Mr Stephens smiled again. 'That is correct.'
'Isn't anyone else going to have any?'
Mr Stephens' smile faded a little. 'Our family,' he explained, 'has certain… digestive peculiarities. It's a delicate subject, particularly for the table, but we are, alas, unable to eat solid food.'
I turned to Mrs Stephens. 'You cooked this for me especially?'
Julia's mother inclined her head modestly.
'That's so kind of you,' I told her. 'Thank you so much.'
Mrs Stephens beamed. 'You're very welcome, Ali. I'm glad to have had the chance to put my old skills to some use. It's good to know that I can still make a decent roast dinner.'
I kept smiling and went back to eating my chicken, thinking. Old skills, Mrs Stephens had said, and still. From those words and the envious glances my dinner was still getting from other people at the table it seemed that some members of the Stephens clan hadn't always suffered from the family "digestive peculiarities." I wondered what sort of unfortunate disease or gut condition could cause someone's body to change that way – and how I would manage if I was only able to eat soup for the rest of my life. I stole a glance to my left at Mrs Stephens' bowl: the contents were a deep brownish purple colour – beetroot or something I supposed. The soup certainly didn't look as appealing as my chicken. Also, unlike my plate, no steam rose from the bowl: I think the soup might even have been cold.
'So Ali,' said Julia's grandmother, bringing my train of thought to a screeching halt. 'What do you want to do with your life?'
The old lady who'd been introduced to me as "Grandmama" was sitting in her wheelchair on my right, at the head of the table. Something in her looks told me she was MrStephens' mother, not Mrs Stephens': her face was square and solid and three very long thick black hairs sprouted from a large brown mole on her left cheek, but she was smiling and her eyes were bright. She looked friendly enough.
'I'd like to go into computer security,' I said. 'Protecting vulnerable systems from hackers and viruses.'
Julia and I had been seated separately: she was sitting about halfway along the table on the opposite side from me. I looked over at her for the slightly weary smirk on her face that was always her reaction to my career plans – and I felt oddly comforted and reassured when I found it.
'I know it's maybe not the most glamorous or exciting job on the planet,' I went on, 'but I think it's fun. Seriously. It's always changing, always about adapting to new challenges – and I think it'll be steady work, too. Banks, energy companies, even governments all depend on secure computer networks.'
I smiled at Julia. She smiled back encouragingly.
'Also,' I added, 'Julia and I should be able to do a bit of travelling – get to see what it's like to live in different countries. It's the kind of job that can take you around the world if you want it to.'
'But what about family?' asked Grandmama.
Her smile had dropped. Her eyes stared straight into mine. I realised it was time to tread carefully.
'My own family… aren't close,' I said. 'My folks split up when I was nine. My older sister went to live with my dad. I stayed with Mum.'
'What about cousins?' asked Mr Stephens.
Conscious I was surrounded by a tableful of cousins, I said: 'There are some aunties and uncles, mostly on my mum's side, but… we don't see each other much.'
Mr Stephens frowned. 'Why not?'
'To be honest,' I said, 'we don't really get on.'
There was a short pause.
'Well,' said Grandmama, 'it's all right, Ali. We're your family now.' Grinning at me she laid a liver-spotted hand on my right thigh and squeezed.
On the surface, some people might consider what she'd said to be charming and sweet: somehow I'd met with Grandmama's approval and now she was welcoming me into the clan. But that wasn't how I felt. There was a strange sort of trickling feeling in my stomach that had nothing to do with food: I felt threatened. I smiled back at her weakly.
Mr Stephens put his spoon down and dabbed at his lips.
'Hear, hear, Grandmama!' he said, and looked at me. 'Ali, we would be honoured to welcome you as one of the family.'
'Thank you,' I said. 'That's-'
He held up a hand. 'Before we do, there's a little ritual we would like you to take part in. It's a family tradition: a symbolic gesture to celebrate the fact that from tonight onwards you're going to be one of us. You agree?'
I looked at Julia. She caught my eye and gave a tiny but unmistakable shake of her head. I blinked again, astonished.
Julia wanted me to say no. But how could I? How could I possibly say no without insulting her entire family? I looked at Mr Stephens, who was still waiting for my answer.
'Sure,' I said. 'I mean: Yes.'
'Excellent. Please excuse me for a moment.' Mr Stephens rose to his feet and left the room. Nonplussed, I looked back at Julia again. Now she was mouthing words at me.
I watched her lips, trying to make out what she was trying to tell me. The message was short, just two words, but not being much of a lip-reader I didn't have the faintest idea what they were. As subtly as I could I shrugged – but the movement obviously wasn't subtle enough because Julia's sister Jennifer stopped watching me and turned sharply to look at Julia too. Julia looked down at her soup.
Mr Stephens came back carrying a large and impressive ceremonial tankard made of brightly polished silver with a lid on it, hinged at the top of its handle. He stood behind my chair. I had to turn in my seat to look up at him.
'This,' he said, holding the tankard in both hands, 'is what we call our Loving Cup. We will now all drink from it, to show we are all one family.'
He offered the tankard to Mrs Stephens who lifted the lid and raised the tankard to her lips.
'To family,' she said, and drank.
The gleaming silver tankard was so big that Julia's mother's face, already partially covered by her black bonnet, almost disappeared completely. After a moment Mrs Stephens lowered the tankard, closed the lid, and passed it along to her neighbour to her left – cousin Jerome, I think it was. He silently took a drink from the tankard, then passed it along to his neighbour, cousin Katherine. She took her turn, passed it on, and so on. I watched as the tankard made its way up one side of the table then down the other.
There was something terrible about the inevitability of the way the tankard was coming back towards me. A part of me was wondering what it contained; another part of me, frankly, was thinking about backwash and how much there would be in the tankard once all of the Stephenses had drunk from it. I could see why the Loving Cup ritual was significant: I was about to become a lot more intimate with the family than I was comfortable with. Meanwhile Julia was still trying to catch my eye, still mouthing the same two words from before. She was shaking her head: I'd pretty much identified the first word as "don't," but the second still wasn't clear. I kept getting distracted by the way each member of the Stephens family eyed me over the rim of the tankard as they took their turn to drink.
At last Mr Stephens took his turn, then Grandmama took hers and handed the tankard to me.
'There you are, Ali,' said Mr Stephens. 'Go ahead. Drink.'
What is it? I wanted to ask, or Can I have my own cup, please? But of course I couldn't. The family had welcomed me. If I didn't do exactly what they were expecting they would be insulted.
