Short story: The Monster Under The Stairs

She had to take this momentous step – not just for her daughter, but for herself, too

Please will you come out from there Janie!’ I say, heart thumping and sweat prickling my skin.

‘No, Mummy. Staying in here,’ my four-year-old daughter responds.

I sit back on my heels in the middle of our messy,

child paraphernalia-filled hallway and try to take calming breaths. Janie isn’t allowed in the cupboard under the stairs. She’s never done this before. But then

I’ve never accidentally left the door open before.

I curse myself for being so careless. I’d been distracted for two minutes by someone at the door, and that had been enough. Now Janie is right at the back of the cupboard, just beyond my reach, refusing to come out.

I try to decide what to do next. Any other mother would just go in there and get her. But I can’t.

I never go in the cupboard under the stairs – even though I know it’s silly, even though I know I can’t get shut in.

The very thought hits me like a punch in the stomach and takes me right back to being Janie’s age. I slump back against the wall of the hallway, looking up at our coats hanging from their hooks by the door like resting

butterflies, and I try to think straight. But my mind goes back to that day…

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I had just turned four. My mother was in hospital and the house was worryingly quiet without her. My father was distracted and my older brother Jack was meant to be looking after me.

‘Where’s Tubby Teddy?’ I remember asking him.

At first, he just smiled – the sort of smile he did when he wanted to tease me.

I started to cry and said I was going to find Daddy.

‘No!’ he said. ‘Don’t do that. Daddy’s not meant to be disturbed while Mummy’s ill.’

‘But I want Tubby Teddy,’ I sobbed.

‘Oh, all right!’ he said. ‘He’s in the cupboard under the stairs.’

I was already frightened of enclosed spaces, but I wanted my teddy and I wasn’t going to be put off getting him.

So I went into the dark, unlit cupboard and shuffled my way to the back to find Tubby Teddy.

It was as I was turning round to come back out that I heard the door slam and I realised I was shut in. Jack had tricked me!

I howled so loudly, it must have sounded like a hundred banshees. It was

enough to bring Daddy downstairs to ask Jack what on earth he was doing. He

flung the door open and scooped me into his arms.

And, then the weirdest

thing… I realised Daddy had been crying. I’d never seen a grown-up cry before and it made my tummy tangle with fear. I’d thought it was because he was upset with me and Jack, and I blamed myself just as much for what had happened as I blamed Jack, though I couldn’t figure out why.

It wasn’t until much later that I understood.

Now, as I sit outside the cupboard under the stairs, I realised how profoundly that day affected all our lives.

It left Jack defensive for ages, and it left me with an abiding fear of enclosed spaces, especially the cupboard under the stairs – and not just in my parents’ house, but in any house.

Years on, our relationship has mended and now Jack’s a lovely big brother. But I still remember the damage done to our relationship that day.

Mum and Dad have healed and we’ve all picked ourselves up and carried on. But I’ve never forgotten seeing my dad in tears and how helpless it made me feel. I don’t ever want Janie to feel like that.

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‘Mummy, I can’t come out now,’ says Janie anxiously. ‘There’s a monster in the way.’ ‘A monster?’

‘Yes, like the one that’s sometimes under my bed.’

She’s been having bad dreams lately, insisting there’s a monster in her room. Now it’s under the stairs with her.

I know what I have to do. Holding my breath – and the panic – inside, I slide into the cupboard next to Janie.

‘I’ll protect you from the monster,’ I say. ‘Climb onto my lap and then it’ll know it can’t hurt you.’

She snuggles into me and I slowly realise that the fear and tension is sliding out of me as well as out of her.

I’m in the cupboard under the stairs! It’s a bit cramped because it’s not designed for people to get in. I’m in control of the door now, though. No-one can shut me in. And there’s nothing in here to be scared of. There never was.

There was just the trauma of being a small child and realising that bad things could happen – that Mummy could go into hospital to have a baby and come out without the little brother or sister we’d been promised.

And, worst of all, the realisation that Daddy, who protected us from everything, couldn’t protect us from that.

As I sit in the cupboard under the stairs, holding my own precious daughter, I let the tears flow. After all these years, it feels good.

THE END

helen M Walters, 2019

Any other mother would just go in there and get her. But I can’t