The Apartment Store #12

Chapter 6, Part 2; in which Lydia discovers that she's a store

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.

Lydia ran down to the Olympic to tell Artie the good news to discover he and Mr M having an in depth discussion of where the out of date tins of peas should go. Artie was very much in favour of the bin, Mr M was not.

They had cleared the aisle that led to the door at the back of the shop that would be the main entrance to the Christmas department, and filled the shelves with Mr M’s old Christmas display and more, but it still didn’t feel quite appropriately festive or inviting enough. It didn’t feel like they would be leading people into a magical world, it felt like they were leading people on a roundabout journey to the deli counter.

Lydia fetched down Mrs M and they set about decorating the aisle as Mr M and Artie carried on shifting about the goods around them.

The most important thing was the door to the stairs. They spread cottonwool snow across the lintel, trailed tinsel down the edges and placed a candle on either side. This was the way in, after all, it had to promise what was going to be found upstairs. Then they set to work on the shelves, edging them with cottonwool and sliver glitter to make them shine, having to fight Mr M every step of the way as he fretted about whether people would actually see the things on the shelves past all the decoration.

Lydia went to the front of the shop and looked at it, a snowy path leading down between the shelves to a mysterious door at the end. Not bad, not bad at all.

“Where’s dad?” she suddenly realised that her father wasn’t at the till.

“He’s outside, helping Mr Krebs and Fairuza,” said Artie, “Go and take a look, I think you’ll like it.”

She had been working inside all day and the early winter evening was already drawing in. The sun was going down and the streetlights were already coming on.

Outside the front of the building, Door and Mr Krebs were both up on ladders. Door was tinkering with something hung of the front door, while Mr Krebs was fiddling around under a covering with something fixed above the front of the Olympic.

Fairuza rushed at Lydia and turned her round to face the windows of the Olympic.

“Wait, wait, we’re almost there,” she said, “Go and fetch everyone else, everyone, go on.”

Lydia ran back into the building and thundered up the stairs, all the way up to the attic, where George Joseph was sitting, surrounded by neatly stacked filing boxes and precisely arranged pencils, listening to the sports scores and cleaning a pair of boots.

“Fairuza says you’re to come down outside to see something,” she gasped, out breath from the climb, but before he could reply was off again.

Downstairs Ivy was sitting in a huge cloud of bright golden tulle arranging beads into containers and singing to herself.

“I’m not finished, Lydia, I’ve still, well, most of it to go, to be honest.”

“Fairuza wants to show us something, she said to get everyone.”

John was already coming out of their apartment onto the landing.

“I heard, the golden nightingale of the evening calls up at me windah. I'm to fetch the Misses Pleasaunce. You get on down.”

Lydia raced on down, Ivy following, to find all the M’s and George Joseph already gathered on the pavement outside the building, all looking back at the front of the Olympic.

She joined them and discovered that her father was still up a ladder at the top of the steps leading to the front door, whatever he had been working on there now covered up. Mr Krebs meanwhile, was back on the ground, holding a rope attached to a tarpaulin that was stretched across the top of the windows of the Olympic.

John came out with the Misses Pleasaunce and the three of them picked their way under Door’s ladder to join everyone else.

Artie stepped out of the Olympic and climbed to the top of the steps.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, owners, founders and inventors of this wonderful idea, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to… Mr Krebs, if you please:”

Mr Krebs pulled on his rope, a knot unravelled, the tarpaulin unfurled and fell, a light flickered on and there, revealed was a huge yellow and black sign across the front of the building that read

“The LYDIAN Apartment Store”

Lydia gasped in astonishment.

“Door, your turn I think,” said Artie, and Door pulled at the covering over the top of the door, turned a switch and another sign burst into light. This, though, was not a name. It was a little girl in a black dress, carrying a bright yellow, illuminated shopping bag, and a mechanism in the sign swung her arm back and forth, lifting the bag up and round and back in a never-ending swoop. And on the bag was written the word: LYDIAN.

“The Lydian, ladies and gentlemen,” said Artie, “The very first and only apartment store in all the world.”

---

Lydia woke early the next morning. In fact she had barely been asleep at all. It had felt like she had been awake all night, thinking about the Lydian and everything it could be. Finally she could stand it no more and got up. It was still dark outside and the building was silent, apart from the sound of her father snoring from next door.

She sat on the side of her bed, fully dressed, trying to wait for everyone else to wake up. No one stirred. Birds outside on the roofs of the town started to sing sleepily. A dim light began to filter in under the curtains. Inside the house all was still. It was infuriating. How could they all sleep?

A door opened and closed. Then someone crossed the landing and went softly down the stairs. It could only be Artie.

She got up off the bed, opened the door, tiptoed past where her father snorted on top of his ramshackle wardrobe desk, and left the apartment. Far downstairs she heard the front door close quietly.

She went down the stairs as carefully as she could, skipping the steps that creaked, trying to stay on the threadbare carpet on the landings instead of the floorboards. Outside the front door she stopped at the top of the stairs.

Artie was standing on the pavement, looking back at the building, smoking a cigar.

“Morning,” he said and waved the glowing stub at her, “I realised I was saving this cigar for a special occasion and that I wasn’t likely to find an occasion any more special than this, I figured, so, well, here I am. And here you are, Lydia of the Lydian.

“Opening day. Never could sleep either, not on days like this. Too exciting. So much to do. First day of the Lydian.”

Lydia joined him on the pavement, looking up at the name and the sign of the little girl.

“Is that supposed to be me?” she said.

“I guess so,” said Artie, “Your father made it, though it looks younger than you are now, if you ask me.”

“Was it your idea to call the store the Lydian?” she said.

“It was. It’s your idea, after all, your store in many ways,” said Artie, “So it’s only right. But it’s not just because it’s your name. You know where your name comes from?”

“Dad says a tattooed lady,” said Lydia.

“Well, there’s that, too,” Artie nodded, “But there’s also the ancient kingdom of Lydia. They had a famous king, called Croesus, who was so fantastically wealthy that even today, thousands of years later, people still remember his name and use it was a watchword. I, in my time, have been called ‘rich as Croesus’. So I looked him up. Know why he was so famously rich?

“The Lydians invented coins. Truly. The first actual coin money came from Lydia. They had gold mines, you see. But they invented something else. They invented shops. Not just markets or bazaars. Shops. Places where you went to buy things, the Lydians invented that. The very first shopping.

“That’s why the Lydian: the very first of it’s kind. An Apartment Store. Unique in the world. Invented by Lydia.”

“It’s amazing,” said Lydia.

“It’s an amazing idea,” said Artie, “That’s yours. But is it an amazing thing? That’s down to everyone else. That’s what happens next.”

With a rattle and a bang the shutters on the front of the Olympic rolled out and Mr M stepped out.

“Good morning,” he called to them, “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“Morning,” said Artie, “And I’d love one.”

Mr M went back inside.

“But don’t be surprised if nothing happens next,” said Artie, “These things take time. There’s always waiting. You have to think about it like Christmas Eve, like you have to wait through the boring bit before the fun begins.”

The front door opened and George Joseph came shivering down the steps in his shorts.

“Morning!” he said and then jumped on the spot for a moment, jerking his arms up and down like some strange mechanical toy. And then he took off down the street, his bony knees pumping high in front of him as he ran.

“He knows,” said Artie, “If you asked George Joseph what he was training for, I doubt he could tell you, but some day the moment will come and all of that boring preparation will pay off.”

There was the sound of someone knocking on glass, and they looked up to find the Misses Pleasaunce standing in the conservatory, waving down at them. They waved back.

“You see, we haven’t done any advertising, we haven’t done any publicity, there’s no queue out here waiting to get in, just you and me,” Artie gestured up the empty street, “Today’s not going to be a grand opening, it’s going to be slow, all we have is word of mouth, and that takes time.”

“What’s word of mouth?” asked Lydia.

“It means someone comes wandering down the street here and they see that big signs saying ‘The Lydian’ and they think, ‘What on earth is that, that wasn’t there yesterday,’ so in they come and they have one of Granny M’s pastries or they see Fairuza’s cards or whatever and they think it’s fantastic and they go away and they tell a couple of their friends about how great it is and maybe they come, and they like it and they tell a couple of their friends and now we’re up to four people, seven in total and you can see it’s not going very fast, and this is only if they all have a great time and tell people and those people come.”

The door of the Olympic opened and Door came out, carrying a cup of coffee.

“Aha, there you Lydia of the Lydian. Want some breakfast?” He handed the cup to Artie, “Mr M said you wanted coffee.”

“Hey, Door!” John had appeared on their balcony above the M’s apartment, “I have bagels, catch!”

He dropped a brown paper bag down the side of the building and Door jumped to catch it.

“Morning, all!” John waved at them and disappeared back inside.

Door fished a bagel out of the bag and waved it at Lydia.

“Egg?”

“Egg.”

He went back inside the Olympic.

“We’ll get there though,” Artie slurped at his coffee, “It’s too good an idea not to succeed. I can feel it in my waters. It’ll happen, you mark my words.”

A window opened far above them and steam billowed out. Ivy was getting out of the shower.

The Lydian was opening for business.

Where else to start but the Christmas department itself, where the whole thing had begun?

As Lydia went through the strange door in the back of the Mini-supermarket, she could hear voices coming down the stairs. Had someone come to the Lydian, already? Did they already have a customer? She raced up the steps in excitement and ran into the M’s front room, only to discover Mrs Krebs perched on an armchair in front of the fire, with the little M’s gathered in front of her, fascinated by their visitor.

“Ah, the little girl Lydia,” said Mrs Krebs as Lydia came in, “I’m told that a lot of this is your work.”

“I helped Mrs M,” said Lydia, as the woman herself came into the room carrying a big plate of Granny M’s pastries.

“Well, it’s very well done, whoever did it, properly gaudy and old fashioned” said Mrs Krebs, “I can’t put up decorations myself, not being able to get about well - Stanislaus had to carry me up here today - and I can never get him to put them up properly.”

“Lydia,” said Mrs M, “Would you take Mrs Krebs some baklava?”

“It reminds me of when I was a little girl, about the age of these two,” Mrs Krebs took the plate Lydia handed her, “Of that one, certainly. Of course, I couldn’t sit in a lovely room like this all day when I was their age. I had to work, I did. Embroidery, you know, I still get the pains in my fingers from it in this weather. And Christmas was just one day. Not all this fuss they make now, one day. But that made it special, like this room, a strange day outside of all the others, made of red and gold.

“This is very good, did you make this Mrs M?”

“My husband’s mother,” said Mrs M.

“Ah yes, the old lady, is she here?” asked Mrs Krebs.

“I think she went upstairs,” said Mrs M.

“I’ll go and see,” said Lydia, eager to seize the excuse to escape Mrs Krebs’ ancient Christmasses, and she raced from the room once more.

There was a sign on the landing that said:

‘Basement. Furniture

Ground. Groceries, dry goods, supplies, food to go

Floor 1. Christmas department, food and drink

Floor 2. Art, stationery, cookery

Floor 3. Ladies Fashion

Floor 4. Accounts & management’

And at the top of the stairs was a giant number ‘3’. John and Fairuza’s apartment door was open and over it was written, ‘Art & stationery, Cookery’. Inside the living room had been tidied up. Most of the books had been moved from the shelves and replaced with sheafs of paper and card. The walls were now decorated with Fairuza’s own pictures. The dining table had been fully extended and put in the middle of the room to make a sort of counter. Fairuza sat behind it, filling in a drawing of a robin with watercolour.

There were voices coming from the kitchen.

“Don’t mind me,” said Fairuza, “I’m just the window dressing, the main action is in there. They’re arguing about what cake they want me to draw.”

She pointed at the kitchen.

“I like the robin, said Lydia.

“They’re little thugs, really,” said Fairuza, “Horrid little birds.”

Lydia went through into the kitchen.

Granny M and John were standing over a kitchen table covered in ingredients with a selection of cookbooks open in front of them.

“Lydia, what do you think?” said John as he saw her come in, “I say a Christmas pudding has to be made weeks beforehand and preferably fed fairly regularly as well, but Granny M says she has a recipe that can be made on the day, which sounds like actual heresy to me, what do you think?”

“For recipe for selling,” said Granny, jabbing her finger at a notebook in her hand, “Not weeks ago, now. Is practical for people.”

“I’m afraid Granny M is probably right,” said Lydia, “If people are buying a pudding recipe now there aren’t actually weeks to for it to be fed in, which totally makes it sound like some kind of monster incidentally, whatever it means.”

“But this thing is horrid,” said John, “There’s no brandy in it or anything, this is a recipe for a Christmas disappointment, not a pudding.”

“You can fix it, I’m sure,” said Lydia.

“Can I at least use brandy?” said John to Granny M.

“Calvados,” she said, “Is best.”

“Now we’re talking,” said John, happily starting to make notes.

Lydia went on upstairs to Ladies’ Fashion. The ladies, in this case the Misses Pleasaunce, were perched on up turned wooden tea crates, leaning over to watch over Ivy’s shoulder. She was sitting crossed legged on the floor, surrounded by scissors and thread and offcuts of material, peering through a magnifying glass at a dress. It was one of a pair in a bright, shiny blue fabric, covered all over with a silver pattern of delicate curves, at the tip of each was a tiny orange flower.

“Lydia, dear,” said Peony, “We brought some dresses for Ivy to have a look at.”

“This is Indian sari fabric,” said Ivy, “Made into a dress, it’s fascinating.”

“We bought it in Calcutta,” said Peony, “And then we had to take some of our other dresses to the dress-maker so she could understand what we wanted.”

“It was so hot,” said Pansy, “That I fainted. And an elephant picked me up and carried me away.”

“He put you in the car,” said Peony, “Very kindly, so we could take you home.”

“An elephant?” said Lydia, not quite believing it.

“So what they’ve done,” said Ivy, turning the dress inside out, “Is made a bodice and then sewn the skirt onto that, but look how they’ve matched the pattern up. They’ve given themselves some space with the waistband, almost empire line that, but they’ve still managed to keep it running the length of the thing. It all starts from the darts, you see, because that’s where the pattern gets all folded in on itself. Elephants are very clever you know, George Joseph told me.”

“I wonder how George Joseph is doing,” said Lydia.

“He carried you all of a couple of feet,” said Peony, “Just picked you up and popped you into the car.”

“She laughed so hard, the dress-maker,” said Pansy, “She couldn’t understand why we didn’t want clothes like everybody else there.”

Lydia left them to the examination of history and the making of their dresses and went on up the winding stairs to the attic.

On the landing she found Mr Krebs screwing a bell onto the dumb waiter.

“He was worried he wouldn’t hear it,” he said, nodding his head in the direction of Artie’s apartment and George Joseph, “Coming up with the money. So there’s a bell. We’ll know when you get to bed now, n’all.” And for the first time in her whole life Mr Krebs smiled at her. At least she assumed that’s what it was. His face sort of cracked open and showed his teeth to her. It was, frankly, alarming, but she had the presence of mind to smile back.

“I was just going to pop in to see him,” she said, “George Joseph, I mean.”

“You go ahead,” said Mr Krebs, “Ain’t stopping you.” His face folded back into his customary scowl and he went back to fixing the bell.

George Joseph had made a sort of desk by propping a plank across two chairs, and he was sat on the edge of the bed, leaning on it, pencil in hand, staring into space.

“What’s happening, George Joseph?” said Lydia, opening the door.

“Nothing!” he yelped, guiltily, “I’m doing nothing. I was doing nothing.”

“No,” said Lydia, “I mean in the Lydian, in the store.”

“Oh, that,” said George Joseph, “Well, nothing there, either. Nothing. I mean the dumb waiter hasn’t moved because there hasn’t been any sales because there haven’t been any customers. I can only assume, I’m only assuming that. Based on the fact nothing has happened and I have done nothing.”

“Everyone’s just visiting each other,” said Lydia, “It’s all just the people from the building.”

“That’s no good,” said George Joseph, “Even if they spend money they’ll just be paying it to themselves in the end.”

“They’re not even buying anything,” said Lydia, “They’re just talking mostly. They could do that any day. Artie says we have to wait though, says we need word of mouth.”

“Wait for how long?” said George Joseph, “I thought this was supposed to be a business. If we’re not making any money, we’re not a business, in which case, what are we waiting for?”

“This is a good question,” said Artie, bounding into the room, “To which I might have the answer. Door tells me you cut hair, George Joseph.”

“He always cuts mine,” said Lydia, “He’s very good.”

“Evening classes,” said George Joseph, “Just the basics, though, nothing complex, just cutting hair, men, women and children. I thought I ought to have a back up. Second career, you know.”

“You were worried accountancy was a bit of a gamble?” asked Artie.

“Hair never stops growing,” George Joseph patted his own thinning scalp, “Mostly. It’s steady work.”

“This is Fairuza’s drawing of the Lydian girl, the one Door made the sign out of,” Artie handed a piece of paper to George Joseph, “Do you think you can cut Lydia’s hair to match it?”

“Why do I have to have my hair cut like that?” asked Lydia, “It’s old fashioned.”

“Because we want people to talk about the Lydian,” said Artie, “And you are going to be what they talk about. I’m afraid Ivy is already altering one of your dresses. Trust me,” he gave her a wink, “It’s a good plan, I swear.”