Day dreams and zoos

We drive silently to the zoo, I'm working as a nanny today. My bottom is gently caressed by the soft cream leather of the back car seat. We are driving on a fluffy mattress of utter loveliness, as driven by the queen of England and by rich Russians. The Rolls-Royce is very comfortable and sound proof to the outside world. Child X sits next to me making raspberry noises and looking out of the tinted car window. Mrs X sits in the front seat. Her red painted nails gently tap on her ipad screen, I can smell her perfume as the air-cars con blows it back in my face. The driver, drives ahead with confidence and with a kind of defeated acceptance of his role in life.

We reach a smart part of town and Mrs X pops out to shop while driver, child X and I wait, the driver smokes a cigarette, he looks too thin. She soon comes back heavily loaded with expensive looking paper bags with designer names that I have never seen as I am a slob to fashion, rather than a slave to it. People walk past the car with different looks. Some look at us with admiration, some look at us with admiration and jealousy and some just look jealous. It's an experience to be driven in a Rolls-Royce. Your mind plays out fantasies. You are a powerful boss, a lottery winner, a billionaire, a gangster, a movie celebrity. Life is sweet and there are no worries about the future. A car horn blasts out from another car and snaps me back into my Moscow reality. I am tutor and nanny, this is my job, or at least it is for now. It is not my car or my lifestyle. Car fantasy over.

Our next destination is a private medical clinic. We go inside, it looks more like hotel rather than a clinic. I wait in the waiting area while child X sees the doctor with mum X. I flick through thick glossy yachting magazines. The magazines contain photos of luxury motor boats and huge white yachts. Many look bigger than the average house and have everything the oligarch could need, except love and genuine friends. My mind goes into another spending fantasy as I imagine myself on the deck of one of these yachts. I'm in my warm jacuzzi as the sun sets over the Tahitian yachting marina. I have a beautiful Russian girl in each arm. They giggle sweetly next to me, kissing me on my ear while they feed me champagne and grapes, while I massage their ample breasts with one hand. I have one eye on my laptop looking at my stock share prices while my white gloved butler is holding the laptop on a sliver tray, he is standing next to the jacuzzi, I can smell dinner waiting for me on the deck table, the smell of freshly cooked lobster blows over to me, my butler tells me "dinner is ready sir", I get out the jacuzzi, I put on my soft monogrammed white bathrobe and go over to the dining table. I'm then awoken from my yacht day dream with the softness of concrete brick by a real Russian beauty from the clinics reception. She taps me on the shoulder and asks me if I want a coffee? I say "yes please, milk one sugar". She brings me a tray with a white coffee cup, a bowl of sugar and six fancy biscuits, all individually wrapped in pretty white paper. I leave the biscuits but drink the freshly made coffee, it tastes hot and fresh. I watch the movie Mr and Mrs Smith that's showing on the large plasma television, hanging on the wall of the waiting area. Mrs X arrives back with junior X and we leave the clinic. Fantasies of yachts and a different life blow away, like summer clouds in my mind.

Our second and final destination, is Moscow zoo. The sun is shinning, the sky is blue and it feels like summer in September. It is hot today. A good day for a zoo visit. I have never liked zoos. They are usually concrete prisons with sad, bored, suicidal animals inside. I am not looking forward to seeing this zoo but I know child X will love it, all kids like zoos. We park the Rolls-Royce on the pavement. I get the pram out the car, unstrap child X, while people walk past the car and I feel slightly guilty but then I remember this is not my car or my life. We go into the zoo. Mrs X comes with us. Despite my initial nerves and my determination not to like her. I do like her. Sure she is wealthy but she is a good person and a very good mother. She may have come from a normal family and without money? I don't know and could not ask her that, we have an unspoken boundary that we don't cross. Many Russian's got rich by when it all went belly up, when the free market arrived. She must have married into such money. I find her intelligent and attractive. She is beautiful without being vain, speaks good English and is kind. An unusual combination among the mega rich these days, whatever the country they live in.

We walk past a sad scruffy looking bear who is on his own in a concrete cage. He has an empty lake and sniffs the air in the hope of freedom. We see two Polar bears. One paces back and forth from one spot to another, driven mad by captivity while his friend sleeps in the sun, hardly a natural environment. Every day is the same, people stare at him and he knows every inch of concrete. I know how he feels, as when I first arrived here and was in my full time stay at home dad role, I felt like that bear. The difference is he has people staring at him all day and has no escape, I have an escape. I was in a better situation than he is, zoos should be illegal. The zoo has Baboons, Gorillas, Geese, Zebra, Giraffes and other animals all looking tired, bored and fed up. They look like some people I know and have known in my life, especially the baboons.

Time is up and I leave the zoo, happy to escape these animals. The meter has clocked up four paid hours in my paid childcare role. I head home to see my own child X who is with my own nanny. It's ironic, I am paid more in a few days, than she is in a month. I head off to my gym to run on the tread mill and to watch fat Russian men spitting in the shower. My day and fantasies are over and it will all continue again tomorrow. The power of imagination, what a wonderful thing to have.

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