Читать книгу The One That Got Away - My Life Living with Fred and Rose West - Caroline Roberts - Страница 11

I FIRST MET Fred and Rose West in early September 1972. I had been hitchhiking back from Tewkesbury after seeing my boyfriend Tony, whom I had met at the annual Tewkesbury Ham Fair. We had been seeing each other for two months by then. I was nearly seventeen years old; he was six months younger than me, but seemed really mature for his age.

Tony was a skinhead and well respected by the older boys in the town. The relationship was still in its early days and we weren’t lovers. In fact, Tony was such a cool dude that I wasn’t really sure where I stood with him, but I was hoping it would become a long-term relationship.

I was used to hitchhiking everywhere – lots of young girls did it – and with Tony not driving yet, it was easier for me to travel to him. Most of the time I took a friend with me and we would hang around the town with Tony and his mate Rob. Sometimes we would go to discos in the town hall or sit in the café drinking Coke and chatting. Then, at about 10.30pm, I would stand opposite the Gupshil Manor, on the edge of town, and say good night.

Tony would go back to his lodgings, leaving me to get myself a lift home to Cinderford. The journey home was some twenty-five miles, which I usually made in two lifts. The first lift took me the ten miles to Gloucester, and then I’d get another lift from the Westgate Bridge, which was fifteen miles to Cinderford.

That night in September 1972, I remember noticing the grey-coloured Ford Popular going in the opposite direction just minutes before it pulled up alongside me. At first I was a little worried in case two men were inside, but when I saw there was a girl in the passenger seat I relaxed.

The girl rolled down the window and asked me where I was going. As I bent down to tell her, I noticed that the driver was leaning over, looking at me. He looked quite scruffy and much older than the girl who, I guessed, was my age. They offered me a lift and, feeling it was a safe ride, I accepted. The girl got out and lifted her seat so I could get into the rear seat of the two-door car.

Straight away, they started chatting and telling me their names: Fred and Rose West. I was surprised that they were married; I wouldn’t have fancied someone like him, and she was pretty. I felt she could have done a lot better for herself, but they seemed happy and he was quite charming, in a roguish kind of way.

During the first part of the journey they questioned me a lot, asking about where I had been and who with, and did I have a job. I told them that I had been away to Portsmouth for six months and that I had to come back because my stepfather had suffered a heart attack, and was very ill though he had pulled through.

I explained to them that Alf was the reason I had gone away in the first place. I told them that we had never got on and that I had felt he was always on my case, always finding fault with me. As soon as he became ill, I revealed, I had wanted to get to him, hoping we would get on better but we had soon started arguing again and things were back to being tense at home, so I spent most of my time out of the house avoiding him. I mentioned to Fred and Rose that Alf had started nagging me because I didn’t have a job and how he called he me lazy, saying I would never make anything of myself, and would most probably end up pregnant and living off the government. I had looked for a job, but I felt I was not capable of getting anything decent.

After I had finished explaining this to the pair of them, they both looked each other in the eye and then, at the same time, both said, ‘We need a nanny to look after our three daughters.’

They went on to tell me that they lived in a big house in Cromwell Street, Gloucester, and that if I wanted the job I could move in with them. They offered me £8 a week plus free board and lodgings.

I told them I would have to talk to my mum about it first, and that she would want to meet them first before anything could be decided. They said they would be happy to meet my parents and with that they drove me all the way home so that they would know where I lived and said that they would come back on the Sunday afternoon to meet my parents. I wasn’t sure how my mum would react to Fred, as he was quite rough looking. I hoped he would make the effort to look tidier when he came round, though as it turned out he didn’t.

When they arrived, after dinner on the Sunday, they had the three girls with them; I instantly fell in love with them, especially little Heather. I could tell from the look on Mum’s face that she was not impressed by Fred’s appearance. He noticed it too, and quickly apologised for having to come in his working clothes. He said he was working all hours, and that was why Rose needed some help around the house and with the demanding job of looking after the children. Rose left most of the talking to Fred, who reassured my mum that he would look after me and keep a fatherly eye on me. Meanwhile, Rose chatted to my younger brothers and sisters.

Alf popped into the room just once while they were there. He looked Fred up and down, then he looked at Rose, who gave him a smile. He smiled back and said, ‘Make sure she doesn’t run wild,’ then went back out to his shed and his DIY.

The next day, I moved into 25 Cromwell Street, a three-storey townhouse just 300 yards from the park that had held bad memories for me; the park that I would not be taking the children to during my time at their home. It didn’t take me long to get acquainted with the West household and to form my own opinions about them all.

At 31 years of age, Fred West was a big man trapped in a little man’s body. He clearly thought of himself as a gynaecologist and Warren Beatty lookalike all rolled into one; the surgeon and the stud. The reality was that he worked in a factory, doing the occasional odd job on the side. This budding ‘surgeon’ bragged that he had performed abortions for girls in trouble; according to him, they were usually so grateful to him that they would offer themselves to him for his sexual pleasures as soon as the foetus was removed. ‘I’ve had thousands of women,’ he told me; they would, he claimed, fall at his feet.

Fred West’s incessant bragging was at best annoying and at worst sickening. According to him, he was God’s gift to women. ‘Once you’d been with Freddie, you wouldn’t go anywhere else,’ he’d say. How true this was to prove.

In reality, Fred West was a short little man with piercing blue eyes, a flat, wonky nose and thick lips that hid a gap in his front teeth. Not at all attractive. His mop of hair was gypsy-like – dark and curly. All he needed was a scarf around his head and one of those big loop earrings in his ear and he would have been transformed into Gypsy Rose Lee. He was never tidy, his favourite outfit being jeans, a check shirt and a donkey jacket. I couldn’t see how anyone would find him attractive, except perhaps someone simple or needy.

At nineteen years of age, the words that best described Rose would be ‘simple-minded’. In spite of this, she was quite a pretty girl, two years older than me, with dark wavy hair and big brown doe eyes. Rose had a whiny, drippy way of talking that, at times, I found very grating, but not half as irritating as when she yelled at her little ones. That high-pitched scream emitted by Rose made me wince. Her ear-bursting howls would stun me into silence, much as it did the eldest child in their home, eight-year-old Anna-Marie. (Later to rename herself Anne-Marie.) While two-year-old Heather and four-month-old May (later changed to Mae) would also instantly shut up at the sound of that scream, this only worked on them for a minute or two; they were not old enough yet to be smacked around the head, as Anna-Marie was.

Anna-Marie was Fred’s daughter from a previous marriage. Heather and May were Fred and Rose’s daughters. I was told by Anna-Marie that she had a big sister called Charmaine who had ‘gone away’, back to Scotland with her mother; Fred’s first wife, Rena, was a Scottish lass. Fred told me that he wouldn’t let Rena take Anna-Marie with her because she was not a ‘fit mother’. As for Charmaine, she was of mixed heritage, but that was a different story. Fred was not Charmaine’s father; her biological father was of Asian origin.

Anna-Marie looked like a pretty version of her father, but that was where the likeness ended. Unlike her father, she was quiet and shy, a child who, to me, always looked sad. I felt quite sorry for her as she worked around the house, fetching and carrying like a little skivvy. If she sulked, she got yelled at or caught a back-hander off Rose, who obviously cared more for her own daughters; she looked on Anna-Marie as her slave.

When Anna-Marie cried, she cried quietly to herself for fear of further punishment at Rose’s hands. Fred, on the other hand, never smacked her; sometimes he would wink at her, when Rose wasn’t looking, as if to reassure her that she would be OK.

I didn’t like or approve of the way Rose sometimes behaved towards Anna, and I often got Anna to do something to help me around the house so as to get her away from Rose if she was in a bad mood, though Rose was always nice to me. Rose thought I was very pretty and she loved my hair, which she often played with as we sat watching TV. She thought I had beautiful eyes too and often complimented me on my looks. We became friends and I liked her – until I got to know the real Rose and saw her dark side.

It was because of the children that I ended up living with this odd couple – that and a schoolgirl dream of being a ‘nanny’. That dream didn’t quite match the scenario of living with the Wests in Cromwell Street though. My dream included a rich family, with whom I would travel the world. I’d have my own big room with a TV and a record player, and the children would be beautiful and behave like angels.

With the Wests, I got only one part of my dream – the children were indeed little angels. Two decades later, I would find out, along with the rest of the world, that they were ‘angels born out of demons’.

I had been disappointed when I found out I would not be getting my own bedroom at Cromwell Street; instead, I would be sharing with Anna-Marie on the first floor, in the back bedroom. I was surprised that some of the rooms upstairs were actually rented out as bedsits, and even more taken aback to find that the some of the lodgers were a group of male hippies.

One of the lodgers, Ben, was just a year older than me; he was tall and handsome with long brown hair – he was gorgeous! The first time I saw Ben I developed a crush on him. One day Ben invited me up to his room. I wasn’t used to smoking cannabis, but as we lay on the floor chatting I didn’t want to appear immature, so I smoked a joint with him and listened to music. He kissed me and I responded, feeling relaxed by the infusion of drugs, and we ended up having sex. Afterwards I fell asleep on the floor in his arms.

Later I woke to find someone, an occasional visitor to the house, climbing on top of me. I was still lying on the floor and this man was attempting to have intercourse with me! I told him to get off and leave me alone. He became verbally abusive towards me. Fortunately Ben woke up and told the man to leave me alone.

I felt so ashamed of myself as I crept back into my room and quietly cried myself to sleep. Somehow Fred and Rose got to know about what had happened that night and tried to talk to me about it, but it was something I wanted to forget.

Fred suggested that Tony, my boyfriend, should stay once a week, the night before he had college. It would save him having to ride his pushbike from Tewkesbury to Gloucester early in the morning and we would get some time to ourselves. On these nights, Tony helped me with the children while Fred and Rose went out, either for a drink or to do a bit of work on the side, with Rose labouring for her husband. Tony and I became once-a-week lovers, but my guilt about what had happened with the lodgers had left deep-seated emotional scars and made me feel cheap. Sex with Tony became a chore; I just went through the motions when it should have been something special.

I had one more lover while I was living at Cromwell Street, and this time it was the Wests who had fixed it up. An old flame from Portsmouth, whom had I continued writing to, wrote saying he would like to visit me on my seventeenth birthday. The old flame was Steve Riddall. He was quite snobby and loved himself; I used to fancy him like mad. I didn’t expect him to show up – he never had before – so when he arrived at Cromwell Street, I was gobsmacked.

Fred and Rose tried to chat to Steve, but I could see he was looking down his nose at them, so I suggested we went out for a drink on our own. (‘What are you doing living with those two weirdos?’ he asked me when we were out of the house.) When we got back, Rose told me, ‘You can use our room tonight, I’ve changed the bedding for you.’

That night I nervously got into bed still wearing my undies and a T-shirt, not wanting Steve to see my body. Within minutes he had them off and was making love to me … properly. Steve was a skilled lover with plenty of experience. That night I had my first ever orgasm. He laughed at me when I told him ‘something strange has happened to me’. ‘I feel all funny,’ I said. ‘My legs have gone stiff and a strange, but nice, feeling has come over me and my heart’s thumping so much I think I’m having a heart attack.’

‘That’s an orgasm,’ he told me, still laughing.

Next morning, I saw Steve off at the train station. I never saw him again, though we kept in touch by letter for another year until he stopped replying.

When I got back to the house, Rose asked me how it went with Steve. I told her about my orgasm and how I had never really enjoyed sex before, but that now I knew what all the fuss was about, now I understood why she enjoyed it so much. I didn’t mind telling Rose about it – it was girlie talk – but I was annoyed when, later that day, I discovered that she had told Fred everything I had told her during our chat. He used to make everything to do with sex seem smutty, when in my mind it had been a beautiful experience.

Living in the West household was beginning to get me down. I soon realised that Steve was right; they were a weird lot after all!

One night, a tall, buxom blonde girl named Dee came to the house and, as I opened the door to her, she started shouting and swearing at me, accusing me of stealing her babysitting job. Fred came to the door and led her into their bedroom, trying to calm her down, and Rose followed. After ten minutes, all three of them came into the living room and Dee apologised to me.

Rose made a cup of tea and they sat around laughing and joking with Dee, who obviously knew them well. Dee asked me if I would like to go out with her that night to the Jamaican Club. Her boyfriend was in a reggae band and they were rehearsing there. At first I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. I was wary of black men – the only ones I had spoken to were the two that regularly visited the house once or twice a week and, even then, I hardly spoke to them. One of the visiting black men was old and went off somewhere with Rose as soon as he arrived. The other of the two was young and always had a silly grin on his face, but seemed quite nice. His name was Roy and I used to make him a cup of tea while he waited to see Rose, whom I innocently believed was a masseuse at that time. They were both friends of Fred’s so I never suspected that they were having affairs with Rose in her home, with her husband around.

That night, Fred and Rose both urged me to go out with Dee to the club and, against my better judgement, I took Dee up on her offer. I found Dee to be very loud and embarrassing. Every other word that she spoke was an expletive – but who was I to look down on her after my behaviour? Since moving in with the Wests, I had taken on some new lovers and discovered the satisfaction of an orgasm.

When we got to the club, the band were already packing their equipment away out the back. There were about seven of them altogether, including the one that Dee pointed out to me as her boyfriend. I sat nervously at the bar next to an old man; he tried to make conversation with me. Dee went outside to see her boyfriend and was gone for ages. I tried to be polite and talk to this old-timer, but I couldn’t understand much of what he was saying in his strong Jamaican accent.

One of the boys came up to me and asked me to go outside too, but something didn’t feel quite right about him, or the others, so I said, ‘No, it’s OK, I’ll wait here for Dee.’

After a while, Dee came back in. Her hair was messed up and her clothes were dishevelled.

I left the club and as soon as I got out of the door my instincts told me to run! I knew that I wasn’t safe there. As I ran, I heard some of the boys shouting at me to come back. I looked around and they all started running after me. I darted off and ran as fast as I could. My lungs were on fire from the exertion and my eyes were bursting with the fear. By the time I could see 25 Cromwell Street, only one of the black men was still chasing me. As I hit the door of the Wests’ home, he gave up, turned around and walked off back in the direction of the club.

I told Fred and Rose about it, expecting them to go to the club to see if Dee was all right, but they seemed to think it was funny. All Fred wanted to know was how many men there had been. I went to bed feeling lucky that I had escaped and got in safely.

The next day, while Fred was at work and Rose was out shopping, Dee called round. She told me how she had got to know Fred when he came to her workplace for DIY materials. Fred had invited her and her Jamaican boyfriend back to the house for some supper.

Dee asked, ‘Has Rose tried it on with you yet?’

‘No! She hasn’t,’ I retorted with a tone of indignity to my voice.

‘She will,’ Dee predicted, as she winked at me.

I replied, ‘Rose has never tried it on with me, and if she does I’d be out of here.’

‘Rose likes women, you know. She’ll have you in bed before long,’ Dee said.

It was Dee that first made me suspicious about Rose and Fred, but I think by then I already thought they had a strange sort of marriage, what with Rose giving massages and Fred going with her.

After Dee’s revelations, I started to look at all the visitors in a different light – the old Polish guy they had bought the house from, the old black man, even nice Roy no longer seemed so nice. In my mind’s eye, I started to look upon Fred’s brother, John West, who called around every teatime, with suspicion too. I began to watch him out of the corner of my eye as he chatted to Fred at the kitchen table, and many a time I caught him looking me up and down. John was quiet, not like Fred, but I remember my mum telling me, ‘The quiet ones are always the worst.’

I started to think of the times Rose had come into the bathroom while I was bathing. She always had an excuse, like needing the baby soap or that she was dying for a pee. She always stayed for a minute or two, talking to me. I had found it highly embarrassing but, naively, I never thought she was just coming in to look at my body.

From then on, I would put something in front of the door so I’d have time to get out and grab a towel before she came in. I began to be suspicious of everyone in that house, and realised it was not a safe place at all for a young girl to be. I thought of the smutty conversations that went on between them all and realised they were all bonded together in an unhealthy way.

Then, one day, Fred started talking about sex to me again. This time he revealed to me, ‘Anna’s not a virgin, you know!’

‘What do you mean, she’s not a virgin?’ I replied accusingly.

I looked across at little Anna-Marie, who was sat quietly watching television, and caught her darting a look at her father, then to me. Then she lowered her eyes back at the television screen.

Surprised by the venom in my tone, Fred quickly added, ‘Oh, the saddle came off her bike and she sat down on the bar and it went up inside her. She was messed up for a while, but at least she’ll not have any pain now when she has sex.’

I looked at Anna again and saw that she was blushing. That told me she was most probably being sexually abused – by her own father. As if Fred had read my thoughts, he changed the subject and got on to the subject of my sex life and abortions again, telling me that if I got pregnant he would ‘sort me out’ – he would abort the baby and save me having my stepfather finding out what a naughty girl I was. He went on to say that Tony needn’t know anything about it, especially as it might not be his baby, the way I’d been bed-hopping recently.

Winking at me, he said, ‘It will be our little secret.’

What he really meant was, ‘You keep my secret and I’ll keep yours.’ In other words, it was blackmail. Fred had sussed me out. He knew I wouldn’t want Mum, my stepfather or Tony to know what I had been up to; he knew I felt ashamed, and that was to be his hold over me.

I went up to my room with Anna and read to her till she fell asleep. I watched her sleep and wondered if my fears for her were real. How could anyone hurt her? She was just a baby.

That night, I couldn’t sleep for worrying and decided I would stop Tony from coming to the house. I would keep him away from Fred and the horrible truth about me and my sexual encounters.

The next day, while I sat on the sofa feeding May, I heard Fred and Rose whispering together in the kitchen. When I put May down in her pram, they both came and sat down either side of me. Fred said, ‘We’ve got something to ask you, Caroline. We’d like you to join our “sex circle”. You like sex now, so how about it?’

To say I was shocked would be an understatement! Trying not to sound as scared as I felt, I asked, ‘What do you mean “sex circle”?’

Fred replied, ‘You know – me, you, Rose. You like Rose, don’t you?’

I didn’t answer that question. Fred went on, ‘Yeah, you, me and Rose and a few men friends of ours, you’d enjoy it. You haven’t tried a black man yet, have you? You wouldn’t want a white man again after being spoilt by a black man, they have bigger dicks, you know, and they know how to fuck. They’d fuck the arse off you. How about it then, are you game for it?’

I couldn’t believe that Rose was sitting there letting him speak to me like that. I tried to make light of it and giggled. ‘Tell him to behave, Rose.’

But Rose was grinning at me. Nudging me in the side with her elbow, she said, ‘Oh, go on, Car, you’ll enjoy it, give it a try.’

I could see it wasn’t a joke. He was serious and so was Rose. I told them I wasn’t into that kind of thing, but they weren’t convinced, so I lost my temper and told them I thought I should leave and go back home.

Then Fred got nasty and snarled, ‘Do you want me to tell your mum and Tony what you’ve been up to, ’cause if I do they won’t want anything to do with you any more, will they? And that stepfather of yours won’t want you back living in his house, will he?’

I started to cry, feeling trapped – and I only had myself to blame for behaving like a little slut. Rose put her arm around me and told me to think about it. Fred got up and left, muttering something about ‘fucking lesbians’, telling Rose to have it sorted by the time he came back.

Rose had a visitor and went to her room with him, leaving me downstairs feeling sorry for myself. While she was still busy, Roy, one of the two black men who had called to see Rose earlier in the week, came round. He said hello to me and I just burst into tears, much to his embarrassment.

I wondered if he was a member of the sex circle, so when he asked me what was wrong I told him of the obscene thing that Fred and Rose had asked me to do. He seemed genuinely sorry for me and asked me if I would like him to take me home, so I sneaked up to my room, packed what few belongings I had and Roy drove me back home to Cinderford.

When I arrived home, Mum was surprised to see me and asked me why I’d left the Wests. I told her that I hadn’t got on with Fred, and left it at that.