Carly and Mark: a Love Story

Chapter 1

Historical note: this story was originally written in 2002 and some period references remain. Weight gain itself is timeless.

***

"Excuse me," the man said, "where are the books on Vedic thought?"

Carly, at the library's issuing counter, shot him half a glance. She saw grey hair, probably a greying brain, nothing of interest. "Ask at the enquiry desk over there," she said, pointing vaguely to her left, where her superiors sat looking helpful and interested, ferreting out facts, checking books and databases. They'd know what Vedic thought was.

Carly yawned. Quite why she'd trained to become a library assistant was now beyond her, especially on Monday mornings. At the time it had seemed something useful. It was safe, not too taxing. She liked reading, and order. She'd been told at school she had neat handwriting. It made some kind of sense.

But oh, the boredom of it. The hours of sitting on her bony backside in this concrete bunker in the heart of London, blankly serving the clientele - office workers, pensioners, students, the homeless sheltering from the rain - passing the magic pen over barcodes, saying "There's a thirty pence fine on this one!" Or, worst of all, shelving. The curse of shelving! It was their first chore of the day; that and straightening, aligning the books so their spines matched, at least for a few minutes before the public arrived. She liked a neat row of books as much as anyone, but wasn't it fruitless? What was the name of that Greek mythical chap who spent eternity pushing a rock up a hill only to see the rock roll down and the process start all over again? Sisyphus, that was it. Well, that was her life, at the age of 24.

The only good thing about shelving and straightening was the gossiping. The girls - Abby, Donna, Ellen, Jenna, Lorna, Ruth, Zuleika, an alphabet soup - would chat about the night before: what they did, where they went, troubles with boyfriends. Not that Carly had anything to report. She was reasonably pretty, medium height, slim (all the library girls were slim), with ash blonde hair sometimes tied in a ponytail tuft, sometimes cascading down to her neck. But there were no boyfriends. No meaningful company at home either, not even a cat that clawed furniture: just a rented flat in the suburbs shared with the unprepossessing Natalie - two small bedrooms, a sitting room with a portable TV, an empty refrigerator. Food never interested her, as her figure showed: breasts no bigger than door-knobs, hips that scarcely existed, slender limbs. 119 pounds of skin and bone, usually draped in drab colours: pale green, grey. Behind her back they called her the Mouse.

But today, as Carly sat at the front desk, she had something positive to think about. America. Marriage had whisked her sister Sandra off to Chicago two years before, and she had booked her ticket for a visit. She'd wanted to go before, but there was a fear of flying to conquer. So much water to fly over. So far to fall. No, no, she couldn't. But Sandra kept nagging. Resistance worn down, Carly had finally said yes.

Borrowers lined up to take out their books - Elvis biographies, light fiction, out-of-date computer manuals. Carly never caught their eye. She was busy imagining graceful skyscrapers, fridges big enough to live in, police sirens screaming: images from the movies and TV, the only America she knew.

"Apparently you don't have any books on Vedic thought." It was that man again, on his way out, empty-handed. He was smiling.

"Oh," Carly said. She couldn't have cared less.

*****

On board the plane her nerves became agitated and her spirits plummeted. So many couples, families, business people bristling with purpose. And here she was, alone, with only platitudes from family and people she never cared about to send her on her way. Her ice-cold father, on the phone, had mumbled "Bon voyage". Her mother had advised caution crossing roads. "Have a good time!" library colleagues had said, showing no enthusiasm. "I'll try," she'd replied, the voice flat, as it usually was.

Even when embarking on an adventure Carly seemed disconnected from life. Something had died in her: curiosity, a sense of fun, squeezed out by parents who only excelled at instilling guilt and sabotaging self-confidence. Over time shyness had become withdrawal, nervousness timidity. On the plane she sat fingering the in-flight magazine, finding fault with the page numbering, looking with an outsider's gaze at the adverts featuring bodies far more bronzed and attractive, she felt, than hers. The main meal she actually enjoyed; it was bland, small, just the right size. The movies she couldn't be bothered with.

Sandra met her at the airport: the elder sister with the get up and go, who got up and did the adult things, like getting married, moving continents, finding freelance work in publishing. They hugged. Carly noticed that she had put on some weight; she found it somehow unsettling.

"Is that all your luggage?" Sandra said, jowl flickering round her face, looking at Carly's battered suitcase.

"I'm only here for two weeks."

They went quickly. Sandra took time off to take her sister round the obvious sites, the art galleries, Sears Tower, Lincoln Park Zoo. But Carly was happy enough aimlessly walking downtown. "Everything's so big," she kept on saying. The buildings. The cars. The refrigerators: Sandra, as she expected, had a whopper. And the food portions; Carly had to tiptoe around menus, choosing what she hoped were the tiniest, most calorie-free meals.

And the coffee shops! In London Carly was never inclined to go into them. But here a sit-down and a drink seemed the perfect pick-me-up after a slog round the museums.

"What's this?" Carly said, sipping a dark drink in a tall glass topped off with cream. Sandra had whisked her off to an old-fashioned place, the Cherry Tree Restaurant, and had insisted on ordering.

"You don't know the taste?"

"I never have anything like this. Dad would call it 'surplus to requirements'."

"You really don't know? My God, Carly, it's chocolate."

She stretched back into childhood memories. She saw the dining table, and the family eating in silence. She saw the Christmas chocolate box, the usual gift from their Auntie Delia, and her father launching into a sermon on tooth decay. "It's been so long," she murmured.

"You've got to start living, Carly. The problem is, you let our parents stifle you."

"You had self-confidence. You weren't the baby of the family. And you could swim." Another memory returned. She saw herself, spindly and twelve, being held in her father's grip at the local swimming pool. There was the water, turquoise with chemicals; the dolphins curling on the wall tiles; the municipal crest with its Latin motto that no-one understood. "Enough of the rubber ring," her father was shouting. She was kicking her legs, splashing up a storm. He was going to dump her into the water, she knew. She was going to slip through his fingers into her grave.

"Some apple pie would go nicely with that hot chocolate!" It was their Cherry Tree waitress, hovering with a smile.

"No, I better not."

"Oh come on," cried Sandra, "you don't need to watch your weight. You're not a model. You could do with gaining a few pounds."

Carly, snapped out of her reverie and blushed. She was embarrassed enough by her body as it was; but the thought of her breasts, her waist, her limbs and face fattening up was too much to contemplate. "Oh I don't think so," she said, trying to avoid her sister's eyes. One chubby face in the family was enough.

It was colder in Chicago than Carly had expected, and she soon realised she needed more fuel than salads and carrot soups. "You need to go native!" Sandra kept saying. One day Carly ventured into the avant-garde and ordered a Royal Canadian Mounted Burger. She felt, she said, like she'd eaten a horseshoe. Sandra also coaxed her into fruit pies, pecan pies, served with vanilla ice cream. And often at some corner of the day, chocolate.

"Why don't you marry an American and move here! What's keeping you in London?" It was a suggestion Sandra kept making. Carly would always shift uncomfortably, only too aware of her barren life: a dull job, a poky place to live, social contacts bordering on zero.

"I couldn't do that," she said. "Besides, who'd marry me? No-one even likes me." They were back at the Cherry Tree. She looked about to cry.

"Carly!" - Sandra held her hand gently - "I don't say this to hurt you, but you don't let people like you. People need a way in. So often you've got the drawbridge down. You're closed for business. Open yourself up!"

Carly stirred her chocolate drink with the spoon. "Oh I don't know," she said, half-heartedly. "I've just got no experience with men, with 'business'."

"Any desserts today? Apple pie?" said the waitress.

"Yes please," said Carly suddenly.

***