Rimmer had been expecting his fellow crewmates to rub it in his face about him not showing up for his exam yesterday, but surprisingly nobody mentioned it. Lister talked excitedly about the painting class all through their shift. Rimmer knew Lister didn't have much interest in art from his lack of commitment to art college, so suspected Lister's enthusiasm was for his benefit. It was sort of sweet, although Rimmer would never admit it out loud. He still wasn't entirely sure Lister wasn't planning something extremely humiliating, but he at least appeared to be acting in what he thought were Rimmer's best interests.
Walking to the painting class, Rimmer was suddenly filled with dread that someone who knew him might see him there and think less of him for taking such a frivolous class.
They were greeted by a bearded man with a gentle smile who chuckled before he spoke. "Hello there, looks like we have some new students today. Well come in and join us, find an easel and don't worry if you've never painted before."
"Great, 'cause I haven't, unless you count finger painting," Lister said.
The teacher smiled at him. "Now don't you worry, I'll go through everything step by step. Everybody can paint."
"Well he seems like a nice guy," Lister said as they took their places behind easels, Rimmer's eyes darting around to check if he recognised any of the other students.
"I'm not sure I trust a man with hair like that to teach me anything," Rimmer said.
"I thought it was kinda similar to yours," Lister said with a smirk.
Rimmer scowled at him.
"Hello there, I'm Rob Boss and I'd like to welcome you all to The Joy of Landscape Painting. Whether this is your first time or if you've joined me before, you're very very welcome. Today we're going to be painting this lovely mountain scene," the teacher said. On the monitor in the front of the class he brought up a picture of a forest lake with majestic mountains in the distance and a sky full of dramatic clouds.
"It's a sunset. Brutal!" Lister said.
"I didn't think we'd be painting something this difficult!" Rimmer hissed to Lister.
"Now whether you've painted with me a hundred times before, or if you've never picked up a brush, don't you worry because I'll show you what to do every step of the way. Well let's get right to it."
The first step was to squeeze out the required paint colours onto comically oversized paint palettes. Rimmer found this part deceptively easy, but he knew not to get lulled into a false sense of security. This was not going to be as easy as paint by numbers.
"First to start us off we want to cover the canvas with a thin coat of liquid white," Mr Boss said. He had such a relaxing voice. "What this does is give us a nice base so we can mix our paints right up here on the canvas. So take your two inch brush and dip it into the liquid white and start covering the whole canvas in a nice even coat."
Lister elbowed Rimmer. "Nothing difficult so far," he said, as the class filled the room with the scraping of brushes on canvas.
"Now we wash our brush in some odourless paint thinner," Mr Boss said, and chuckled. "Now here's the fun part. To get rid of the excess, you want to give the brush a good whack, just really beat the smeg out of it." He smacked the brush violently against the leg of the easel.
There was laughter from the class as they copied the teacher. Rimmer looked over at Lister. He at least seemed to be having fun.
"Now you want to take your two inch brush and tap tap tap it into your phthalo blue, just get a nice coverage all the way through the bristles," Mr Boss said, demonstrating.
The whole room was filled with students tapping their brushes on their palettes. It was a satisfying sound.
"Now then, lets go right up here and using little criss-cross strokes start laying in a basic sky. Start at the top and bring it down and the paint will mix with the liquid white and automatically get lighter towards the horizon. You just enjoy. Painting should be a fun experience, it should make you happy. And that's how you very quickly lay in a happy little sky."
Rimmer scrutinised his painting, and glanced around at the paintings of his classmates. His wasn't as good as the teacher's, but it certainly wasn't the worst. The teacher then directed them how to paint the shapes of the mountains with a palette knife. Rimmer was concentrating so hard on copying exactly that he slipped and smeared a line of paint across the canvas. It was happening already. No matter how he tried, something always went wrong.
"Mr Boss, I made a mistake. How do I fix it?" Rimmer said, conscious of the other students' eyes suddenly on him.
The teacher chuckled and walked over. "Oh ho ho, now that's no mistake. Maybe your mountain is a little bigger and that's okay. Maybe that's just how things are in your world. They don't have to be exactly the same as in mine. Just have fun with it. You see, we don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents."
Rimmer nodded. It was an odd way of putting it, but the rest of the class seemed to just accept it. He continued painting his mountains, and although it no longer looked like the picture they were copying, it was still passable.
Surprisingly the paintings came together quickly, and they were finished.
"Hey, good job, man," Lister said.
"You think so?" Rimmer said.
Lister nodded and Rimmer looked over at his painting. Out of the class it was the least like the original. "Yeah, I got bored and kinda did it my way," he said.
The teacher was walking around looking at all the paintings and pointing out things he liked about them. "See, I think that mountain turned out great just the way you painted it," he said to Rimmer, then looked over at Lister's painting. "And wonderful imagination there, woulda never thought of adding an extra lake myself but there we go. Hope you folks had a lot of fun today, and I'd be very pleased if you'd like to join me again next week."
Rimmer opened his mouth to answer, but Lister got in there before him. "We'll be here," he said.
"Excellent, excellent. Well I look forward to painting with you again, but until then, happy painting and God bless."
"Well, what did you think?" Lister asked as they carried their canvasses back to their room.
Rimmer looked at his painting, trying not to focus on all of the mistakes. "I'll do better next week," he said.
"I hope by that you mean that you'll have more fun and embrace the happy little accidents," Lister said.
Rimmer scoffed. "Happy little accidents. You can't go around calling all accidents happy. What about that accident that landed Burroughs in the med bay for three months? You can hardly call that happy."
Lister ignored him. Rimmer picked holes in everything, it was just his way. He grinned. "You agreed to go again next week. We'll find the joy of painting yet."
They went along to the next painting class, and the next. Rimmer bought himself an easel and a palette and some paints and started practising and painting other things outside of classes. Lister noticed a change in his attitude, Rimmer was calmer and more serene than he had ever been since they met. And what's more, he completely forgot to sign up for the next astronavigation exam.
Lister would watch as Rimmer's paintings took shape. This was miles more relaxing than seeing him pull his hair out over revision. But then one day Rimmer physically pushed him away when he tried to see what he was painting, and when he asked what it was, Rimmer wouldn't say.
"Oh come on, show us what it is. The suspense is killing me, man," Lister said.
"Just wait Lister. It's almost finished."
Lister sighed, then laid down his guitar on the floor and started putting on the new strings he had finally got around to buying. Halfway through, he heard Rimmer cleaning his brush and looked up.
"You can look now," Rimmer said.
Lister hurried over and froze when he saw the painting.
Rimmer looked at Lister. He wasn't saying anything. Why wasn't he saying anything? "Do- do you not like it?"
Lister sniffed and wiped a tear from his eye. "It's Albert Docks!" he said in awe. "This is amazing, look at all the little details. You've got the cracks in the pavement and all the rubbish in the street. And the overcast sky. I can almost smell the place!"
Rimmer was almost knocked over by Lister grabbing him for a hug. He put his arms around Lister and hugged him back. Lister was happy because of a painting he had made, and Rimmer felt like he finally understood why the class was called the joy of painting. It was nice to do something that made people happy. He didn't think anyone had ever been genuinely happy to see a working chicken soup machine. People tended to just be mad when they didn't work.
"I love it," Lister said when he finally let Rimmer go. "Rimmer, you've got a real talent."
"Oh. Thank you."
"Can I hang it over my bunk? If I see this every morning I think I might feel a little bit less homesick."
Rimmer smiled. "Of course you can."
Once it had dried, they found a place to hang the painting. Lister looked up at it, and smiled. "You know Rimmer, maybe it wasn't a mistake that we both ended up on Red Dwarf together. Maybe it was a happy little accident."
"Oh shut up Lister, that's so corny," Rimmer said, but when he thought Lister wasn't looking he smiled to himself.