Emollient Mummy; family stooge

Deborah looks over my shoulder as I'm typing an e-mail to a friend. "'Francis has lost his job,' she reads, aloud. "Has he? Has Daddy lost his job?" she asks. "Well, yes," I say, startled into the truth. "Why has he?"

"Because there were too many people doing the same job," I explain, in the emollient Mummy from Lalaland voice I save for emergencies. "But that's fine. He'll just get another job, instead." I'm keen to stop her rushing in to tell Leo, currently the stooge in our improvised family farce farce while everyone else is in the know. Oh, help, I think, I'm going to have to do a bit of careful stage management to avoid an unplanned denoument we may all regret.

I plan a step by step discussion, each understated comment designed to prompt a question so that Francis' new status is revealed by degrees, leading us so gradually into the revelation that it ceases to be a revelation at all.

When I next get Leo on his own, I say, casually, "Dad's going to be working from home next week," then pause. "Yes? So?," says Leo. "Why are you telling me?" This throws me completely. Maybe I've over-estimated his ability to detect nuances. At this rate, he wouldn't spot one if it landed in his bedroom and spray-painted 'Your Dad's lost his job' in foot-high letters on the wall.

There is, though, the possibility that he senses change in the air but, like so many of us, does whatever it takes to keep it at arm's length for as long as possible.

Meanwhile, Francis is giving a fortunately empty box a good kicking. It's his reaction to my possibly unwise question about where he's going to work when he's at home. At this rate, Leo will need total sensory deprivation if he's going to stay in blissful ignorance of what's going on.