The Apartment Store #17

Chapter 9, Part 1; in which Lydia discovers she has competition

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.

“Now the good news is that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” said Artie.

He had persuaded everyone to shut up shop and then gathered them all up in his attic office. It wasn’t the cheerful room it had been the other morning. Now Mr M sat alone, his arms crossed, while John and Ivy appeared to be trying to stay as far away from each other as they could.

“Competition means people think you’re doing something worth competing for, it means you’re doing something right. It’s also a great sharpener, it means we’re going to have to think hard about what makes us better than the other guy and work to stay better.

“But that’s the bad news. It means work, hard work, and I know we’re already finding this tough. But look, this is normal and this is fine. Doing this is not easy, it is stressful and irritating and all too often boring all at the same time. I realise now that while I knew this and was ready for it, you didn’t. Well, I’m afraid you know now and I have to tell you, it’s not going to get any better soon. The only way we’re going to get through this is by working together and all doing our part.”

“And what, exactly,” said Fairuza, “Is your part?”

“It’s a good question,” said Artie, “I have to admit even I learned some lessons today. The main one being that you need more time and fewer people. I’m going to start trying to control how many people are in the store at a time but that also goes for all of us - John, for example, you’re doing way too much.”

“I’m fine,” said John, “Or I would be if I had the ingredients I needed.”

“You’re not fine,” said Fairuza, “You haven’t made a joke in hours and you keep shouting at people.”

“It is no good shouting at me,” said Mr M, “People are not coming to the Olympic. This was the whole point.”

“That was not the whole point,” said Ivy.

“This is what I mean,” said Artie, “We need to work together to make it easy for people to spend money. John, we need to set numbers and times for your demonstrations, with gaps so you can prepare properly. You and Fairuza need to agree what you’re cooking with Mr M, so Fairuza can make recipe cards and Mr M can get all the ingredients together ahead of time. That means people can just pick them up as a package.”

“Peas,” said Mr M, “A recipe with peas.”

“If it’s those tinned ones, it’s mushy peas,” said John, “Hm, I wonder whether they’d go with ham…”

“He’s having an idea,” said Fairuza, “He must be cheering up. You’ve got those brown paper bags, haven’t you, Mr M? I could decorate them for the different recipes.”

“How about we do a series?” said John, “Like all the seasonal side dishes or using up leftovers, everything you need to make days worth of Christmas food.”

“So people keep coming back?” said Artie, “That’s the spirit.”

“As long as there’s peas,” said Mr M, sticking to his guns.

“What about me?” said Ivy, “I had loads of people waiting and they all kept talking and talking and I needed to go through everything with them so it took forever and everybody had to wait and they all got really rude. And John was rude too.”

“I’m sorry, Ivy,” said John, “I was hot and I cut myself. I’ll put some cookies in this evening for you.”

“Why not for us?’ said Peony, “All people want to do is talk to us. Why don’t they do that while they’re waiting for Ivy? We could be a sort of waiting room.”

“That’s all we do anyway,” said Pansy, “Wait for things. Meals, mostly. And visits. And bedtime.”

“This is more like it,” said Artie, “Thank you, ladies, that’s a great idea. But we still need to keep people moving. I think we need to set times: ten minutes, fifteen, whatever that is. At the end of the time, everyone needs to move on, the next customer needs to come in.”

“But it’s so hard,” wailed Ivy, “They’re all so interesting and there’s so much to do. One was telling me about this diet she’s doing where she only eats cabbage, which I don’t think I could do because I hate cabbage, unless John makes his noodles with the fried cabbage and bacon which I honestly love. But anyway it meant that she had lost weight and needed all her dresses adjusted but some of those dresses just weren’t going to suit her any more, of course. And I didn’t think to look at my watch once, you know.”

“What about the bells?” said Lydia.

“The bells?” said Artie.

“Didn’t there used to be bells?” said Lydia, “Dad, you told me, they used to have bells in all the rooms to call servants, when this was one big house, didn’t they?”

“Taken down years ago,” said Mr Krebs, “Not there now.”

"Front door bells!" said Lydia, "We've all got those."

“Not that some of us use them all that often," said John.

“There’s a thought,” said Artie, “Could you wire them all together, Mr Krebs?”

“Spect I could,” said Mr Krebs, “Take a while.”

“Excellent. So that’s the plan for tomorrow,” said Artie, “We all work together to our new schedule. We try and make it all work.”

“One thing,” said Mrs M, “One thing people ask me yesterday, in the Christmas room, is ‘Where is Santa Claus?’ Where is Santa Claus?”

“It’s a good point,” said Door, “I had a few people ask, too. They do expect it in a store at Christmas”

“Well, don’t look at me, “ said John, who, being large and bearded was usually the person asked to dress up as Santa Claus at Christmas, “I’m going to be slaving over a hot stove.”

“And I’m not sure either Door or George Joseph have the necessary padding to play the part,” said Fairuza.

“Although I would pay good money to see George Joseph in a Santa costume,” said Door, chuckling.

“What about Artie?” said Lydia.

“No,” said Artie, “What about Lydia?”

“I can’t play Santa Claus,” said Lydia, “I’m a little girl.”

“No, not Santa Claus,” said Artie, “But this is the Lydian, why would we have a Santa Claus, when we have a Lydia? People could meet the actual Lydia, the girl the store is named after.”

“But what would I do?” said Lydia, “I can’t give out presents?”

“Why not?” said Artie, “Why shouldn’t the Lydian give it’s visitors presents? And you can talk to people - tell them about your home and your friends and, of course, all the wonderful things they make and do.”

“I think it’s a great idea,” said Door, “Although are we sure that we can’t put her in a costume anyway?”

Mrs M rearranged the furniture in the Christmas room so that Lydia was sat at a little table by the tree where people could sit with her and drink punch if they wanted to. At the far end of the room sat Granny M, who was busy putting together more of the felt Christmas stockings Mrs M had shown Lydia how to make.

The M’s had been busy in the Christmas room. Granny was now surrounded by all manner of Christmas things to buy. Calendars and cards with drawings by Fairuza, boxes of chocolates and cakes from the Olympic, individually wrapped pastries and bottles of punch small enough to hang on a tree and now Granny was cutting out and sticking felt capital letters on to stockings, so children could have a stocking with the initial letter of their name on, or, if they could afford it, people could buy enough stockings to spell out a word.

As people began to trickle in, Granny started to tell fairy stories as she worked and she was soon surrounded by a gaggle of small children, while their parents gossiped and drank punch.

And talked to Lydia. At first she was rather nervous about having to think of things to say or answer difficult questions, but it soon turned out that everyone wanted to know the same things and all she had to do was repeat her answers all morning.

“Are you the real Lydia?” She was, of course.

“What was it like having strangers in your house?” It was a little weird, especially when they kept asking the same questions over and over, but she couldn’t say that so instead she told them everyone in the building was glad to see them and had all kinds of things to show them.

“How did she have this idea?” She didn’t have the slightest clue. It was very exciting though.

“What was her father like?” Well that one she couldn’t answer honestly, but they could find out by going to the attic and seeing his bizarre bed cupboard and trying to talk to him about snowglobes.

“What was Otto Krampus like?” This, of course, was all anyone really wanted to know and it was the question everyone infallibly asked. At least Lydia didn’t have to lie about this one. She just told them how exciting it was having him living here and helping them put together this amazing apartment store. He was her friend; he had changed her life and made her Christmas and it was brilliant.

And as she told and retold the story of the last few days throughout the morning, she could hear Artie stumping up and down the stairs, calling out the time: Quarter past, Half past, Quarter to; and each time he did there was a movement about the house as customers went from one apartment to another.

Then finally Mr Krebs must have found time to work on her father’s idea, because Artie stopped calling out and doorbells started ringing and it just like school, with a great rush at the signal like kids going to lessons.

But gradually the rush became less and the Christmas room began to empty out. The circle of children around Granny M began to become more of an arc and pastries started to go uneaten. Lydia was sitting on her own at her table when Artie came bustling in.

“Lydia, we’re got trouble,” he said, “Come and see.”

Artie led her down through the Olympic and out into the street. There was a queue of people filling up the little square outside the building. But they weren't queuing for the Lydian.

Opposite them the old dress shop had been transformed. Instead of being full of dusty old hats and fading scarves, it was now full of new clothes. And furniture. What had once been a shop was now laid out like a bedroom, but one like Lydia’s father’s. There was a bed in one corner, true, but there was also a little kitchen and a dining table. And three wardrobes. Every single one of them open and filled with clothes. There were clothes all over the place, jumpers were folded and piled on the table, socks filled the sink, shirts hung from the backs of chairs. And everywhere there were people, picking things up, sorting through piles, trying things on. Buying things.

And not just in the shop. There were lights on in the whole building. She could see people milling around in the windows. And across the front of the building was a big sign reading: THE DELIAN and a picture of a young lady with a shopping bag over shoulder. A picture done in a very familiar style. White on red. Just like…

“It’s the Krampus,” said Artie, “It’s the Krampus Department Store. They’ve done this. It’s that snake Lesley Wande. Boy, you got to admire his chutzpah, though, he must have moved fast to get this together.”

“What are we going to do?” asked Lydia, “Everyone’s going there instead of the Lydian.”

“We’re going to do exactly what they did,” said Artie, “And learn from the enemy. Come on, we’re going inside.” And they pushed through the throng and into the Delian.

Inside the building was very like Lydia’s except considerably more ramshackle. Now that she thought about it, she couldn’t remember ever having seen any lights in on in there and she wondered if had been mostly empty. It seemed to her that everything had been very hastily emptied out and tidied up and had paint slapped on it in the worst bits. This looked particularly odd because the rooms had then been filled with brand new pieces of furniture which seemed very out of place in their dilapidated setting.

They filed into the room that had been the shop. On the door was written:

‘Delia’s Room. Come on in!’

And then underneath a sign had been stuck up:

‘Delia is a fashion student who loves clothes! She lives in this funny old house with all her amazing friends! Come on in and meet them all!’

Someone liked exclamation marks, Lydia thought.

She was surprised to find that there was actually a girl lying in the bed inside, and another sitting next to her. Together they were taking money from the customers and putting what they had bought into bags. Another girl kept pushing in and filling the wardrobes with more clothes. Everything had a price tag on it. Not just the clothes in the wardrobes and hanging on the furniture, but even the furniture itself; the bed clothes on the bed, the cutlery in the kitchenette, everything was brand new and for sale.

Lydia and Artie swirled round the shop with the crowd and then jostled their way up to the next floor. This floor had once been someone’s offices and there was a door with a large panel of corrugated glass set into it. Freshly painted on the glass were the words: BLACK BOOKS, PUBLISHERS. Inside was a waiting room, full again of new furniture, this time including bookshelves, all full of new books and carefully labelled: ‘Murder Mystery’, ’Science Fiction’, ’Thrillers’.

There were people pretending to work here, sitting at desks reading books - books of which there were large piles on the desk in front of them - or pushing through the crowds carrying bits of paper. Lydia peered over the shoulder of a girl passing by. The paper she was carrying was an advert for the Krampus department store.

“Can I help you?” said the girl, “This blouse is on sale, ten percent off.” She handed Lydia the piece of paper and as she did so, Lydia saw that there was a price tag hanging from the cuff of her shirt. Lydia looked at the paper she had been handed. It said: "A whole new kind of Christmas shopping with Delia!" and "There's no tradition like a Krampus Christmas" with a map showing how to get to the Krampus store from the square.

On the next floor up there were rooms made to look like apartments. One was supposed to be a man’s apartment. He was called ‘Rex’ apparently and had a secret crush on the girl in the flat opposite. ‘Will he ever pluck up the courage to ask her out?’ the label on his front door demanded to know, “Perhaps with the help of 15% off flowers at Krampus, he might.’ Inside the apartment was full of all kinds of gadgets, the newest and largest kind of TV, an oven with a bewildering set of controls, an alarm clock that could wake you up with smells. A man, who she supposed was ‘Rex’, appeared to be spending his time running maniacally between rooms, twiddling knobs and trying to stop things overheating and catching fire.

The other apartment on that floor was quite the opposite. The girl inside introduced herself as ‘Poppy’ as she pulled a tray of fairy cakes out of the oven and invited the customers to help themselves. Behind her another girl, dressed absolutely identically, down to the floral alice band, was taking already cooked fairy cakes out of a box and putting them into another baking tray to go into the oven to be warmed up as another batch.

‘Poppy’ explained that she loved flowers and kittens although Lydia could have guessed it for herself. Even the kitchen was a riot of clashing floral patterns. Chintz curtains fell against tiles with clematis on them. Plates painted with roses sat on a formica work surface patterned in violets and snowdrops. There was even an enamel jug full of daffodils. Under a calendar showing kittens in Santa outfits. All the daffodils were individually priced.

“Can I buy the fairy cakes?” asked a customer.

“Of course,” Poppy reached up and opened a cupboard to reveal a whole stack of boxes of cakes, “There’s also the recipe in my Scrumptious Suppers and Cheeky Treats Cookbook.” She pointed at the window shelf where there was a pile of copies of the book. The covers was a pattern flowers, of course.

“I’ll take one of those too,” said the customer, “And a couple of those tea cup candles.”

Poppy gathered everything up and popped it into a bright red bag with the words ‘THE DELIAN’ on it. The moment she did so another Poppy put a fresh book on the windowsill and added a few more tea cup candles to the kitchen table.

“This cake is disgusting,” said Lydia through a mouthful, “It’s all icing and it’s really sickly.”

“This whole place is sickly,” said Artie, “Come on, I’ve seen enough.”

They pushed their way back down the stairs against the tide of people making their way up, nearly all of them already carrying at least one Delian shopping bag. On their way out of the door Lydia scrunched up the piece of paper the woman in the office had given her and threw it in a bin. The bin was on sale, she noticed.