No more bullshit. It's just gone nine and the kids are finally in bed. Now we can drop the pretence. Now we can forget the happy voices and the smiles and laughs we've put on just for their sake. Now Liz and I can sit down together and try and get our heads around what's going on here. There's no point involving the children in any of this. What good would it do? If we can't work it out, what chance have they got? Better that they remain ignorant and happy. Ed's starting to suspect something's wrong but the little two are blissfully unaware. I wish I was.
We've been sat watching the headlines go round on a loop for about twenty minutes.
'This is different tonight,' she says. 'It's changed.'
'What's changed?'
'The news. They've stopped telling us what's happened. You keep watching and you'll see what I mean. All they're doing now is trying to tell us how to deal with things.'
She's right. There's been a definite shift in the focus of the TV news channel we're watching tonight and I hadn't picked up on it until Liz pointed it out. Until now there's been a steady stream of reports about individual attacks and major incidents but all of that has now stopped. Now all that's been broadcast is little more than a series of instructions. They're not telling us anything we haven't already heard - stay away from people you don't know, stay at home if possible, watch out for erratic and irrational behaviour and alert the authorities if trouble breaks out, that sort of thing. It's all straightforward, common-sense stuff.
'Probably not worth wasting time reporting on everything that's happening,' she says. 'One fight in the street's pretty much the same as the next.'
'I know,' I agree. 'There's still something else missing though, isn't there?'
'Like what?'
'If you listen to what they're saying, they're still telling us that everything's under control and the problem's contained but...'
'But what?'
'But no-one's coming up with any explanations. No-one's even making any attempt to explain what's happening. That tells me they're either keeping something from us or...'
'No-one's managed to work it out yet,' she interrupts before I've had chance to finish my sentence.