The Apartment Store #7

Chapter 4, Part 1; in which Lydia introduces the Olympic Mini-supermarket to Krampus

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 ideal,” said Artie, as they made their way down the stairs from John and Fairuza’s apartment, “Would have been to keep my store but to somehow still have met you and all of your strange and wonderful friends. I feel this morning has been enriching, enlivening. It is precisely what I needed, frankly. The ideal, in fact, would have been to have met you all and moved you all into the store. Goodness knows there’s room. Just me bouncing around my apartments up in the roof - that was no good. No wonder the thing stopped working. You and me, Lydia, we’re the same, we like people, we need people. People like these. I’m sorry I lost my store, but if I had to end up anywhere else, I’m glad it’s here. Who’s next?”

“Mr and Mrs M,” said Lydia, “This whole floor is their flat but they never use that door, they go in and out through the shop.”

“Aha, this is the Olympic, am I right, on the ground floor?”

“That’s it. That’s Mr M’s shop.”

“And the M stands for… Mini-supermarket?”

Lydia laughed, “No, Mr M always says not to bother to try and say his name. No one here can ever get it right so they might as well just use the letter. It’s what everyone calls him, even Dad. He works there, you see, for Mr M.”

They came out of the front door of the building, down the main steps, and then turned down another short flight, and in through the front door of the Olympic Mini-supermarket. The bell on the door rang as they entered and Lydia’s father looked up from behind the till where he was reading a magazine.

“Good morning! How’s the busy social whirl? Need sustenance?” he gestured at a glass cabinet of pastries that stood on the counter beside him, “Have a pastry.”

“John gave us croissants,” said Lydia.

“And you brought one for me too?” said Door, “No, of course you didn't, you simply wanted to torture me with the visions of John's croissants.”

“He’s an excellent chef,” said Artie, “I snuck a smidgen of his cheese sauce - it was remarkable.”

“Ah, but these are Granny M’s pastries,” said Lydia’s father, “These are a different thing altogether. Dripping in honey, stuffed with nuts, you can survive in the stony wilderness for a month on just one small square.”

“No, no, no, I shall never be forgiven if you eat those pastries,” came Mr M’s voice.

“He’s heard all about you,” said Door, “He’s very excited. They all are.”

“Not those pastries,” said Mr M, advancing from the back of the store, “I believe they are excellent, or we would not be selling them, but I am told that they are not good enough for our visitor, so you are not to eat them.”

“Then I shan’t,” said Artie, “You must be Mr M?”

“And you are Mr Krampus!” said Mr M, seizing Artie by the hand and pumping it up and down vigorously, “Welcome to the Olympic! Welcome to my store! Mr Krampus! Mr Krampus, of the Krampus department store, here in the Olympic, in my Olympic. This amazes me.”

“Well, I can’t say it’s where I was expecting to be when I woke up this morning,” said Artie, finally retrieving his hand from Mr M’s grip, “But I’m glad I am.”

“Do you like the Olympic?” said Mr M in a tone of wonder.

“It’s hardly the Krampus, is it?” said Door.

“No, and it’s better for it,” said Artie, “And I mean it. You’re right, it’s a different thing, but that’s quite right.”

“It’s a lot smaller,” said Lydia.

“Only in size,” said Artie, “Think about it, people come to Krampus maybe once a week, often less, most of them have got a mission, there’s one department they want to visit, one thing they can’t get anywhere else, some of them don’t have anything to do at all, they’re not going to buy a thing, they’re just wandering round the shops on a Saturday afternoon. Some of them come just once a year, just up from the country for a Christmas visit, have a look at the lights, see Father Christmas, have some tea. But the Olympic. This is people’s lives, this is their everyday. They’ll be in more than once a day, am I right, Mr M? Some of them, in and out, all day, one more thing, oh, I just forgot… their whole day, their whole lives…

“The Olympic isn’t small, not really. You know what I saw when I came in the door? Notices, pinned up there in the window. A lost cat, piano lessons, a meeting about the car parking situation. This store is as big as a community, as big as all the people who live their lives around it and through it.

“Look at your Christmas display there.”

Lydia looked at it. She’d already been a little suspicious of it last night and it looked a lot more forlorn in the day, with the fairy lights switched off and the faded and battered packaging properly visible.

“We tried,” she said, “We really did, me & Mr M, but it doesn’t look very Christmassy, does it?”

“Are you kidding?” said Artie.

“I mean, look at the windows in your… at Krampus,” said Lydia, “They’re amazing, there’s whole scenes and things moving, there’s this mixer that does this whole dance…”

“But that’s what I mean,” said Artie, “That’s precisely what I mean. Did you know there are people who come to look at the windows and never even once come in the store. Not once. They’re just entertainment, that’s all they are, just a big gaudy advertisement, but this Christmas display, this looks exactly like Christmas to me - a real Christmas, not that fake glittery one in the Krampus windows.

“Look at it, there, right there, there’s the moment your Aunt shows up on Boxing Day and you’ve totally forgotten she was coming and totally forgotten to get her a present. Chocolates! Who doesn’t love chocolates? And what do we have, we have turkey, we have stuffing, we’ve got the potatoes and the sprouts and… oh my god, the cranberry sauce, quick run down to the Olympic before the whole thing’s ruined. And it’s been a hard year and money’s been tight but it’s Christmas Eve and suddenly the kid’s stocking looks awful empty and why not just one last thing, what can it hurt, just one more present to open, make her Christmas just that bit more special.

“That’s Christmas Lydia, that’s what it’s really like, that’s an ordinary Christmas for ordinary people and that’s what the Olympic is for, not just for a weekend, not just for an annual treat, the Olympic is for life.”

“Life,” muttered Lydia’s father, “Like what you get for murder.”

She shot him a dirty look but Mr M didn’t seem to have noticed. He was looking about at his store with an expression of confused wonder on his face, as if he was trying to reconcile Artie’s vision with his daily reality.

“What are you doing there?” came a voice from the back of the shop, “What are you doing with our guest? Are you going to bring him up or are you going to stand talking there all afternoon?”

“Mrs M!” said Mr M with a sudden guilty shock, “My wife, you know,” he said in an aside to Artie, “I had promised to bring you upstairs, I shall be into trouble now, you must come, little Lydia, you come also, come and meet all my family.”

“I’ll stay here and mind the shop, you go have fun,” said Lydia’s father as they followed Mr M into the depths of the store, towards the stairs up into the family apartment.

There was a scurrying and scampering as they approached the door as an advance party of children fled before them and rushed back up the stairs to hide behind their mother.

Mrs M was waiting for them at the top of the stairs in a very sparkly long peacock blue dress and dangling earrings with stars dripping from them. Lydia could tell she had got dressed up to meet their guest and was determined to do it right.

“And this is?” she said as they came up the stairs towards her.

“This is Mr Krampus,” said Mr M, reaching the top and stepping out of the way.

“Please, call me Artie,” said Artie, “Everyone else is going to and you mustn’t be left out. What a lovely dress.”

“Thank you, my mother in law made it for me,” said Mrs M and

“I made it,” said Granny M from behind her, “Months it took. All the sequins by hand.”

“My mother,” said Mr M.

“Delighted, Madam,” said Artie with a little bow.

“And my daughters,” Mr M gestured at the little girls who were standing shyly behind their mother.

“Hi there,” said Artie and waggled his eyebrows.

“And my son,” the smallest M was clutching onto his Grandmother’s skirts, swaying unsteadily back and forth and gaping at Artie with an open mouth. He was dribbling a little bit.

“A handsome boy,” said Artie, diplomatically.