The Apartment Store #19

Chapter 10, Part 1; in which Lydia's dream starts to falter

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.

It was Maddie Sharpe, the journalist, who put a spanner in the works. She was out in the square the next morning, watching Mitt take photographs of the crowd outside the Delian. There was no queue outside the Lydian, and Maddie was quick to point it out.

"There's a fellow who writes reviews of art for the Argus," said Maddie, "Who says popular taste is bad taste. If he's right, you've at least got a very tasteful operation here. And all to yourself, too. What's the excuse, Krampus?"

"You know what, I resent that," Artie was grinning round the edges of a cigar, "But not for the reasons that you think. The Lydian is not as popular as the Delian. It is what it is. It's obvious, anyone can see it. The Lydian is not as popular as the Krampus, come to that, and that's what the Delian is, after all, the Krampus department store in a trendy new outfit. And all that tells me is just how popular we really are. The Krampus department store. The Krampus. The - if I may say this, and I think I may, given my current situation - pre-eminent department store in the city, if not the whole country, feels compelled to open a whole new store just days before Christmas, all because of a venture by a gang of friends in a run down apartment. That's a powerful idea. That's a popular idea. 

"But that's my point. We're just a group of friends, we're not an all powerful department store. We're not the Krampus, we're not the Delian. There's no point in comparing ourselves to them. That's what I resent. That you think that's where the story is. That's not the story."

"That's not the story," said Maddie to Mitt, "All this time, I haven't know what the story is. All this time."

"Five says he tells you what it is," said Mitt.

"Keep your money," said Artie, "Because the story isn't the little guy and the big guy, because that's not a story. Either the little guy wins and that's just a cliche or the big guy wins and that's just life. This isn't a story about competition. It's more complicated than that. It's more human than that. This is a story about how a group of friends got together with a crazy idea and changed everything. Changed shopping, changed people, changed lives. This is a story about enthusiasm, about inspiration. About care and craft and communication and community."

"It's a story," said Maddie, "Whether it's the story is another matter."

"It's a Christmas story," said Artie, "Group of dedicated craftsmen hidden away in a magical old house, spreading joy through the city? Hand made, home made, quirky and personal? It's a Christmas story."

"It's a Christmas story," said Mitt, nodding slowly.

"Hand made, home made," said Maddie, turning slowly round to look at the Olympic behind them, "Well, it's definitely quirky."

They turned and looked at it with her. Mr M was standing in the door, wiping his hands on his trousers. The windows were full of sun bleached adverts for ice creams, notices about prams for sale and pictures of hot sandwiches hand drawn in highlighter pen by Mrs M. Above him the old awning sagged at one side, stained by decades of rain, the ‘O’ of the word ‘Olympic’ painted on top almost entirely now worn away.

“What a man like you means when he starts banding around words like craft and art and magic,” said Maddie, “Is expensive. Exclusive, privileged and expensive. When you say personal, you mean rich persons, parking their limousines one at a time out in the square with the motor running, who are going to spend more than buses of poor people. But I got to tell you, Krampus, when that limousine pulls up in front of that store, looking like that store does, it’s not going to stop, that rich person is not going to get out. They’re going to get gone.”

“But the Olympic,” said Lydia’s father, “Is Mr M. It couldn’t belong to anyone else. He couldn’t make any other place in any other way. You look at those shelves, and that’s the inside of his head you’re looking at, that’s his personality. I thought that’s what we were all about. That’s what you said. Us as people. The Olympic is Mr M as a person.”

They were standing around the till at the front of the Olympic. Door has summoned Fairuza and John to join them, probably, Lydia thought, because he assumed they would agree with him. Mr M was looking at him with a slightly confused expression, as if he was trying to figure out whether what Door had just said about him and the Olympic was an insult or a compliment. Or both.

“But that’s the Olympic,” said Artie, “We’re talking about the Lydian. We’re all doing it, of course, we're welcoming people into our own homes, the places that are truly us, but we’re changing those places too, to make them welcoming places, places for people to come to. I mean, you’ve tidied up your apartment, rearranged, haven’t you?”

“No,” said Door.

“Dad!” said Lydia.

“Well, I haven’t.”

“Well, you should have, why haven’t you? You could have at least got rid of your desk.”

“Why,” said her father, “I say if people are going to come into my house and ask me to do things for them, they ought to know what they’re getting into. I say that desk lets them know.”

“It certainly does that,” said Lydia.

“The point is,” said Artie, “That the Olympic is the first thing that people see when they arrive at the Lydian, it’s what sets the tone, it’s what presents us to the world.”

“That’s exactly my point,” persisted Door, “I think it does that exactly and magnificently.”

“Dad!” shouted Lydia, “You’re not helping. Shut up.”

“I think what Artie is getting at,” said Fairuza, “Is that while we know and all the usual customers know that the Olympic is a splendid store and, more importantly, that it is Mr M’s store and full of his personality, not everyone knows that. We need to figure out a way to make that personality more obvious to the first time visitor, right up front. If that makes sense.”

“Exactly,” said Artie, “I’m not talking about changing the Olympic, I’m talking about improving.”

“And I’m saying, I can’t see a way to improve on it,” said Door.

“I wonder,” said John, “What Mr M thinks.”

They all turned to look at Mr M.

“We’re all standing around saying it’s his shop,” John continued, “But we haven’t asked what he thinks. What do you think, Mr M?”

Mr M shifted uncomfortably under everyone’s staring.

“I have been thinking,” he said slowly, “No one comes to the Olympic now. Everyone comes to the Lydian, they come to your apartments, but not to my store. So I think: Is it the Olympic? Is there something wrong with my store?”

“No,” said Door, “There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“So why can’t people see that?” said Fairuza, “How do we help them see that?”

“I just want people to buy things from the Olympic,” said Mr M, sadly.

“Artie keeps talking about how we’re something new,” said John, “But it occurs to me that we’re not, we’re something old.”

“Look out,” said Fairuza, “Idea approaching. Train of thought pulling into the station.”

“I mean, it’s like medieval shops, isn’t it?” said John, ignoring her, “People would just make the ground floor of their house the shop and you’d go into their houses to buy things. Just like the apartment store, right? It’s not new at all, it’s how things used to be. Think about general stores like the Olympic. Allowing the customers to wander the shelves and serve themselves is really quite a new thing. It used to be that you’d go up to the counter and just ask the shopkeeper for what you wanted and he’d fetch it for you. I mean, that’s how we use the Olympic anyway, right? None of us really know where everything is, do we? We ask the shopkeeper, don’t we? I mean, that’s exactly what you’re saying, isn’t it, Door? The store is Mr M, Mr M knows the store. We ask Mr M.”

“And there it is,” said Fairuza, “All aboard that’s coming aboard.”

“But you see what I mean, Fairy?”

“Of course I do, my love, and it’s a brilliant idea, don’t you think, Door?” said Fairuza, “We turn the Olympic into a proper old fashioned general store. We make it all about Mr M. We could close off this bit, so it’s just the counter there, with Mr M behind it: he becomes the Olympic itself.”

“We could move the food counter down this end,” said John, “It’d become a sort of cafe.”

“Excellent,” said Fairuza.

“Close it off?” Mr M looked about himself, confused, “But how will people know what is here to buy? How will they find things?”

“The same way they do now,” said Artie, cheerfully clapping him on the back, “Like John says, they’ll ask you. It’s exactly what we need, exactly it, the Olympic, only more so. What are we waiting for? Let’s do it.”