The Apartment Store #8

Chapter 4, Part 2; in which Lydia has an idea. A big one.

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.

“Please, do come through,” said Mrs M and gestured not at the kitchen door, where Lydia so was used to going to watch Granny and Mrs M cook and argue and sing, but instead at the door to the living room, where they only ever went, in Lydia’s experience, on Christmas Day.

Lydia always looked forward to visiting the Ms on Christmas Day because of this room and she was delighted to see it was already in its finery. She wondered briefly if they ever took the decorations down or if they just locked the room after Christmas and left it that way until next December.

The room was already well suited for the season, being mostly upholstered in red velvet, from the little round foot stools that cluttered the carpet to the raised pattern printed on the wallpaper, with gold decorations chasing round the edges: gold legs on the chairs, gold highlights on the ebony fireplace, gold mirrors reflecting the light from gold candlesticks.

But then Christmas was laid on top of this like thick icing on top of an already rich cake. Streamers curled down the walls, while red ribbons looped across the room, ready to have cards hung on them. Gold and red bows were stuck on the fireplace and the corners of the cornice, while the sideboard was given over to a whole miniature Christmas town, with lights on in the buildings and the snowy streets, knee deep in cotton wool, thronged with tiny shoppers. And in the corner was a massive Christmas tree, so huge it was bent over slightly at the top where the ceiling came too soon and it didn’t quite fit. Lydia could tell that the little Ms had helped decorate it, because the lower parts of the tree were a hectic mish-mash of glittery baubles and knots of tinsel, gaudy lights and hanging chocolates. The higher you got, the calmer the tree became. Where only Mrs M could reach there were just matching red and gold baubles and bows on the tip of every branch, candle effect lights and pinecones sprayed with gold glitter. Finally, right at the top, where Mr M himself must have placed her, was a doll with angel’s wings, her head pressed up against the ceiling, a single fairy light lit at the tip of her wand.

This room was, for Lydia, the essence of Christmas, and it looked like Artie agreed.

“Now isn’t that something,” he said.

“Please, help yourself to pastries,” said Mrs M and

“Something to drink?” said Mr M.

“I like this building,” said Artie, “People keep offering me food and drink. Yes, please.”

“You would like some punch?” said Mr M.

“Punch! Of course,” said Artie, delighted, “How could you drink anything else in a room like this? Punch, yes indeed.”

“The famous Mr Krampus,” said Mrs M.

“The owner of the store,” nodded Granny M.

“In our front room. This is a honour.”

“The honour is all mine,” said Artie, “Everyone is being so kind to me, a man who is, it has to be said, a failure.”

“A failure?” Mr M was taken aback, “But you are not a failure, you make your mighty store. When I first come to this city, everyone tells me about the Krampus store and I go to see it, so large, so magnificent and I tell myself, I tell my wife, do I not, that one day I shall be as successful as the man who made that, did I not, wife?”

“He did,” said Mrs M, “That’s exactly what he said, he compared himself to you.”

“And he has done so much more, so much,” said Artie, “Do I still have that store that you admired so much? No, I lost it, I failed; I failed the store and I failed myself. But you, look at this.

“You know, Mrs M, I was telling the others downstairs how much I admired the Olympic Christmas display, I was, because that to me is a real Christmas, but now I take that all back, because look at this room: this is Christmas, the real thing, come alive and ready to walk into. It’s a wonderful thing.”

“This is what the Christmas display ought to be like,” said Lydia, “It ought to be just like this room.”

“I told you you should have asked me and your mother to do it,” said Mrs M.

“But Lydia helped,” said Mr M, plaintively.

“So she should know,” said Mrs M.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful?” said Lydia warming to her subject, “Wouldn’t it? If the whole store was like this, all red and gold and shining and Christmassy?”

“But where would everything go?” Mr M gestured at the room, “It is all decorations, where would I put everything?”

“Unless,” said Lydia, “What if… what if you brought the Christmas stuff up here?”

“But the display must be in the store, little Lydia,” said Mr M.

“No, but I mean, what if this was part of the store, what if you made this room part of the Olympic?”

“Make our living room a shop?” said Mrs M, bewildered.

“Strangers in the apartment?” snapped Granny M, “Never.”

“Is that what you mean, little Lydia?” Mr M was still confused.

“I suppose so, I mean, I was just thinking,” said Lydia, starting to lose confidence in her idea, “Coming up the stairs just then and it’s all dark and then there’s this room and it’s all gold and glowing and inviting and it’s all so like Christmas, it just makes you so excited and happy. I mean, you don’t use the room much, do you? Do you?”

“This is true, we do not,” said Mr M.

“Because it is a special room,” said Granny M, “Not a store.”

“It is special,” said Artie, slowly, “That’s what Lydia is saying, it’s that that makes it work so well. And what else is Christmas? A special time of the year, a time out of the usual run, when things go differently, when we do things differently, when we open our houses and our hearts and welcome strangers in. That’s exactly what this room is. You know, I think Lydia has something, I really do.”

“You do?” said Mrs M.

“Think of it,” said Artie, “Like Lydia said, like Granny said, it’s a special room, a special experience. There are the dark, mysterious stairs, the glow of firelight at the top and you climb up into magic, a place to sit, enjoy the season, drink punch, eat a delicious pastry - they really are, Granny, quite amazing - I knew a chef in Tripoli who could almost equal them, but that’s another story - what a glorious secret, what a find! Presents under the tree, all wrapped, you don’t what they are, buy a handful, test your luck, all in the perfect spirit of the season. Imagine it, only the Olympic would have such a Christmas, unique in the city. It’d really be something.”

“Secret presents,” Mr M was thinking, “You could put anything inside.”

“You could,” said Artie.

“Strangers in the special room,” said Granny.

“Customers,” said Artie, “Overcome, dazzled by your Christmas.”

“You think this is a good idea?” asked Mrs M.

“You know what?” said Artie, “I really, genuinely do. To the extent that from now on I’m going to claim it was my idea instead of Lydia’s, which it was. You know, I was just saying to Lydia how the best thing about being in this building was meeting new people, hearing new things, and this just proves it. A whole new kind of idea of shopping, it’s amazing.”

“Mr Krampus thinks it is a good idea,” said Mr M to Mrs M.

“He does; do you, husband?”

“A store like Krampus does more business at Christmas time?” said Mr M to Artie.

“I should say it does,” said Artie, “Half again over November, double in some departments. That’s why we make such a fuss over it.”

“We do about the same,” said Mr M, “A little more perhaps, but then we are closed for some days too.”

“It would make the Olympic special,” said Mrs M.

“It’s own secret Christmas world,” said Lydia.

“Like nothing else in the city,” said Mrs M.

“Not too secret,” said Mr M, “We want people to come and shop, don’t we?”