The Apartment Store #11

Chapter 6, Part 1; in which Lydia discovers not everyone shares her idea of Christmas

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.

The next morning Lydia woke to a new sound: Artie Krampus singing in the shower. He had exactly the kind of loud voice that carries well when amplified by the tiled walls of a bathroom and she could hear him perfectly.

“Seventy six trombones led the big parade,

With a hundred and ten cornets close at hand…”

The pipes squealed and banged as he shut off the water and then there was a pause before he opened the door onto the landing.

“Look lively, there below!” he shouted down the stairs into the building, “Meeting in my attic in half an hour, bring your own breakfast. All aboard that’s coming aboard.”

Then she heard his apartment door open and close with a bang. There was a slight pause as the house seem to gather it’s breath, and then came the sounds of stirring far below.

Lydia’s father was already making breakfast when she came out of her bedroom.

“Jam and peanut butter, in the correct order,” he said, “Tea in your mug.”

Every morning her father made a fuss about breakfast. It might be oatmeal with a heart drawn on the top in jam, or granola with grapes in that he had cut into to make little smiling faces, or, as in this case, toast cut into a heart with jam on, and a star with peanut butter on. They were on separate plates because once, as a little girl, Lydia had insisted on it. He really didn't have to do that any more. He didn't have to do any of it and it irritated Lydia immensely.

“Can I take some for Artie? I don’t think he has a kitchen yet.”

“I don’t suspect he’s even got any food,” said her father, “I don’t suppose it’s occurred to him. Sure.”

“Thank you,” she said, carefully.

“And what’s the plan for today?” He was pouring tea into a thermos flask, “I hear we have a meeting.”

“Today we get started on the store,” she said, “Figuring everything out, I guess.”

“Everything?” echoed her father, “World peace and how to make the drains work?”

“I'm going to help Artie organise it all,” Lydia said as if she had been planning it all along, though honestly she had been so excited by the idea she hadn’t stopped to think about what it might need to get done.

“Helping Artie, eh?” said her father, “Helping Artie to your idea, don't forget. Your idea for the whole building.”

“Why do you always have to be so serious about everything? You take the fun out of everything.”

“Some things are serious,” said Door, “And, on the other hand, some things, like me, are very stupid indeed. Come on, or we’ll be late, we’ve got a long way to go, all the way across the endless, trackless wastes of the landing towards to far distant next door.”

George Joseph was, of course, already there, and had even brought Artie a cup of his coffee. The two of them were sitting in companionable silence, side by side on Artie’s bed, their faces bent over their cups, eyes closed in reverence, inhaling the steam rising from the coffee.

Artie snapped to attention when he heard them come in.

“Excellent! And an excellent good morning to you both,” he said, carefully placing his cup on the wash stand, “Door, I don’t suppose we could borrow a couple of chairs could we? Lydia, George Joseph and I have moved the model of the store so you can have a seat on the trunk.”

Others filtered in as her father and Artie came back and forth ferrying chairs for everyone. John and Fairuza brought a bag of croissants with them left over from the day before, while Mr and Mrs M arrived with the tiniest M sleepily goggling at them all. Even Ivy managed to drag herself out of bed and up the stairs, although Lydia noticed all she had managed to do by way of getting dressed was to put on two coats over her pyjamas. 

“Good morning, one and all,” Artie got to his feet in the centre of the room, “And thank you all for coming to the inaugural meeting of the apartment store. Just yesterday, and I mean literally just yesterday: at precisely one second past midnight yesterday morning, I found myself standing on the pavement in the middle of town with a trunk of clothes, a model of my life’s work and a cigar. And nothing else. Not a job, not a store, not a penny. I had nothing. All that morning I was dragging that trunk around town trying to find a place where I might afford a roof over my head, going from door to door until I came here. I chose this building solely because I figured I could see the Krampus Department Store from the highest windows. Which I can. What I had not figured on was that I would not be looking out of the building, I would be looking in.

“I did not figure on finding a building full of such splendid and entertaining people, people full of such extraordinary talents and such extraordinary ambitions. Yesterday morning I woke up cursing my luck, cursing the world. Yesterday evening I went to sleep blessing my luck and glorious world it had landed me in. One day. One single day and a whole new opportunity has opened up for me, for all of us. 

"Because this is an extraordinary building and you are extraordinary people, and we have in front of us an extraordinary opportunity. This is the kind of chance that comes once in a life, once in a generation, to change the way things are done forever, to upend the world and make people see it all afresh. And you are exactly the extraordinary people to do this thing and to make it work and I cannot believe how lucky I am to have met you all and to have this chance too.

"And all because of one person, another thing I never figured on, my friend, our friend: Lydia.

“So before we even start I want to say thank you, thank you to you all, just for involving me in this and thank you most of all for Lydia, for her crazy, wonderful idea.”

Artie flourished a hand at Lydia and then started clapping, and everyone else joined in. Lydia looked at her shoes.

“Now, George Joseph and I have been talking this morning,” said Artie, “And he has made some very sensible suggestions that I think we should consider and as a consequence of which I would like to offer my apartment, which as you can see is almost entirely empty - not even these chairs are mine - as our store office, George Joseph, perhaps you can explain why?”

“Me? I… uh…” George Joseph squirmed in his seat a little, “I simply thought that it would be most straightforward for everyone to have a central cash office, do you see? You transact your business with your customers and then you send the chit - I have pads for everyone - up in the dumb waiter to here where I can make change and send it back down with a receipt. I thought perhaps it might be easier if you didn’t all have to keep track of your money individually,” he gave the slightest of nods towards Ivy, “And it means I can keep track of all the incomings and outgoings centrally. Except probably the Olympic, I guess, I mean that already has the till and everything. I don’t know, what do you think?”

“I think it sounds like a excellent idea, George Joseph,” said Fairuza, “Shall we take a vote?”

“A vote!” said Artie, “That’s the ticket, that’s exactly how this should be done. All in favour, say ‘aye’.

“And the ‘aye’s very much have it, I think. In which case, welcome to the offices of our entirely new and unique apartment store and it’s chief clerk, George Joseph Sweet.”

Everyone clapped and it was George Joseph’s turn to look at his feet.

“So we have our store office,” said Fairuza, “Now all we need is a store. There’s just one problem there. None of us have got anything to sell.”

"I was thinking about that," said John.

"I was afraid of that," said Fairuza, smiling.

"With what we do," said John, "None of us *can* have anything to sell until we've met the customer. Ivy, you have to measure them up, Mr Krebs, you have to know what find of furniture people want, it's all bespoke, isn't it? So we're not selling things, we're selling us, our services, our talents."

"We're selling," said Artie, "Dreams."

"I've got one about being naked at school that I can't believe anyone would pay for," said Lydia's father.

"John's right,” said Artie, “That’s exactly how you need to think of your apartments; not as shops but as showrooms, as workshops that are open to everyone so they can come and see how great your work is and order some for themselves. Don’t worry about what things you have to sell, think about what talents you have to sell.

“This is why Lydia’s idea is so perfect. Like Door says, what are we selling, what do we ever sell, but ourselves? And what could be a better advertisement for that than your own apartments? This is everything that our store means, the individual and unique skills of people in the individual and unique places they live and work. That’s all you have to do, do precisely what you did yesterday when Lydia brought me round the building, sit at home and just be you.”

“I think I might tidy up a little,” said Fairuza, “I’m not sure how much me I want people to see.”

“Mr M,” said Mrs M, “Has already been doing some tidying of his own.”

“I have been perfecting the Olympic Christmas display,” said Mr M, proudly, “All night I have been perfecting.”

“I think, perhaps, you should come and see,” said Mrs M.

While the others went back to their homes to start preparing to be themselves, Lydia, her father and Artie followed Mr and Mrs M down to their apartment to see the new Christmas display.

Lydia stopped in the doorway and gasped.

“Oh, Mr M.” she said, “What have you done?”

What Mr M had done, was ruin it.

Every clear surface in the room was now covered in tins and jars of food. Beans and cling peaches and tuna and pickled cabbage. There was a can of rich rabbit liver cat food with a massive bow on it and a pyramid of marrowfat peas making a kind of Christmas tree on top of the mantlepiece with fairy lights all wound up around it.

There were advertising posters now stuck up on the walls, many of them not even very straight, so that the ribbons and streamers hanging down from the ceiling now framed pictures of teenagers drinking cola on the beach and dogs with healthy wet noses.

At the far end of the room, the two little M girls were standing, staring glumly at the tree. The chocolate soldiers and coins they had hung on it had been replaced with ordinary chocolate bars from by the till in the shop, while higher up tiny bottles of alcohol were wedged in among the branches.

What was somehow worse than all of this was that Mr M had opened the curtains and turned on all the lights. The harsh glare of sunlight just made everything look even more stark and cheap.

“Look,” said Mr M, pointing at the sideboard, “Even in the Christmas town there is the things to buy.”

It was true. The tiny buildings of the model Christmas village all seemed to have suddenly sprouted advertisements, pictures cut out of magazines and pasted up like posters, and the people in the streets were all now struggling under giant sweets, all with price tags carefully attached.

“But,” said Lydia, “It’s horrible. It’s a disaster. You’ve ruined it.”

“What?” said Mr M

“You’ve spoiled everything,” cried Lydia, “What is this? This isn’t Christmas!”

“What is, is a shop,” said Mr M, sternly, “This is now part of the Olympic, Olympic is a shop, a shop is where you sell things. This is where you sell things. A shop.”

“But that’s not what we meant!’ shouted Lydia.

“I told you,” said Mrs M.

“Is what I meant,” said Mr M, doggedly.

“This must have taken a fair bit of work,” said Artie.

“All night,” said Mr M, “My wife would not help.”

“Of course,” said Mrs M.

“I didn’t even know they still made those tinned peas,” said Door.

“They don’t,” said Mr M, “We have those tins for ten years. They need to go.”

“You can’t sell old peas in here!” said Lydia, “It’s supposed to be Christmas.”

“A Christmas display,” insisted Mr M, “For selling the things displayed. You are a little girl, you do not understand.”

“Well,” said Artie, laying a hand on Lydia’s shoulder, “Some things perhaps she doesn’t understand yet, but some things we could learn from. You’re right, Mr M, this is now a shop, a part of the Olympic, but think of Lydia’s reaction when she came in here just now. Imagine if she had been a customer, Mr M, imagine if that was a customer’s reaction. Do you think that person would buy anything?

“You’re right, of course, this room is now a shop, but like John was saying upstairs, what we are selling here isn’t these goods, these are all downstairs, you can still buy them there. What we are selling here is the Olympic itself.

“That’s what we need to learn from Lydia. This room needs to be Christmas. We want it to be an invitation, a treasure, a destination. A place people want to come to and want to return to, a little slice of festive cheer in the hectic day. Because how do they get here and how do they return? Through the Olympic, through the shop, a place that they now think of fondly as a friend, a refuge, a place to go. By making this room special, we make the Olympic special. If we can make this room into a slice of Christmas no one else has, then we give the Olympic an advantage, we given it something its competition can never have.

“That’s what we need to make here.”

“I see,” Mr M looked disconsolately at his handiwork, “But we must still sell things. This is a shop.”

“Of course we shall sell things,” said Mrs M, “We shall sell Granny’s pastries and punch and small presents from under the tree as Mr Krampus suggested. But all this; all this goes downstairs. People come in and out through the Olympic and we shall prepare a way from them.”

“Exactly, exactly,” said Artie, “That’s precisely it, we make a path and make its lined with all the most tempting things, all the things anyone who’s full of pastry and punch could want.”

“Like out of date tinned peas,” said Door.

Artie and Door followed Mr M downstairs to start rearranging the Olympic, leaving Lydia to help Mrs M try and return the Christmas department to some kind of seasonal shape.

First they took down everything Mr M had put up, piling it up in the corridor outside for Door to fetch back down to the store. Then set set about reordering the room for visitors. Chairs and footstools were put into little groups, for people to sit down around tables, where they would be able to eat and drink if they wanted, and the model village was rearranged to create two new squares, one for a punch bowl and one for a platter of pastries.

Then, with the help of the little girls and Granny, they redecorated. They rehung the ribbons and streamers to make big loops across the wall and put all the bows back on the fireplace and on the book shelves. Mrs M put candles on the mantlepiece and Lydia got down on her hands and knees and trained blinking fairy lights around the bottom of the walls, so that the whole floor sparkled and flashed. They then completely overhauled the tree, covering it in one long wind of tinsel through which they wound lights and in between hung candy canes and chocolates and baubles. The fairy at the top got to stay where she was, Lydia insisted on it.

“What we need,” said Mrs M, “Is Christmas cards. We have only had two so far.”

“Hang on,” said Lydia, “I’ve got an idea.”

And she rattled up the stairs to Fairuza, who agreed that the moment she had finished bullying John into dusting and hoovering and tidying up after himself, they would make a whole set of Christmas cards for Mrs M to sell.

Lydia got back down to the room to find that Mrs M had brought out several large sheets of multi-coloured felt.

“Stockings,” said Granny M, and showed Lydia how to fold the felt over in two and cut out matching stocking shapes, which then got passed to the little Ms, who stuck the halves together to make a stocking that Mrs M then decorated with cotton wool and glitter.

They soon had a small pile of stockings that Lydia and the little Ms then preceded to fill with sweets and goodies - although it must be admitted that the M girls and, let’s be honest, Lydia, may have eaten about as many sweets as they put in the stockings. Once filled they were hung up around the fireplace and on the branches of the tree low enough for the children to reach.

“They are for children, after all," pointed out Mrs M, "They need to be able to reach them and fetch them down again.”

Meanwhile Granny M had made a fire in the grate and Mrs M switched off the overhead lights and drew the curtains. And there it was. Glittering, flickering, all red and gold, there was Christmas, all drawn together into a single room and made into an actual place. It was wonderful again.