Gangsters' Wives (9 page)

While John would buy me anything I wanted and lavish presents on me, I never had any money of my own. He either paid for things, or else doled out the money when I needed it. It was his way of keeping me in place.

We almost got married one time. I was going on and on and on about wanting to be engaged. I don’t know why I was so obsessed. I suppose it was about insecurity, or maybe I just thought that’s what you were supposed to do. Eventually he said, ‘Do you want to get married?’ I said ‘yes’ and he told me to go out and get a ring, and handed me a wad of money. I went out and got myself a ring. I’ve still got it. But as soon as I’d bought it, I realised it wasn’t the ring I wanted after all, it was the togetherness. Without that, it was meaningless.

John had a child who lived with her mother back in Ireland. He used to get me to fly over to fetch her because he was on the run for drug trafficking and if he’d tried to enter the country he’d have been arrested and locked away for twenty years or something.

I vaguely knew about it, but still it was a shock when the Sunday paper one day carried a photo of me with John, plus a few pictures of our house and the caption ‘Ireland’s Most Wanted Man’.

My parents saw it and of course they were concerned about me, but there was only so much they could say. At that stage I was too entrenched to imagine life without him. I just told them not to worry.

But our reclusive lifestyle was taking its toll. Being together all the time created this unhealthy little world that became increasingly cut off from normality. John was obsessed with the house being clean – which he saw as my responsibility. He was really controlling about that. He’d walk round running a fingertip over the surfaces to see if they were dirty. He’d ask, ‘Why isn’t my T-shirt ironed? What else have you got to do?’ Nowadays I’d tell him to eff off, but by that stage I was like a robot. I did exactly what he said.

It was so ironic. Materially, I had everything I wanted, but I felt I’d lost all control over my life. The only area I could still control was my weight – so I started obsessively exercising and dieting, becoming skinnier and skinner.

I’d get up in the morning around five and head straight to our indoor gym to exercise. Then I’d take the dogs out – we had two bull mastiffs. When I came back, I’d start cleaning the house. Then it would be around nine o’clock and I’d start getting John’s breakfast ready. He’d get up around ten and I’d give him his breakfast, then I’d clear away and go back to the gym where he might join me. After we’d washed and changed we’d go out to make phone calls and go shopping. We might go to Starbucks, or out for lunch or whatever, followed by more shopping and a movie. Or we’d come home and have dinner and lay on the sofa and watch the television. I’d take a bath and go to bed. Of course, that all changed if there was work on. If there was work, we’d do that instead of going into town.

The few friends I’d managed to hold on to were worried about me because I got so thin. At one point I weighed fifty kilos. I didn’t notice it. I thought I was fat. I worked out obsessively hour after hour. Every spare moment I would be in that gym. It was a mixture of frustration, depression and unhappiness. It was my way of taking control over at least one part of my life.

After we’d been together four or five years, I started admitting to myself that things had become unbearable. It doesn’t matter how many amazing holidays you have if you can’t tell anyone about them because no one’s allowed to have your number. It doesn’t matter how many flash meals you eat if you go to bed afterwards wondering if this is the night the police come and kick down the door. Every time John went out at night, I’d be worried sick yet I had no way of getting in touch with him to find out where he was.

The lowest point came when I became pregnant. I was only young but I still didn’t want to have an abortion, yet John was adamant I couldn’t go ahead with the pregnancy. Because of his ‘work’, he’d already had to leave one child behind when he fled, and now he hardly saw her. He wasn’t prepared to go through all that again. He said to me, ‘One way or another, you’re not going to have this child.’ I didn’t know what he meant, but I didn’t want to find out. I felt it was all wrong that he was the one making the decision, but I didn’t have the courage to say no to him.

So I had to travel back to England to have an abortion, even though it wasn’t what I wanted to do. Again, because he was a wanted man, he couldn’t come with me so I had to go on my own. I couldn’t tell my parents because I was too ashamed.

It was a horrible experience and afterwards I suffered a lot of depression as a result. I had to see a psychiatrist and go on medication. I even thought about committing suicide. John grew impatient. He’d say, ‘Well, just stop thinking about it.’ I’d say, ‘Sorry, but I just can’t stop thinking about it. It plays on my mind every single day of my life.’ Even now, not a day goes by when I don’t think about it. I think some women can put things like that behind them, but the fact that it wasn’t through my own choice still gets to me. I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do, but I regretted it straight away. I can’t even begin to describe the amount of tears I cried over that lost baby. I was so lost after that. I was stuck in the house, stuck in the relationship, stuck in this weird world that wasn’t real.

By this time John and I had moved into separate bedrooms. We were like prison-mates, we weren’t even friends.

My life became hell, but I didn’t know how to get out of the situation. I was afraid that because John had put so much trust in me, and because of the things I’d seen and done and witnessed, and the stories I’d heard, he wouldn’t be able to let me go.

He’d invested so much in me – both in terms of money and time and energy. He’d moulded me into this person he needed. And because he was so much older than me, I’d done exactly what he told me to do. I’d been completely blind. I’d given him everything – heart, soul, the lot. But in return all I’d had was things: a fantastic holiday, a new bag.

Everything seemed to be spiralling out of my control. One time I was out driving with John and two cars rammed into the side of ours then drove off. Then I got mugged one Valentine’s Day by people he had obviously been involved with. They rammed my car, came in and took everything from me – money, bag, the lot. I was terrified but I couldn’t go to the police and report it because I couldn’t give away any details. There could never be anything linking us to the house or me to him.

I knew I had to try to get away before I lost myself completely. I started to build bridges with old friends and go out a lot more. John didn’t like it, but I just did it anyway. I stopped spending so much time cleaning the house. John’s laundry wasn’t done. I didn’t make his breakfast. That was the first step towards breaking the control he had over me.

I confided in an old friend about how unhappy I was and asked her what I should do. She said, ‘Well, you’ve got to get back to work.’ But the problem was I couldn’t apply for a job without giving details – phone numbers, address. And I couldn’t give away any of that because it could lead the authorities to John.

I was in a catch-22. I needed money to leave, but I couldn’t get any without jeopardising everything. The thought of leaving without any money scared me to death. I was so used to a certain lifestyle by that stage. I was used to walking into Prada or Gucci or Louis Vuitton and getting what I wanted. If I said, ‘I want to go shopping’, I’d get two or three grand put in my hand. Or I’d say, ‘Let’s go to Las Vegas for the weekend’, and he’d say, ‘OK, we’ll stop off in New York on the way to do some shopping.’

John had always drilled into me that after getting used to that kind of life, I’d never be able to go back to ‘normality’. For my part, I dreamed of a ‘normal’ life, but no longer really knew what that was.

I planned my getaway so many times over the weeks and months. In my mind, I left him over and over again, but I always went back. Of course he didn’t know I’d even gone, but I had. I’d get my dogs and I’d get in my car. Then I’d turn around because I thought: if he finds me, he’ll kill me.

In reality, I didn’t actually know what he’d do. I’d seen him in a bad mood and it was frightening, but he’d never been physically violent towards me. His scare tactics were always psychological. He knew my weaknesses and I worried that he’d use them against me.

In a lot of ways pity as well as fear kept me from leaving. John didn’t have friends, his family hardly ever came to visit. If I left him he’d be totally on his own. I worried how he’d cope. You can’t spend six years with someone without caring a bit about what happens to them.

But I knew I had to get out of there for my own sanity. One day, after a particularly tense evening the night before, I rang my friend and said, ‘I’ve had enough. I’m going to do it.’ My friend told me not to do anything hasty, but to come round and talk. When I got there he said, ‘Why don’t you apply for a job at the company where I work?’ He had some forms there and helped me fill them in, using his number and address. I did, and within days, I had an interview to be a personal assistant to one of the directors.

That’s when I broke the news to John. I was really scared of telling him and rehearsed over and over again what I would say. I had no idea how he’d react, but to my surprise, he was all right. I think he’d seen I was slipping away but, to be honest, I think he’d also reached such a state of misery with the relationship that he knew something had to be done. He could have stopped me if he wanted – he had so much control over me – but I think he’d given up wanting to. He said, ‘If that’s what you want to do, that’s your right. The door’s always open for you here.’

I couldn’t actually believe he was going to make it that easy for me, but he did. I moved back home to my parents’ house for a bit and got the PA job which at least gave a structure to my life. Gradually I started making inroads back into the real world, the world of normal people. It was such a relief.

When I decided to go back to college to qualify as a translator, John offered to pay for my course. At first I wasn’t keen because I didn’t want to get back into a situation where I felt indebted to him, or to feel that he had any control over my life. Then I thought about it properly and decided he owed me. I gave him six years of my life and went to hell and back and walked away with nothing except a few designer bags and watches. Besides, it wasn’t as if he couldn’t afford it.

I still get on OK with John. We have a good relationship, if you can have a good relationship with an ex. I’ve got a lot more confidence with him now than when we were actually together. I can talk back to him, and I can tease him which I never did before.

Of course I don’t have a telephone number for him, so I have to wait for him to get in touch with me. But when he does we’re always amicable. Despite everything, I still have a lot of affection for him and I worry about him. I feel sorry for him actually. He has no life. He doesn’t dare let anyone else get close to him. He stayed with me because he trusted me, but now I’ve gone he has no one.

If two weeks or three weeks pass without hearing from him, I worry whether he’s OK. I certainly don’t want anything bad to happen to him, even though never a day goes by when I don’t think how glad I am to be away from him.

Sometimes John talks about giving the whole thing up. Every time he does a deal, or something goes wrong, he says it’s the last time but it never is. He earns more money per hour through drugs smuggling than he ever could doing anything else. But the ironic thing is that he’s got all this money, but no life.

When I ask him what he’s been up to, he says, ‘Oh, I’ve been to the gym. Doing this, doing that.’ He’s too careful to mention anything about work. Now, I can’t imagine I ever lived like that. And I would never ever go back to that kind of life again. Even if someone said to me, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll never ever get caught’, I would never go back to that. No way.

Sometimes I worry about how much I know. But I think John and his business partners know I’d never give away any details of what I learned. Anyway, most of the drug dealers and smugglers I met were quite nice, pleasant people. I haven’t got bad things to say about them. That’s not to say I approve of what they’re doing, but I’m realistic. If they don’t do it, someone else will. It’s never going to go away.

I thought John might make trouble when I started seeing my new boyfriend, who’s a paramedic, but he says he’s happy for me. He realises now that he did cause me a lot of mental problems and I think in his way he’s sorry about it.

I do still have issues over certain things. I’ll get in a state if the cleaning’s not done and my new partner will say, ‘What on earth is wrong with you? It’s not the end of the world if the vacuuming doesn’t get done.’

I haven’t told my new partner much about John. I just tell him it’s water under the bridge – but he’s picked up some details. He knows he was very rich, and that makes him feel inadequate sometimes, but I love the normality of my life now. If I want something, I have to save up for it, like everyone else. We go shopping at Lidl, eat at McDonald’s. I used to have a wardrobe full of Manolos. Now when I go out shopping it’s an £8 bag in Primark.

The novelty of having a partner who works a normal job for a normal monthly wage won’t ever wear off. I used to dream of being with someone who loved me for me, not because I was of some use to him. I’m sure that’s why John stayed with me after things went so badly wrong between us – because I was useful to him and helped him with work. That’s not how a relationship should be.

Nowadays, when I look back on my life with John, it’s like seeing a book or a film and I have to remind myself that I was that person. I was there. It doesn’t seem real. It was me sitting down with that major Colombian drug dealer. It was me negotiating on John’s behalf. It’s all so difficult to believe now. If I was to try to describe it to any of my friends, they’d think it was all bullshit because it’s so far-fetched.

Sometimes I have to get out one of my €2000 watches, just to prove it really did happen to me. I’ve kept them all. The thing is, I know they’re real, but everyone else just thinks they’re fake. I go into college with my Jimmy Choo bag and no one knows it costs thousands. The crucifix I wear is Tiffany. Someone said to me the other day, ‘I didn’t know you were religious,’ and I said, ‘I’m not, but it’s Tiffany and I love it.’ They said, ‘What’s Tiffany?’ It makes me laugh. I’ve got my pens I use for my course and they’re set with crystals by Swarovski. And when I go into the budget supermarket to do the shopping, I carry my purse in a €3000 bag.