The Apartment Store #10

Chapter 9, Part 2; in which Lydia's friends pitch in to help

The Apartment Store is the story of Lydia, a little girl who lives in a ramshackle attic apartment, in a ramshackle apartment building, down the ramshackle end of town. All Lydia wants is a proper Christmas, but it doesn't seem likely until a new tenant arrives in their building and changes Christmas for everyone in it.

The Apartment Store is a book length Christmas story of twelve chapters, split into twenty four episodes for Advent.

“Uh-oh,” said John, opening the door and finding Artie, Ivy and Lydia in the hall, “They’re back again. There’s no food - it’s hours till supper, there’s nothing for you here.”

“This time,” said Artie, “We’ve got something for you.”

“We’ve had an idea,” said Lydia, “Wait til you hear it.”

“An idea,” said Fairuza, form the living room door, “We’re in for it now, Johnny boy. Come on, then, come across.”

John had been lying, there were cookies, a batch still warm from the oven. John and Fairuza had tidied away most of Paris from lunchtime but the posters were still up on the walls. They had now unfolded their dining table and it was covered in bits of card and paper, some of them drawn on, some of them folded up in different ways.

“We just realised that we haven’t done our Christmas cards yet,” said Fairuza, “We were just trying to figure out what we were going to do.”

“Tell me what you think,” said John, picking up a piece of card that was folded up in a zig zag like a concertina, “So what I was thinking was you fold a card like this and then you can look at it this way and you see only one side of the folds, right, so that could make one scene and then you look at it from the other end and you see the other side, so that can make another scene, so you can see two different things on one piece of card, depending on how you look at it right?

“So say you look at it this way and you can see a whole bunch of kids throwing snowballs at each other. And then you look from the other end and you see, I don’t know, like some very serious Victorian men in top hats, right? Very Christmassy. But, but, if you drew those scenes right, they could be seamless, right, they could all fit together, so that if you smoothed out all the folds and you laid the card flat, suddenly you’ve got a completely different scene again, like, say, all of a sudden the kids are throwing snowballs at the men in top hats!

“Three scenes in one card, pretty good, right?”

“I’ve told you what I think,” said Fairuza, “I think it’s a brilliant idea, my love. For October. However, we now only have days to go and too many cards to write and send and I am not spending my time off coming up with and drawing a testing intricate Christmas scenes just to be too late to post them to everyone.”

“Every year,” said John, “Every year I remember too late and think of something brilliant that it’s too late to do and we end up just getting one of Fairuza’s admittedly fantastic drawings printed up and sending that out. Every year.”

“You so get to do some nice lettering, my darling,” said Fairuza, patting him on the arm.

“Your cards are always lovely,” said Ivy, “I love them, I leave them up all year, to be honest. In fact I leave all of them up, all the time, I still have cards from when I first moved in up on the mantlepiece. I mean, to be honest, it’s partly because I haven’t bothered to take them down yet because I keep forgetting but then I like having them up there because I absolutely love the cards, I really do. But I like John’s idea too.”

“But what if you weren’t having time off?” said Lydia, “I mean, what if you were working? On the cards, I mean. I mean, what if you were getting paid to make the cards?”

“You can’t charge people to receive Christmas cards,” said Fairuza.

“Although,” said John, “That’s actually how the postal system used to work, you’d pay to receive letters instead of send them. True story.”

“Don’t set him off,” said Fairuza, “That’s not how it works now, is it?”

“You can, however,” said Artie, “Charge people for cards that they’re going to send.”

“What are you talking about?” said Fairuza.

“We’re getting a little ahead of ourselves,” said Artie, “Although I see where Lydia’s going and it’s a great idea. Which makes at least the second great idea she’s had today. We’d actually just come to tell you the first one and make sure you were ok with it.”

“Here it comes,” said Fairuza.

“We’re calling it: the apartment store,” said Artie.

“Are you?” said Fairuza.

“Like a department store,” said Lydia, “only in people’s apartments. Mr and Mrs M are going to make a Christmas grotto for the Olympic in their front room and Ivy is going to make dresses in hers.”

“Is she?” said Fairuza, raising an eyebrow, “Are they? And what do we think Mr Krebs is going to make of all this?”

“Mr Krebs makes tables,” said Lydia.

“All kinds of furniture,” said Artie.

“Does he?” said John, “Huh. Well, that I did not see coming.”

“I know, right?” said Ivy, “He’s making a cocktail cabinet for his mother and I laughed, right there in their living room, when he said it. It was awful but I just couldn’t help it, it sounded so ridiculous. Mr Krebs making a cocktail cabinet. His name is Stan, too.”

“He has a first name,” said John, “We are learning things today.”

“So, let me get this straight,” said Fairuza, “You are proposing to open your apartments as shops, open to the public, who will come into the building and come up and down stairs, past our flat, which is why you want our permission?”

“Mr Krebs said we could only do it if everyone agreed,” said Lydia, “Especially you.”

“And Pansy and Peony?” said Fairuza, “What do they think?”

“We thought we’d ask you first,” said Lydia.

“I bet you did,” said Fairuza, “You realise that John and I are on holiday now? We’re taking the whole month off: this is our Christmas present to ourselves. We’re not working and people are going to be marching past our front door all day, every day.”

“Not just people,” said Artie, “Customers.”

“I get it,” said Fairuza, “I see where you’re going with this.”

“That’s what you meant about the cards, right, Lydia?” said John, “You’re thinking we could sell them?”

“We’re on holiday, Johnny boy,” said Fairuza.

“Fairy, you’ve always talked about selling illustrations and cards,” said John, “This could be a test.”

“Christmas,” said Fairuza, “Holiday.”

“Fairuza, please, I…” said Lydia and then stopped.

“Go on,” said Fairuza, “I’m listening.”

“It’s just… it’s not the money or anything,” said Lydia, “Honest. It’s just that nothing ever happens here. It’s always the same. Dad’s always at work and I’m always at school and then it’s the holidays and there’s never anything to do. I mean, I’m sorry, I love coming to visit you, but this would be something special, this is something important, just for Christmas, you know? Something exciting.”

Fairuza looked at her quietly for a moment.

“All right, then,” she said, “Ivy can do her dress making. And you and I,” she said to John, “Will talk about the cards. If I am going to spend my holiday working, I am going to get well paid for it, even if that’s just in lunches.”

“Of course, I…” John stopped and stared at her.

“Oh no,” said Fairuza, “He’s having an idea.”

“Recipes!” he said, excitedly, “Recipe cards! With seasonal recipes on them.”

“It’s brilliant,” said Artie, “Mr M could sell the ingredients.”

“Fairuza can illustrate them,” John was waving his hands around, “I could demonstrate cooking them. That could really work.”

“Not if you can’t get the Misses Pleasaunce to agree it won’t,” said Fairuza, shaking her head.

“Well,” said Artie, “There’s no time like the present. Alea jacta est. Gird your courage to the sticking point, Lydia, and let’s go and see if we can persuade those two remarkable ladies to let us do something remarkable.”

This time the Misses Pleasaunce took their visit as a formal call and showed them all through into their living room. It was a room that managed at one and the same time to be cluttered and extraordinarily peaceful and calm. 

It was larger than John and Fairuza’s living room because where they had a balcony this room had instead had the far end completely glazed over with large panes of glass set into intricate white painted iron work. This meant that on a late winter evening like this the setting sun flooded the room with a warm orange light as dusk filled the far end with shadows.

The room itself was full of furniture. Bookshelves and cabinets and dressers lined the walls, all of them full of books and trinkets and china, all immaculately dusted and displayed. The floor was thick with settees and delicate little chairs, green velvet footstools and small tables that teetered on thin legs like baby fawns. And on every bare surface there was art, paintings squeezed into the gaps on the walls between the bulk of furniture, every table and sideboard was crowded with frames and busts, vases and strange ornaments. Even the baby grand piano, that lived in the glass conservatory at one end, surrounded by green patterned velvet window seats, was quite covered in photographs.

The photographs were, of course, of the two sisters, and told their whole life, if you looked carefully enough, from the treble keys right down to the end of the longest bass strings. Up by the keyboard were the baby pictures and a tottering Peony pushing the plump, serious Pansy in a little cart. Two girls in boarding school uniforms, in old fashioned ski outfits in the snow, in huge white hats in the Mediterranean sun. Then there were the parties and the balls, tea dances and nightclubs and suddenly the pictures were full of pairs of men, too, always different, an endless parade of dinner jackets and military uniforms, outdated trouser cuts and extraordinary collars. A whole life and a whole world. Desert pyramids and jungle temples, the Kremlin and the Tower of London, the Bay Bridge and the Harbour Bridge. And finally, right at the tip, the sisters sitting in this same room, exactly as they were sitting right now, side by side on a green chaise longue, tea cups in their hands, back straight, faces serious, so that you thought that if you looked closely at the picture, you might see in the background the photograph itself, and in that, another photograph, receding and receding endlessly like a kaleidoscope of the Misses Pleasaunce.

“So what can we do for you, Mr Krampus?” asked Peony.

“We have a favour to ask of you, I’m afraid,” said Artie.

“I seem to remember,” said Peony, “That you were offering to do favours for us, just this morning.”

“You said you didn’t want him to,” said Pansy.

“This is not just me, ladies,” said Artie, “This is Ivy, too, which is why she’s here, and Mr and Mrs M downstairs, and John and Fairuza next door, and even Mr Krebs. And Lydia, of course.”

“That’s practically everyone in the building,” said Pansy, “Except your father, Lydia.”

“Oh it includes him, too,” said Lydia, who knew she wasn’t quite telling the truth but not, she thought, by too much.

“Quite the conspiracy,” said Peony, “What have we been left out of this time?”

“Oh, you’re not being left out,” said Lydia, “That’s why we wanted to tell you. We want to open a store, in the building, everyone I mean. Only it will mean lots of people coming and going, lots of customers, I mean, and they would be going up and down the stairs past your front door, you see, because Ivy wants to join in - she’s going to sell dresses.”

“Dresses,” said Pansy, looking interested, “What kind of dresses?”

“Well, that’s point, really,” said Ivy, “Because it all depends, doesn’t it, I mean all the shops sell just the same things off the rack, you know, and that doesn’t suit everyone, I mean I always think that you and your sister are so well dressed all the time, I mean I really get inspiration from you because it’s all about personal style, isn’t it, I mean fashion changes and what’s in fashion might not suit everyone, but style never stops, does it, I mean having style and expressing yourself through it. That’s what it should all be about, shouldn’t it. I like the butterflies in your hair, too.”

“I quite agree, Ivy, dear,” said Peony, “I didn’t know you’d thought about it so much.”

“I’m a student, I’m studying it,” said Ivy, “Fashion, I mean, that’s why I want to try my ideas.”

“ I chose the butterflies,” said Pansy.

“And I think you should,” Peony said, “Don’t you Pansy? Don’t you think Ivy should start a shop?”

“Oh, I do,” said Pansy, “Can we come and be customers?”

“Oh my gosh, I mean, of course you can,” said Ivy, “Though I’m not sure what I could do for you to be honest, although I would like to have a look at some of your dresses, I mean I think there’s probably a lot to learn. If I could. If that’s ok.”

“You thought,” said Peony, looking at Artie, “That we were going to be difficult, didn’t you? You thought you were going to have to charm the two old ladies.”

“I’m not sure I would have thought so much of what charm I have,” said Artie.

“We’ve got green dresses exactly like these ones,” said Pansy to Ivy, “We got them in Shanghai.”

“You think entirely too much of your charm,” said Peony, “And not enough of your strengths, in this case the fact that a young woman like Ivy wants to start a business, and that an idea like that might appeal to a pair of old ladies like us.”

“I think it’s a lovely idea,” said Pansy, “It’s very exciting for you.”

“It’s exciting for all of us, it’s exciting for Fairuza, I expect, and for Mrs M, I hope and I’m sure it’s going to be exciting for Lydia, isn’t it, child?” Peony gazed at her levelly, “I want you to pay attention to all this, Lydia. This is not just a game or an excitement for Christmas, this is your chance to learn how the world works and how you can work the world. You’re a clever little girl but it’s up to you to learn.”

“Yes, Peony,” said Lydia, “I’ll try, I promise.”

“Because we’re old,” said Pansy, “We’ve seen a lot of things. Everyone always thinks you’re silly when you’re old but you know more than ever. Although Peony is older than me. I’m younger.”

“Which means I know more,” said Peony, “So there we are.”

“They are extraordinary, those ladies,” said Artie, once they were out on the stair, “Sharp as their dress sense and twice as striking. She was not wrong, that Miss Peony, I wasn’t expecting that response at all.”

“They really do dress so lovely, all the time,” said Ivy, “I really meant it, you know, I’d love to have a proper look at some of their dresses, I mean those beautiful pink things they just had on. They’ve got to be forty or fifty years old, judging by the cut, I’d love to see how they were put together. Just the fabric alone was something. And I really do like the butterflies. Maybe I should do jewellery too.”

“They said yes!” shouted Lydia as they burst into the Olympic, “John and Fairuza said yes and the Misses Pleasaunce said yes! Everyone says yes! We can do it!”

“Everyone says yes?” said Door from behind the till, “Every tenant in the building?”

“Yes, of course,” said Lydia, “We just asked them all. Mr Krebs said everyone had to agree so we asked them. Obviously Artie and the Ms want to and Ivy, and George Joseph was there and he said yes. And John and Fariuza agreed and they might every start a department and the Misses Pleasaunce were so lovely and nice about it and said it would be good for me. That’s everyone.”

“Is it?” said Door, “By my counting there’s still one tenant left to ask.”

“No one,” said Artie, “Has asked your father yet.”

“What!” Lydia exploded, “You can’t! You can’t spoil this! Everyone has said yes, even Peony and Pansy, even Mrs Krebs. You’ve got to! You work for Mr M and he wants to and I so want to and you’re my father. You’re my father.”

“Lydia,” said her father, calmly, “I never said I was going to say no. I never said anything, because no one ever asked me.”

“But you’ve got to say yes,” said Lydia, “What’s the point of asking?”

“Door,” said Artie, “I’m asking, on behalf of the building, are you happy for us to go ahead with Lydia’s idea?”

“Happy?” said Lydia’s father, “That remains to be seen, but am I going to say no? Like you say, it’s Lydia’s idea and like Peony appears to have said, it might be good for her and like Lydia says, I’m her father. Of course I’m not. Let’s do it.”

“Thank you,” said Artie and nudged Lydia in the ribs.

“Thank you,” she said, although she didn’t want to.

That night, as she ran from the dumb waiter into their apartment, Artie called out goodnight to her from across the landing, but as she wriggled in down under the covers she heard her father coming up the stairs more slowly than usual, and he wasn’t singing.