The Apartment Store #23

Chapter 12, Part 1; in which Lydia discovers she may have ruined her own Christmas

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 quiet when Lydia woke up the next morning. She couldn’t hear her father rattling about in the apartment, she couldn’t hear Artie singing in the shower, she couldn’t any noises from the apartments below.

If she had known this was simply the quiet before the storm, she might not have just laid there, listening to the birds on the rooftops outside and the city slowly waking up. But perhaps not. It was probably a good idea to relish the quiet while she could.

Eventually she realised that she would have to get up because the store would be opening soon.

Her father had not left any breakfast out for her, not even a slice of toast in the shape of a snowflake or bowl of cereal with apple smiles, so she headed off downstairs to see if she could find breakfast anywhere else.

She knocked at Ivy’s door on the way down.

“Who is it?’ shouted Ivy from inside.

“It’s me, Lydia,” she called back.

“Oh,” said Ivy in a tone Lydia didn’t recognise, “Is it? I suppose you’ve come to try and apologise.”

“Apologise?” Lydia hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about, “Apologise for what?”

“Apologise for what,” said Ivy, “I guess not. I guess why apologise to someone so stuck up and self-obsessed and unkind, eh? What difference is apologising going to make to someone so terrible?”

“Ivy, what are you talking about?” shouted Lydia, “Open the door, I can’t hear you? What’s going on?”

“Don’t you worry,” said Ivy, “I’m just a silly dress designer. What I do doesn’t matter. So it won’t matter to you that you can’t come in and I won’t come out, will it?”

“Ivy!” shouted Lydia, “What’s going on?”

“Go away, you stupid little girl,” shouted Ivy, back, “And don’t come back!”

And Lydia heard her bedroom door slam.

What on earth had gotten into her? And what was she talking about? It didn’t make any sense. Why would she be so rude and unkind all of a sudden.

Lydia’s immediate instinct was to run downstairs to John and Fairuza. Surely they could help. Only the moment that John opened the door, she was suddenly sorry she had. He had a stony look on his face, like he was trying very hard not to look angry. It was the sort of expression that her father got when he read her school reports.

“Oh,” he said, “It’s you.”

At least he let her in.

Fairuza was sitting at her makeshift counter in what had been their sitting room. There was a newspaper and a two cups of coffee in front of her. She looked up when Lydia came in and pursed her lips in disapproval.

“Fairuza? John?” Lydia wasn’t sure what to say. Something was evidently up. Were they still arguing with each other, “I’m sorry, are you doing something?”

“What do you want, Lydia?” said John, sternly.

“I tried to speak to Ivy and she was really rude and I don’t know why and now…” Lydia looked at them both and they looked back at her, hard, “What’s going on?”

“I don’t blame her,” said Fairuza, “I’m pretty tempted to be rude to you myself.”

“I don’t understand,” Lydia was aware she was whining now, but she couldn’t help herself. What was wrong with everyone?

Fairuza picked up the paper and started reading from it.

“Fairuza and John Childeric are old friends of the family but Lydia can’t even rely on them for help, as they too have had their heads turned by success. “They’re arguing about who’s most popular,” says Lydia, “It’s stupid.” It is indeed. This is how one child’s dreams are being destroyed, by the childishness of the adults around her.”

“What is that?” Lydia was aghast, “Does it say that in the paper?”

“Two whole pages, right in the middle,” said John, “It even has pictures of us both.”

“Lydia, how could you?” said Fairuza, putting the paper down.

“But I didn’t,” wailed Lydia.

“You didn’t say that?” said Fairuza, “You never called us stupid?”

“No!” cried Lydia, “Well, I did, but not like that! I didn’t mean it!”

“But you said it,” said John, “You should see what it says about Ivy, about everyone. No wonder she’s angry with you.”

“I’m sorry!” Lydia couldn’t stand their hard, angry eyes glaring at her, “I really am.”

“It’s not us you should be apologising to,” said Fairuza.

“Yes it is,” said John.

“It’s what it says about your father,” said Fairuza, “That’s properly unforgiveable.”

“What…” Lydia knew what it said, knew what she’d said to Maddie, “What does it say?”

“It says you call him irritating and boring,” said Fairuza.

“That he ruins everything,” said John.

“That you’d rather have Mr Krampus for a father,” said Fairuza.

“But that’s not what I meant,” said Lydia, “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You didn’t mean that he was boring?” said John.

“But he is!” Lydia didn’t like being lectured and looked down on like this, “It is boring. All he does all day is sit around and make his stupid snow globes.”

“Lydia,” said Fairuza, “Do you know why your father makes snow globes?” 

“Because he’s irritating,” snapped Lydia. 

“Lydia,” said Fairuza, sharply, pursing her lips, and then she stopped, and looked at John for a moment and then, when she spoke again, her voice was softer, “No, he makes them for your mother.” 

Lydia suddenly felt a little chill, “But…” 

“He used to make them for her when they first met,” Fairuza went on, “When we were young, if you can believe we were ever young. We were all friends, you know, at art school, John and I and your mother and father. Their first Christmas, he made her a snow globe. It was their tradition, a new one every Christmas. He’s very talented, you know, your father, they were always wonderful, little portraits of both of them.” 

“Even us, wasn’t there, in one of them?” said John. 

“Even Lydia,” said Fairuza, “Even you, a little Lydia in the snow.” 

Lydia had a feeling like she was going to be sick, like her stomach was sinking and sinking. 

“He’s still making them for your mother, and for himself. And for you, little Lydia, it’s his tradition.” 

“I…” Lydia started but all she could think was, “My mother?” 

Lydia opened the door to the apartment. Her father was out, his desk all shut up. Feeling suddenly that she needed to be secret and quiet, Lydia stole softly to the desk and lifted the catch. The doors folded back and she switched on the light over his work table. There, above the table, was a shelf, with the snowglobes lined up along it. All her life they had been sitting there and, disgusted by her father’s irritating hobbies, she had never looked at them. She tilted the light up and shone it at them. At the far left, tucked away in a corner, was the first one. In it, trees, all covered in polystyrene snow, and a street lamp and a bench, like in a park. And by the bench stood a woman. She was dressed in a long red coat that had fur trim around the collar and an embroidered pattern along the hem. She was wearing a white fur hat and from under it long, black hair fanned down over shoulders. Lydia had never liked the way her hair was so straight and lank and wouldn’t curl and suddenly there it was on this tiny figure and it wasn’t horrid at all. It was beautiful. The woman was tiny, so tiny there in the snow, in the glass, and Lydia had to crane forward, holding her breath, not daring to touch it, her hands were trembling so, but she could see, even in that tiny face, those dark eyes that looked back out at her from her own mirror, a nose that tilted up like hers, her own high cheekbones. Her own mother, alone in the snow. 

She wasn’t alone in the next one. A man was with her, a tall, lanky man, whose cuffs were too short for his gesturing arms, whose thin jacket was buttoned up against the cold, a blue scarf knotted round his long neck, who had her father’s untameable think curly hair and wire-rim glasses. And they were smiling. 

And in the next one they were laughing, a toboggan sailing upwards over a hummock, her mother at the front, shrieking at the speed, her hair streaming back into her father’s face as he sat behind her, his legs either side of her, his arms clasped round her, grinning over her shoulder.

And there were John and Fairuza in the next one, John with just a small goatee instead of his giant beard, and Fairuza in a funny felt hat, all points with bobbles on. They were throwing snowballs at each other. Her father had just caught one straight in the face, his glasses sticking out of the fluffy snow. 

In the next her father and mother were alone again and this time, her mother was suddenly fat. No, not fat… pregnant. She had one hand over her huge tummy and her father was holding her hand as they picked their way gingerly down the slippery path. And they were grinning like idiots. 

And then, and then… and Lydia gulped a little, like something was stuck in her throat, her mother was standing in the snow, holding up a tiny baby, all wrapped up in scarves and jumpers and hats so that just a tiny puzzled face looked out. A puzzled face solemnly watching her father catching a snowflake on his tongue. A tiny baby Lydia. 

Then there she was again. This time she was on a toboggan, and her father was pulling her along, pulling her towards her mother, who bent towards her, clapping. And the tiny Lydia was clapping too, clapping with joy. 

Lydia sat down and placed her hands carefully on her knees, trying to breathe quietly. 

They were all sitting down in the next one. They were sitting on a bench, all covered in the fake snow. Lydia’s father had her on his knee and they were looking at a book and beside them sat her mother. Even in the tiny portrait Lydia could see that her eyes were closed. She looked thin. Tired. 

Lydia didn’t want to look at any more. But there were more. There were more, but they only had two people in them. Just her father, and just Lydia, alone in the woods. 

Her father carried her on his shoulders through the snow but they both looked so solemn, so quiet. They walked hand in hand. Then they walked separately and then they walked apart. Lydia walked in front, lost in thought. Then Lydia walked behind, scowling, bored. And then her father sat on a bench, looking at his little girl as she stared out of the snowglobe at the world, angry and quite on her own. 

And the real Lydia, the full sized Lydia, looking at the snow globes, suddenly realised she was crying. 

“Where’s your father?” said a voice behind her.

Lydia spun round, guiltily, to find Mr Krebs standing in the doorway of their flat. She swallowed, nervously, suddenly ashamed to be caught crying by Mr Krebs of all people.

“Been looking for your father,” he said, “You seen him?”

Lydia tried to say ‘no’, but the word caught in her throat and all she could do was shake her head.

“Don’t surprise me,” Mr Krebs shook his head too, but his was a weary, disapproving shake, “After what you said. In the paper.”

Lydia grabbed hold of the edge of the desk. Even Mr Krebs thought she had done the wrong thing.

“Shouldn’t have said that,” he said, “Not about your father. Done everything for you. Gave it all up. After she died,” he nodded over Lydia’s shoulder at the snow globes on the desk behind her, “Had nothing, no job, no money, nothing. But had you. That’s all he wanted.”

Mr Krebs looked down and shook his head again and then looked up straight at her. She held her breath.

“Shouldn’t have said any of that,” he said, “In the paper. They all helped. Everyone. Weren’t a job at the Olympic but M made him one. Wasn’t an apartment he could afford but we let him this one. That was my mother did that,” he added, fiercely, “Almost halved the rent. Shouldn’t have said that about them. About us. Shouldn’t have said that about him. He’s a good father. Gave it all up for you. Everything. A good father.”

Lydia could stand no more and ran, pushing past Mr Krebs, barely able to see her way down the stairs for the tears in her eyes, she ran, out of the apartment, out of the house, out into rainy town.

Lydia barely noticed where she was going as she ran through the streets, and she was crying so much she wouldn’t have been able to see anything anyway. She was running without thinking, just instinctively following the path she always took.

There is often a moment when you’re upset when you’re being upset just for the feeling of upsetness, when you surrender to the misery and awfulness completely. You almost forget what exactly you were upset about and the unhappiness becomes overwhelming. If one of those people she pushed past in the street, who wondered what the little girl was crying about, had stopped to ask her what the matter was, Lydia probably couldn’t have told them.

She would have sobbed at them loudly, gasping for breath, making gulping noises, but nothing that really made sense. Perhaps eventually she might have managed:

“They’re all so mean.”

She might not have been able to explain who they were or what they were being mean about, but that was definitely one of the things she was telling herself.

What she was telling herself was that it just wasn’t fair. She was only a little girl and everyone was being mean to her, for no reason. In fact, they had every reason not to be mean to her. All she had done was try and make everything more fun. Everything, everyone, had been boring and tiring and irritating and just doing the same old boring and tired and irritating thing over and over again and she had changed that, made it better. With her idea. She had had the idea, then she and Artie had tried to make it all work, to make things fun for everyone, but instead they had all just made everything more irritating and miserable.

But Artie would know what to do about it. If anyone could convince the others to see sense, that she hadn't meant what the newspaper had said, he could. If anyone could stop them being so cross and unhappy, it was Artie. After all, he did it before, why couldn't he do it again?

All she had to do was find him. And all of a sudden there she was: standing outside The Karmpus Department Store itself, people streaming in and out through the revolving doors. Well, why not? She had to start somewhere.

She let the crowd jostle her through the doors and into the gold and pink glittering kaleidoscope of the perfume department. Here the store attendants looked straight through her with their fixed smiles and the milling shoppers flowed unseeing around her, so she wandered aimlessly down the aisles unnoticed, lost in her own thoughts.

She was just approaching a bank of lifts when one of them opened and, of all people, Artie stepped out. She would have run to greet him but something made her stop. He was with some people - the fat man from Harry's Bar that Maggie had called Knudsen and, once again, the tall young man with a big beard.

"I tell you, Otto," Knudsen was saying in a loud voice, "It's not just the board that's glad to have you back, it's the staff, it's the building, even, you can feel it."

"Maybe you shouldn't have let me go in the first place if you're so glad to have me back," said Artie, "But I'm glad you saw sense. I'm glad to be back in the store."

"You won't be missing that draughty old apartment block you were staying in, I'll bet," said Knudsen.

"You know," said Artie, "I will. They were good people, talented people, good to work with, even as amateurs. I've had quite a Christmas so far, but it's about to get a whole lot better. This is home. This is where I belong."

"Glad to hear it," said Knudsen, shaking Artie's hand, "Glad to have you back, Otto. Welcome back to the Krampus, Krampus."

And he walked away laughing, brushing right past Lydia so that she had to shrink out of his way behind a cabinet full of eyeshadow.

"I'll be honest with you," Artie was saying to the man with the beard, "I will miss them - they taught me a lot, they got me excited again, got me thinking - but this, this is where that thinking gets put into action."

"As it should be," said the man.

"But first," said Artie, "I've been wanting to do this for ages.

He suddenly reached up and tugged hard at the man's beard, which came away entirely in his hand. The tall young man gasped in pain, his cheeks bright red, and Lydia knew where she had seen him before: Lesley Wande, the man Artie had once introduced her to as his old second in command.

"I'm going to have this ridiculous thing mounted," said Artie, waving the beard at Wande, "Treasured keepsake. Couldn't have done it without you old man."

"I knew you'd figure your way out of it, Mr Krampus," said Wande.

"And didn't I just?" said Artie, pressing the button to call the lift again, "A whole revolution in how we shop. I'm going to change things round here, my boy, from bottom to top. Never doubt it. You can put Otto Krampus in a broken old apartment block, down with all the nobodies, and he will rise again." The lift doors opened and he stepped in, "Going up!" he said, and was gone.