pub. The traffic was heavy; Sam had already suggested once that they get out and walk. Charlie was starting to think he might have a point. The car had been in the full glare of the sun all the time that they’d been in the pub, and so far the air-conditioning hadn’t had much effect. The back of Charlie’s top was wet with sweat.
‘You’re looking at it the wrong way,’ said Simon. ‘Don’t think of Bowskill as an ordinary bloke who sets out to achieve something, succeeds, then pats himself on the back for a job well done. Think of him as a wanting machine, programmed to do nothing but enhance its wanting skills. He’s spent his whole life practising. He can want longer and harder and deeper now than he could five years ago. He’s so good at wanting that no amount of getting can ever be enough for him.’
‘So he avoids the things he wants so that he can do more wanting?’ Sam said.
‘Basically, yeah,’ said Simon. ‘Though if I was being picky, I’d say that there’s no such thing as “the thing he wants”. Charlie’s right – if living in Cambridge was what he wanted, he could have stayed after he finished his degree. That might have involved taking any old job, though, and living in a shithole for a while, which for Bowskill wouldn’t have been an option. It’d have been too much of a comedown for him, after three years as one of the city’s elite – accommodation in historic college buildings, studying at one of the world’s best universities. Not that he’d have been happy during his student years either. He wouldn’t have been able to relax enough to enjoy any of it, knowing it was temporary.’
Charlie shook her head. ‘I still don’t see how taking a job in Rawndesley would move him any closer to his—’
‘I do,’ Simon cut her off. ‘I can guess what his strategy was: get a job with a reputable firm, one with good promotion prospects and branches all over the country – specifically, one with a branch in Cambridge – and wait for the opportunity to transfer. Meanwhile, you might be living in Rawndesley, but you’ve got a plan to get back to where you want to be. And you can start working your way up the corporate ladder, so that when you do transfer to Cambridge you can afford a decent house there. For as long as you’re living in Rawndesley, it’s easy to accept that your current life is a compromise – Rawndesley’s a compromise kind of place. What Bowskill was unwilling to do was compromise in Cambridge – to him, Cambridge represents perfection, and he’s only willing to be there when the conditions are perfect. In the unlikely event of that ever happening, he’d find he felt worse than ever – big shock to his system. The day Kit Bowskill’s forced to admit that no detail of his life could be improved – that’s a dangerous day for him. He’d have to recognise that the problem’s internal – that’s he’s the detail he needs to change. Probably at that point he’d have a breakdown.’
‘So . . . before applying for a job at Deloitte Rawndesley, he’d have applied to Deloitte Cambridge?’ said Charlie.
‘Yeah – and all the other firms he’d decided were worthy of him,’ said Simon. ‘He could probably have coped with an entry-level salary and a tiny flat if he’d had a job he was proud of, and could see a clear way to the top. Maybe there were no openings, or maybe he had interviews and lost out to other people – either way, Deloitte Rawndesley was the best he could do. He might have set himself a deadline: transfer to the Cambridge branch within two years, five years, whatever.’
‘Clearly he failed,’ said Charlie.
‘No. You still don’t get the way his mind works. Someone like Bowskill never fails. He’s always en route to realising his master plan. Success and victory are always just round the corner.’
Charlie made a face at the back of Simon’s headrest. If she wasn’t entirely familiar with every nuance of Kit Bowskill’s dysfunctional psyche, that could be because she’d never met the man. Simon had only met him once, yet he seemed to be an expert on Bowskill’s particular brand of unquenchable dissatisfaction. Charlie wondered if this was something she ought to worry about.
‘Whatever Bowskill’s transfer-to-Cambridge plan was, he changed it when he met Connie,’ said Simon. ‘From