As a child, did you have a recurrent nightmare? I did, night after night after night, it seems to me now. Reading this now I can’t recall the intense fear of childhood or capture it in writing but I wish I had taken the fears of my own children more seriously; they were surely as real as anything else in life.

Safe at Home

Our living room is a warm, safe room; I play there when I’m not outside. It’s not like the best front room. The front room should really be called the back room; it’s down the hall at the back of the house. It’s always cold. It’s only used at Christmas or when special visitors come, or when I’m ill but not in bed and the doctor is coming. No matter how ill I am my mum makes sure I have a wash and my hair is combed if the doctor’s coming. I don’t like the front room or the long dark hall I have to go down to get to it. Even at Christmas when all my toys are spread out I don’t like being in there on my own. But the living room, with the curtains drawn against the dark, the centre light shining bright, the back-boiler fire lit and warming every corner, I like the living room then. Best of all I like it when my mother and elder brother are there with me, as they are now.

The radio is on and ‘Journey into Space’ has just finished; tomorrow it’s ‘Riders of the Range’ I think. The wallpaper is shabby, the carpet is worn but I don’t notice or care. My mother is sitting listening to the radio, my brother is seated at the dark-wood table in the corner and I’m just playing on the floor and on Mars.

I feel warm and safe playing and talking to my soldiers. I don’t really listen to the radio except now and again when it gets really exciting. I don’t listen to the words my mother and brother exchange either but a tiny bit of me is always listening, not to the words but to the mood. Even in this room, sometimes, the mood isn’t nice; sometimes it’s angry and I get frightened. Tonight though it’s alright; no-one’s angry tonight.

Then everything changes and I feel funny inside. I think I hear something, very faint at first, a sound coming from the back of the house, a kind of thumping/clumping noise. I look up. My mother and brother don’t seem to have heard anything. Reassured, I go back to my game.

But then I hear another thump, louder this time and another sound, as if….. as if something is being dragged down the stairs. I look again at the two of them. This time they have heard it too and are listening. They glance at each other.

“I thought I heard something.” my big brother says quietly, trying to sound unconcerned. But he’d looked at me quickly as he spoke and I’m not fooled.

They both look at me and at each other.  They look worried, almost…….. frightened. What could hurt us, here at home with doors locked against the night? Nothing outside can hurt us. Perhaps it’s not outside…perhaps it’s here, in the house?

I look at them and know that they are nervous, no not nervous, frightened, more than frightened…….they are terrified. My mother seems to shrink into herself. She grips the arms of her chair and says, “It’s him. He’s coming.”

They look at me and I know that he is coming……… for me.

“Turn the radio off and get him under the table”, says my mother, ashen-faced, her hand to her throat, fear and desperation in her voice.

My heart hammering against my ribs seems loud enough for the world to hear. I crawl under the table, pressing myself into the corner of the room and, shaking, hide my face against the wall. I realise that they cannot save me; not from this.

The steady thud and drag grows louder; someone with the heavy tread and drag of a limping man, trailing a leg behind him is coming for me.

Outside the door the footsteps halt and there is a pause – he’s listening. The handle slowly turns and my nightmare comes into the room. No-one speaks. The only sounds are my beating heart and the whoosh of blood pounding in my head. Then I hear him drag his maimed leg into the middle of the room, feel him look in turn at my mother and brother, asking silently, “Where is he?” They cower in his gaze but do not betray me…not yet at least. Finally he turns and drags his way out, leaving the door open and I hear his heavy footfall down the hall and slowly, so slowly, back up the stairs.

And it’s all over, as if nothing has happened. My brother hurries to close the door and mother and brother relax and smile as I emerge from under the table. The radio goes back on and I am safe again. It is as if nothing had happened or it had all been a terrible dream. Perhaps, perhaps it has been just a dream, not real, not real at all. What else explains the easy way everything is back to the way it was? If that horror had been real they will talk, will plan, will do something about the thing at the top of the stairs. So I too slowly relax as the palette of our family life is painted over my fears. I go back to playing on the floor and my mother and brother exchange looks and smiles at things I don’t understand.

As the programme ends my mother straightens up, looks at me and says, “Right young man, time for bed.”

I don’t want to go upstairs but can’t tell them I’m afraid because they are pretending it didn’t happen. I protest, of course I protest. ‘I’m not tired’, ‘It’s early’, and finally, I cry. Down here I’m safe but not up there in the dark with ‘him’. My tears are brushed aside. ‘Don’t be silly’ and ‘Stop all this childish nonsense’. Patience and good humour give way to irritation and I am bustled, sobbing and hysterical up to bed. Teeth brushed, hands and face given a cursory wipe and I’m tucked in. “Goodnight” she says as the light switch clicks and I’m left in the dark. I hear her retreating footsteps on the stairs and then listen so intently to the quiet that it seems to have a noise of its own. I can hear nothing from downstairs which surely means they can’t hear me from upstairs either. Slowly, oh so slowly, I begin to wind down and steady. It didn’t happen…I made it all up, there’s no-one here.

And then a faint sound from somewhere near the landing and then silence. I listen in the velvet dark and hear…..nothing…..and then, quietly at first but getting ever louder, the terrible sound of a leg being dragged slowly up the stairs. It’s happening again, except, this time I’m alone and there is no table to hide under. I can’t make a sound, daren’t call for help – he’s between me and them and they won’t come, would be too frightened to come even if they heard me. They were brave enough to hide me once but not to save me. Instead they have sent me to him. I am alone, in the dark and he is coming for me. He has been waiting, knowing that in time I would be given up; that had been the unspoken agreement reached as I cowered under the table.

Again I hear the blood whooshing through my head and the clamour of a thudding heart. I‘m too frightened to breathe, too frightened to move, too frightened to scream…and there really is no-one to scream to, no-one to scream for. No help will come.

Then, with a start I do wake up and……. I am alone. He’s not here. He’s not anywhere. There is no him. It was a nightmare, just a silly dream. It wouldn’t happen, couldn’t happen. Silly to think they would be afraid, silly to think they wouldn’t protect me. Relief floods through me. I am safe and nothing has happened. He hasn’t come for me and there is nothing to be afraid of except……I am alone, in bed in the dark, and I can hear no sound from below. I listen and I hear something, some sound, faint but definite coming from outside my room.

Afterthought

Adults have different nightmares to deal with…….