The Apartment Store #20

Chapter 10, Part 2; in which Lydia helps send The Olympic back in time

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 first thing that happened was that Artie went out into the square to find Maddie Sharpe to tell her that the Lydian was closing for the day. Lydia was surprised to hear him admit to her that they couldn’t cope with the number of people who had been coming and that they wouldn’t be opening so often anymore. But when she tried to remind him that everyone had been very keen to carry on, he just smiled and winked at her.

“Trust me, Lydia,” he said as they left Maddie interviewing the queue for the Delian, “I know what I’m doing. Scarcity breeds need.”

She had no idea what he was talking about, so she went to see what was happening at the Olympic.

They had cleared the front part of the store and John, George Joseph and Mr M were trying to manoeuvre the hot food counter from the rear of the store down through the aisles to the front.

Meanwhile Door, Fairuza and Mr Krebs were hauling odd bits of wood up from Mr Krebs’ store in the basement. Old doors, lengths of panelling, bits of wardrobes and cupboards were all collecting out the front of the Olympic.

“This will all need a new lick of paint,” said Mr Krebs, looking at what had once been a larder door.

“Don’t you dare,” said Door, “This is perfect, look at it, it just needs a scrub down, get rid of some of the flaking.”

“It’s all peeling and faded,” said Lydia, “There’s like three different layers of paint on it, all showing at once.”

“Exactly,” said Fairuza, “It feels authentic, like it’d been there for years.”

“I don’t get it,” said Lydia, “I mean I know Dad was just being difficult, but how’s that any more authentic than the Olympic already is?”

“He oughtn’t tease Artie, really,” said Fairuza, “Because he knows what he means. People say it to me all the time, when they’re asking me to design something for them. They say they want it to be authentic or genuine or proper. They use words like ‘real’. Thing is, when they say things like that, they don’t mean what things really look like, they mean what they think they ought to look like.”

“Like what they look like in movies or in pictures,” said Lydia.

“That’s right - not how things are but how they’re depicted,” said Fairuza, “If I asked you to draw a house, you’d draw a little square with a triangle roof and a door and a couple of windows. You don’t live in a house like that, you’ve never lived in a house like that. You live in the Lydian. But that’s what a house looks like in your head. When people think of a grocery store, they don’t think of the Lydian, they think of the grocery store that was drawn in a picture book they had when they were a kid with crates of fruit and a bright red and white awning and a cheerful shopkeeper in an apron.”

“It’d be a pig shopkeeper,” said Lydia, thinking of a picture book she had had once.

“Well, I’m not sure we’d be able to persuade Mr M into that,” said Fairuza, laughing, “But we can try and make it look a little more like a shop in someone’s imagination, maybe.”

They used all the old bits of wood Mr Krebs had found to build a wall clear across the shop, so that the only way into the crowded aisles was from behind the counter. Instead of a dim maze of aisles, the Olympic was suddenly a small room, one wall nothing but a jigsaw of different bits of wood, on parts of which Door was writing lists of everything they had in stock.

But it was now also a cozy, colourful little space. All the bits of wood were different textures and hues, in a crazy patchwork. Fairuza had found some crates and filled them with fruit, making bright squares of oranges and apples and bananas. The food counter had a warm glow and filled the room with the smell of brewing coffee and and warm pastries. Beside it were the spinner racks of books and cheap toys. At the other end of the room, behind the till, the shelves were now full of sweets and common items: sugar and tea and bread.

Outside Mr Krebs had managed to prop the awning up and give it something of a wipe down and Fairuza had filled the windows with posters and paintings of food and fairy lights. It was getting dark now and in the gathering gloom the Olympic was suddenly a glowing, welcoming vision.

Lydia was standing on the pavement looking at it in wonder when she heard a car draw up at the kerb behind her. She turned round to find Mrs Mountjoy climbing out.

“Ah, it’s the marvellous little Lydia,” said Mrs Mountjoy, “I heard a terrible rumour.”

“Good evening, Mrs Mountjoy,” said Lydia.

“There was a rumour,” said Mrs Mountjoy, “I never listen to rumours but I do find there is so often a grain of truth in them. A little bird told me the Lydian was closing. Such a shame, such a shame. I thought it was such a brave idea. Brave and noble and so clever. I thought I would come, you see. I was your first customer, after all, wasn’t I?”

“You were,” said Lydia, “It was so exciting.”

“It was, it was so exciting,” said Mrs Mountjoy, rummaging in her handbag, “Would you like a boiled sweet? Such a shame. So exciting to have been there at the start and such a shame to be here at the end.”

“Oh, but it isn’t the end,” said Lydia, “We’re not closed. Well, we are, but not for long, we were doing Mr M’s shop, you see, the Olympic, making it nicer.”

She stopped, suddenly worried that she was saying the wrong thing, making it sound like it hadn’t been nice. She tried to think what Artie might say.

“We wanted to make it special, like the rest of the apartment store, you see.”

“Special, yes, that was precisely what I said when they told me you had closed,” said Mrs Mountjoy, “I said it was such a shame because it was such a special place. Eleanor, that’s Mrs Brownlow, you know, said she didn’t think it could be because when she tried to come, after I told her about my visit, she couldn’t get in because it was so busy, but I told her that that just showed how special it was. How lovely everyone was, you know, how special you all made me feel.”

Lydia had an idea.

“Why don’t you come in now?” she said, “After all, you were the first person to come to the store. Why don’t you come in and see what we’ve done, I’m sure you’ll love it. It’s wonderful.”

“Wonderful!” said Mrs Mountjoy, “Oh yes, a peek behind the scenes. A special opening. How wonderful.”

Inside the Olympic Lydia’s father was still drawing things on the wall in chalk, Fairuza was arranging things in the window, Mr Krebs was smoothing off odd bits of wood with a plane and Artie and Mrs M were stringing fairy lights along the wall behind the food counter. They all stopped as the door opened, the bell rang and Mrs Mountjoy stepped in.

“Oh, how wonderful,” she said, before she’d even had a look around.

“Mrs Mountjoy,” said Artie, surprised, “Well, this is a lovely surprise.”

“Little Lydia was just telling me all about the changes you were making,” said Mrs Mountjoy, “And very kindly invited me in. I do hope I’m not disturbing you. Please do carry on.”

“We’re remodelling,” said Artie.

“Welcome to the Olympic,” said Mr M, who appeared to be about to make a speech.

“We are a traditional grocery store,” said Mrs M, cutting him off, “There isn’t another one like it in the city.”

“It’s darling,” said Mrs Mountjoy, “So…” she looked around at the small, wood panelled room, “…cosy.”

“Anything you want,” continued Mrs M, “You ask Mr M and he will find it for you.”

“Oh, I see,” said Mrs Mountjoy, slowly realising what she meant, “I see what you mean. Oh, how lovely, you know, I remember going to shops like that with my mother when I was very small, smaller than you Lydia, which was a very long time ago now, you know.”

“Surely not that long,” said Artie, gallantly.

“You are a dear,” said Mrs Mountjoy, “Yes, she would go in with her list and read it out to the shopkeeper, you know, and he would bustle about fetching everything down and weighing it out. How lovely. You know, it’s like being a little girl again. All those shelves full of lovely things, not at all like a supermarket, having to bash your way around with a horrid trolley, you know. All kinds of things you never see any more.”

“You want a thing, anything,” said Mr M, “You ask me. I will have it. Anything.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mrs Mountjoy, “No, yes I do. There were these tins of sardines, you know, we’d have them for tea. These little tins all wrapped up in this lovely bright paper with some strange writing on them. It was Portuguese, I suppose.”

“We have them!” cried Mr M, triumphantly, “Door! Third aisle along.”

“I know them,” said Door, dropping his chalk and clambering over the till counter, “Two shelves in, right at the bottom.”

And he disappeared through the door behind the counter. Moments later he was back with a handful of tins.

“We’ve got three kinds of wrapping,” he said, breathlessly, “Blue and red and green and silver and these yellow ones.”

“Oh,” said Mrs Mountjoy, picking up the tin wrapped in green and silver paper, “The silver fishes, that’s what I remember. How wonderful you should have them.”

“That’s…” began Mr M, advancing on the till.

“A present,” interrupted Artie, “From the Lydian to our oldest customer.”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” said Mrs Mountjoy, catching sight of Mr M’s scowl.

“Well,” said Artie, “Let’s put them on your account, and settle it all up on your next visit, shall we? You will be coming back, won’t you?”

“Oh, of course I shall,” said Mrs Mountjoy, “You are all so lovely. It is all so lovely.”

“And now we have the good luck,” continued Artie, “To have this new shop opposite, you see. It’s just an offshoot of the Krampus, really, but what it does do is draw the crowds, you see, letting us concentrate on our more treasured customers.”

“You must tell everyone,” said Lydia, “Tell them that we’re not closed at all.”

“Oh, I shall,” said Mrs Mountjoy, “I shall tell them all that the rumours of the demise are much exaggerated, that you’re all still here and just as special as ever.”