthur?” I shout.

“Any knot then,” he shouts, “as long as it’s secure.”

9.30am. I am tying off the knot.

“How are things looking in there?” he shouts, his head bobbing about, “everything under control?”

I look: Brass knob: check.

Frayed rope: check.

Knot (unclassified): check.

Bare bottom under T-shirt: check.

Panic-sweat: check.

Trembling hands: check.

Eye twitch: check.

“Everything under control,” I say.