amounted to a hangar and a field I realised George had
been after a little more than a pair of pyjamas — he had
booked a private jet.
I knew that wealth bred a sense of exceptionalism,
but as we cruised through the sky in our own little
bubble, this was the first time I had experienced the
sensation. I would like to say I was observing all this
with detachment. The truth is I had never felt more
swept up.
Before I had time to convince myself of my own
superiority we were landing in England. We stepped
onto the tarmac and straight into two chauffeured cars
that whisked us 20 metres or so to a waiting helicopter.
“Eight of you, is it?” the pilot asked.
“Seven,” said George.
I shuffled to the front.
“How are you getting out of here, then?”
I gave the pilot a sheepish look.
“Taxi to Elephant and Castle.”
THE RUSSIAN JOB
Wednesday, July 14, Moscow
A naked Russian oligarch is spanking me in his
basement. His weapon is a birch branch, the setting his
luxurious home sauna. Above us is 2,800 square metres
of one of Moscow’s most obscene private homes, an
original Damien Hirst above the fireplace, a vacuum
cleaning system built into the skirting boards.
Risking great cultural offence, I have declined to
remove my trunks on account of my 12-year-old pupil,
Nikita — the oligarch’s son — who sits beside me on
a cedar bench, watching his father spank me. Invisible
speakers serenade us with a desolate pan pipe cover of
Bridge over Troubled Water. A light display rotates
kaleidoscopically, illuminating the oligarch’s genitals
in unexpected hues. Everyone is silent but I can’t think
of anything to say that wouldn’t make things worse.
This job had started with a call from Philippa. She
had let me know about a last-minute gig in Moscow
tutoring a boy applying to English boarding school. The
original tutor had got a job offer from Goldman Sachs
and I was going up a gear by stepping into someone
else’s shoes.
“Welcome,” Sergei said. “We love British.”
“Is true!” said his wife, Maria. “Range Rover. Bentley.
Yorkshire terrier.”
“And you,” Sergei said. “You went to Cambridge.”
Philippa had made it clear that my degree was a
powerful brand in the tutoring world, but here it had
reached the status of designer label. I answered
Sergei’s questions about my time there but he got a
little lost in my explanation of the college system and
I realised I needed to speak his language. “It’s sort of
like ... Harry Potter!” The family burst out laughing,
repeating my claim ad nauseam. I breathed a sigh of
relief — after a year of trying to master the fine-grain
class distinctions of individual London postcodes, it
looked as if, out here, I was going to be able to paint
with a slightly broader brush.
“So,” Sergei said, suddenly nervous. “How can we
make place in Eton?” I can’t say I had any idea how
to make place in Eton. I would never have got this job
if Philippa hadn’t needed to parachute in a graduate of
Harry Potter University at the last minute. Thankfully
Nikita was the best student I had taught so far. He
combined impeccable precision with incredible
diligence; each time he made a mistake, he made a neat
little note in a perfectly ordered journal. The thought
that he might one day come up against the likes of
Horace and Felix in the corridors of power made me
geopolitically nervous for my nation.September
Dear tutors,
We are looking for volunteers to conduct practice
Oxbridge interviews at an academy in Hackney.
Former sink school but has been turned around in
very impressive fashion. Let me know if you are
interested, PhilippaSaturday, October 2, Hackney
I had known from the start that my tutoring career
wasn’t going to win me a Pride of Britain award. But
Oxbridge entrance was a straight-up competition
between those who had been preparing for this
moment their whole lives and those who were
thrown in at the deep end. I had always avoided the
volunteer jobs, but it was time to put my money where
my mouth was by leaving money out of the equation
for once.
I was to be paired with Fatima, who was interested
in studying languages. Her parents had been born in a
village in Turkey where a university education wasn’t
a consideration, let alone Cambridge. Her personal
statement stood out immediately, it was a thing of
beauty. She wrote about everything from the circularity
of time in Latin American literature to the political
symbolism of bread in the poems of Gabriela Mistral.
“So how would you define the idea of circular time?”
I asked Fatima. She giggled and shrugged. “You gave
quite a good definition in your statement.” “Oh, did I?
I dunno.”
I tried walking her towards the kind of insights her
statement displayed but it was an uphill struggle. You
could see her grow self-conscious in real time, as her
sharp instincts became a mess of nerves. I wanted to
help her but I didn’t know how. And unlike with Horace,
whose mother had scheduled weekly lessons until
December, this was the only session we had arranged.
“Thanks for giving up your precious time,” the
organiser said as we were shown out. “We’ll let you
know how they get on.”Saturday, November 20, Hackney
I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Fatima. She
was exactly the type of person who would thrive atA naked Russian oligarch is
spanking me in his basement.
Above us is one of Moscow’s
most obscene private homes
30 • The Sunday Times Magazine