Gangsters' Wives (14 page)

My parents didn’t go to see the film at the time, which I was quite relieved about, although my dad has seen it since. I warned him it was quite violent, but he seemed to take it in his stride. My mum still hasn’t seen it. She wouldn’t like it, and I think it’s probably best she doesn’t go too deeply into that side of Carlton’s life.

I think in some ways I’m also guilty of burying my head in the sand about the violence in his past. There are a lot of things I’d rather be kept in the dark about. I just tell Carlton that I don’t want to know about those things. Even today, if there was anything going on I’d probably rather not know about it. Anyway, even though it sounds horrible, if anything like that
was
still happening now, I know it wouldn’t actually be Carlton himself doing those things. I say to him: ‘I don’t want that coming in my house.’ Carlton knows there are certain things I don’t agree with. He knows I don’t want to be living my life through money earned in violent ways. That’s not what I want.

When the film came out there was a lot of publicity and since then Carlton does get recognised a lot. We can go to the supermarket, and people will come up to him. It’s actually quite sweet normally, they’ll say, ‘Oh, you’re that man from the film’. They’re always quite friendly.

In some ways I can’t understand it though – that whole ‘celebrity’ side of his life. The idea that he’s got fans is just weird to me. As far as I’m concerned, he’s just Carlton. But I know there are people who are interested in that way of life and who buy those kinds of books and see those films and obviously think he’s someone.

To be honest, I think it’s bizarre that people become celebrities from doing violent things. But with Carlton, he’s also got the likeability factor. He’s friendly. He’s not a miserable sod. He’s funny. But sometimes I do look at him when he’s doing one of his shows or book signings and think: But what have you actually done?

I suppose people are into that whole gangster thing at the moment. It’s cool. People are always curious about the ‘other side’ of life and it’s intriguing to them. I guess everyone has different interests. For some people, reading about all this stuff is almost like a hobby. I like horse riding, they like gangsters. At the end of the day they’re the people who buy the tickets. But it is glamorising it. People see films and documentaries, all this stuff about money and everything, and they’re really fascinated by it. They’re won over by the lifestyle they imagine these people are leading.

Carlton loves the attention. He goes round doing these shows where they talk about the film and sign books and have photos taken with people in the audience. But then he comes home and it’s just normal. I wouldn’t have him coming home all big-headed and swanning around. I’d say, ‘Did you have a nice time? Now how about getting into the kitchen and starting dinner?’ Everyone likes to be adored. But it brings out the show-off in him – then I think it’s my job to make him grounded. Sometimes it makes me laugh because the people who see the shows or the films must think we lead this fabulous life with non-stop champagne and parties. People see the films and they think we must be loaded. They don’t think about the mortgage and the bills we’ve got to pay.

I’ve got my head screwed on financially. That comes from my upbringing. My parents were very much of the opinion: ‘if you can’t afford it, you’ve got to save up for it’. In that way I think I’ve been quite good for Carlton. Since we’ve been together I’ve been keeping his spending under control. I’ve been saying, ‘Come on, you can’t buy this or that. How much have we got …’

When we met he didn’t have a mortgage or anything like that. It was day-to-day living. I thought: Well, if that’s how you want to live your life, that’s fine, but you’re not getting any younger, you need to be putting towards something. So now he‘s a little bit more sensible. He always makes sure everything is paid, before splashing out on anything. If I was the kind of person who was always wanting things and asking for things, he’d never say, ‘No, you can’t have that’, but then he’d be like, ‘Well, now I’ve got to go and do X to pay for that’. Whereas I’d rather wait until we can afford it.

Carlton has six kids from previous relationships to support financially as well. He was quite open about his kids right from the first date, although I admit it was a bit of a shock when he first told me. ‘You’ve got
how
many kids?’ I asked him, completely stunned. The way I deal with it is to group them into those who are grown-up and those who are still ‘children’ – that way it’s easier to cope with. Obviously they’re all still his children, but the younger children are the ones I have the main contact with – they come to the house and they stay or whatever. The older ones are more independent – if they want to come and see him, they come and see him. His eldest son is older than me but with the younger children you’ve got to be patient and build up a relationship. Like all kids they’ll try it on sometimes, but I think they know the boundaries now and it’s all fine.

Carlton was only married once before, but he had other serious relationships. I try to be the grown-up one about the exes. To be honest, if you’re going to be difficult, the only one you make things hard for in the end is yourself. I just think: I want the easy life. I’ll go along, smile, be friendly.

Workwise, Carlton is doing a few different things at the moment. As well as the shows, he has just opened a bar and he also runs a legitimate debt-collection business working with a friend who’s a bailiff. In some ways it would be nice if he had a nine to five job and everything would be more secure and I’d know where he is and where he’s going, but he would never be happy living like that. He could do it, but I’d find myself sharing a house with Victor Meldrew.

I’d like to think the bar will eventually start running itself. The honest truth is I’d prefer him to cut down the hours there, but he’s still building it up. When it’s financially viable they’ll get other people in to run it for them.

Anyway, I’m not so naive that I think he’s going to change the habits of a lifetime. He was old enough when I met him that I’d have been stupid to think I could go in and change him. He was forty-seven years old. That’s who he was. That was him. Take it or leave it.

    I think people would be quite surprised at how boring our life is. I think people assume we’re out every night, champagne, dinner. But our life is just normal. We have to do the food shopping every week. Most nights we stay home and watch the telly. He goes to work and does his thing, I stay here and do the cleaning, he comes home and cooks the dinner.

If I meet new people, I never say anything about what Carlton does or what he’s done in the past – I just say he has a debt-collection company and leave it at that. I just want us to be ‘normal’.

Of course I still like going to the swish clubs, but I’ve done all my going out when I was younger. When I used to work in the clubs I went out a lot. Nowadays I’ll go every now and then, but I can take it or leave it. At the end of the day, that life’s not real. It’s nice to go out and have a nice time and have nice drinks, but week in and week out that’s not a real life, I don’t think. It’s very false.

When you’re going out doing that stuff, you attract a certain type of ‘friend’ and I use the word loosely. It’s all the people who are the hangers-on. Carlton does sometimes tend to attract people who I don’t think are necessarily good for him. I think all women are a bit better at judging people. Out of the two of us, Carlton is the one who’s straight up front, whereas I’ve always held back. I’m the one who sits and waits, thinking I’ll take my time to work out what this person’s like, whereas his nature is he’ll jump in straight away and they’ll be best friends immediately. And I’ll sometimes say to him, ‘Just be a little bit cautious. Give him a wide berth for a little while’, and it tends to die off a bit. Carlton will know if I don’t like someone. I’ll smile and be polite and then I’ll tell him not to get too involved. But at the end of the day, that’s his choice. I can only advise. Sometimes I’ve learned the best thing to do with him is to let him do it. The more I say no the more he’ll go and do it, whereas if I just say once, ‘Well, I don’t think it’s a good idea’, he’ll think it through in his head and eventually come to the conclusion I might be right.

I’m not bothered about going to clubs. I’d rather stay in and have dinner and drinks, just the pair of us. Or maybe go out and have something to eat with friends. There are some times when I’ll be invited along for a night out and I won’t want to go because I know it’s going to be one of those evenings with lots of men with egos and too much testosterone. If the other girlfriends and wives are there, and they’re my friends, I’ll go, but I don’t want to go to certain things. I just want a normal life.

I know there are always people who are attracted to Carlton because of who he is or who they think he is. Young girls think going out with a ‘gangster’ is a fantastic life. They think it’s all about drinking champagne and being bought jewellery every day, but the reality would come as such a shock. Sure you can be bought nice things and everything, but there’s a lot more to it than that. But they don’t know that so if he goes to a club on his own, there’s always some girl who’ll try it on. It used to bother me, but now the way I deal with it is to think: We’re married. If he’s stupid enough to fall for that, it wouldn’t be my loss, it’d be his loss. He’s always quite friendly, Carlton, but he knows where the line is and I think he’d keep away. When you’re married, I think you have to trust each other, otherwise what kind of a life do you have? I go out on my own, he goes out on his own. We have to have faith in each other.

I do worry in some ways about him getting bored with being settled and normal. You can’t change someone’s personality; I can’t tell him to be a certain way. But Carlton knows the situation with me. He knows that if it got to the stage where I was unhappy and he was out all the time, every night, I’d say, ‘Well, what’s the point of being married to you?’ I think hopefully he’s old enough to realise. On the other hand, when do men grow up?

I know people have this image of the glamorous gangster’s wife and, to be honest, there is a certain amount of pressure to look good, but that pressure comes as much from me as from him. At the moment I’m about to have a baby and I’ve gained weight and I wouldn’t go out to a club until I’m looking more like myself. Not that Carlton would ever say ‘you’re not coming out like that, until you’ve lost weight’ but I know that deep down he wants me to look nice. It’s part of what attracted him to me. He doesn’t want me to go out in my sweatpants with my hair scraped back. Even though he’s not shallow and I’m sure he’d love me whatever, I’m a realist and I know the looks thing is part of the whole package. But there’s only so long you can look at the cover before you have to have a look inside.

It’s all well and good being a so-called ‘trophy wife’, but you’ve got to have a bit of a brain as well. Carlton knows that we can go out and I would never embarrass him. He knows he could leave me with people to have a conversation and it would be a sensible conversation. I wouldn’t be saying stupid things and showing off and saying he does this or that. I’m intelligent and grown-up enough. Part of being presentable is being a bit clued up and knowledgeable and using your brain. You can have someone who’s all dollied up and doesn’t know what they’re saying and they’ll end up dropping you in it. I’d never do that.

The thing is I’ve never put Carlton on a pedestal. We’re equals. I don’t see him as anything other than him. To me he’s not a caricature. I see him as Carlton, the person I live with, the person I go food shopping with. I would never be in awe of him. I think men might want the dolly bit for a little while but then they’d get bored and want someone who could have a conversation. Carlton knows he can’t get away with things around me. I keep him grounded.

That’s why the people close to Carlton are happy for him since he’s been with me. His best friends like Sid and Kevin have been in his life for twenty or thirty years and they’re the only ones whose opinion I’m bothered about. They’re all happy for him because he’s happy.

I think there are probably some people who don’t like the fact that he’s not out all the time any more, but he can’t be doing that for the rest of his life. He’s fifty years old. When does it stop? He’s got to be allowed to be happy and settled too.

Carlton and I try to go to our place in Spain whenever we can. We have a place in Almeria – right away from the Costa del Sol. His kids go there and his mum and dad. It’s in a little town. When we go there we can just relax. That’s where he is just Carlton. We can go out to the beach and he doesn’t have to act a certain way or be a certain way. He can just be him. If it was Marbella or somewhere like that it would be a different story because he’d still have to play that part of being Carlton Leach. But when we go to Almeria you can literally see him relax. He doesn’t have to be anybody but himself.

I don’t know how our lives are going to change once the baby is born. I know there might be some awkward questions up ahead when he or she is a bit older, about the things Carlton used to do.

To be honest, I just want a normal, stable upbringing for my child. People can be judgemental about things they don’t know anything about. I don’t want anyone saying to my child ‘your daddy used to do this or that’. Carlton is straight now. He’s got his legitimate businesses.

The film is out there, it’s in the public domain, so I’d have to bring the kids up to be a little clued up and gradually drop in things about what Carlton has done, as and when they’re old enough to understand. The way I’d envisage it, I’d start off with them knowing ‘Daddy works in a bar’, which already makes it different from ‘Daddy works in an office’, and then I’d gradually add to the picture. Then when they get to be a teenager I could say, ‘Daddy used to do this, a long time ago’.

But I wouldn’t want any child of mine looking back on the way Carlton used to be and thinking it was cool. If I had a son, I wouldn’t want to encourage him to think that was a good way to behave or to have people around who’d encourage him to think that. I don’t think Carlton would want that for his son either. His eldest son is a born-again Christian and Carlton’s quite happy that he’s gone that way because at least he knows where he is at night, and he knows he’s safe. He wouldn’t want that other life for his child.