Chapter 4 - Counselling And Music Lessons

It didn't take Lister long to find him in the first place he looked, although he was surprised that their shared bunkroom was still dark. The shape that was all he could see of Rimmer was huddled in a foetal ball under his bunk, face turned to the wall. Lister approached carefully aware that Rimmer was unlikely to want to see him and prepared for the insults bound to come his way. He wasn't prepared to hear that the other man was weeping softly.

"Rimmer?" he whispered, not wanting to startle him, but it did no good and he winced in sympathy as Rimmer jumped and banged his head on the bottom of his bunk.

He turned over to find Lister looking down at him with pity and turned back to the wall, one hand absently rubbing his sore head the other frantically wiping his eyes.

"Go away! I don't want to talk to you," he said; his voice rough and scratchy with tears.

"I'm concerned about you, man."

A sudden flame of anger and Rimmer leapt from his hiding place, real fury flashing in his eyes, causing Lister to back away hurriedly, hands raised.

"Lights on!" he cried in a strangled voice, for once genuinely afraid of his bunkmate.

"Concern? Concern?! You don't care an iota about me, none of you do. I'm just a lightning rod for the negative feelings on this ship, a human punching bag for you to take out your angers and frustrations on."

Lister was shocked, he'd often had Rimmer yelling at him, usually over pretty petty things, but there had never been real venom behind it, this, however was almost visceral. He was almost afraid Rimmer might actually hit him.

"God, Rimmer. What happened over there?!"

But Rimmer wasn't finished, pacing restlessly back and forth. "You've even told me outright on multiple occasions how little you think of me, I remember the Psy-Moon incident. The glee you all expressed at the prospect of my being trapped for 600 years on my own, the constant jokes at my expense, sneaking off for off-ship trips without telling me." As suddenly as it had appeared the anger dissipated to be replaced by a deep despair as he sat down heavily on his bunk, his head in his hands.

"Do you know how it feels to be the friend no one likes? Do you?" He looked up at Lister with something like desperation before casting his gaze to the floor. "I know I'm not the easiest to live with; I'm cowardly and petty and have delusions of grandeur,"

(Lister bit his tongue to keep from adding extra sins, now was definitely not the time.)

"But I wasn't joking when I told you I try to be liked, I really do, I just don't know how to do it."

Lister knelt in front of him and took his trembling hands in his.

Rimmer looked up and Lister winced at the bleakness in his eyes.

Rimmer couldn't take it anymore. He tore his hands from Lister's and rolled over to face the wall, anything to escape that terrible pity. "Lights off!" he called out, once more plunging the room into darkness. Lister sat on the edge of the bed.

"You know, I don't think I've had a relationship that has ever been genuine; my Father turned all my schoolmates against me, my brothers bullied me, even Yvonne McGruder thought I was someone else; it seems I've had this role all my life."

"You could have stood up to them, proved that you were better than they thought you were. Or ignored them, made your own way."

"Oh Listy, Ace could do it because he snapped, they pushed him one step too far and he decided he'd show them, and he did. He overdid it a bit, but he did. But he did it for himself out of pure cussedness.

No, if you don't ever get to that crucial tipping point, the accumulation of bad experiences just festers under the surface, sapping your ability to fight back. Living for other people in the desperate hope that they might throw you some morsels of affection in return. I tried to make my parents proud of me but I just couldn't. My father wanted academically gifted sons so I tried and failed, but nothing else would win his approval so I kept trying and with each failure, each humiliation I lost the will to be anyone else, just repeating the same actions hoping for a different outcome." He let out a noise that was probably supposed to be laughter but it was without humour and there was a dreadful note of hysteria in it. "Ha. Isn't that supposed to be the definition of madness?"

Lister had never believed the self awareness Rimmer could be capable of; the arrogant, egotistical mask he usually wore had seemed airtight. But something had shattered that mask. Along with much of Rimmer's sanity it seemed.

"Rimmer? What did happen over there, on the Titanic?"

"They have someone over there a bit like me, a designated punching bag, someone the others take out their frustrations on but he doesn't seem to mind. In fact he seems to have embraced his role. He takes it with only an occasional grumble. He scares me. He doesn't even deserve it, he's a bit dim but he seems almost completely innocent. He knew nothing about me, he didn't judge me, he just listened; no-one's ever even done as much as that for me before." He sighed wearily, shaking his head.

"Why do you come back for me? There have been a dozen occasions you could have left me to my fate and you would be perfectly within your rights to do so but every time you save me. Why?"

"Why? You're part of the team, the posse, the Boys From The Dwarf," Lister shook his hands. "Hey man, Holly brought you back to keep me sane and at that you are doing a sterling job, at that you are succeeding with distinction. You don't have to try to please anyone else anymore, hell we're 3 million years into deep space there is no one else. You can try to let go of your hang ups about your past. I would even gladly help you like I helped Kryten, but it has to be your choice." Gently he placed his hand on Rimmer's shoulder and was pleased to see that he didn't pull away.

"And you're wrong to think that no one listens, after what you have said today I will listen. I would always have listened I just never really realised how much you needed to be heard."

Rimmer turned slightly and looked up with a wary kind of gratitude in his eyes, still unsure whether or not to believe him. "Would you leave me? I just want to be alone for a while."

"Sure," said Lister squeezing his shoulder comfortingly as Rimmer lay back on his side on the bunk, "I'll come and check on you later, okay," but Rimmer said nothing and Lister made a tactful retreat from the darkened room.

The next day Lister went down to the basement to ask Flacco if he could pay the Titanic crew a solo visit.

"I don't see why not," said Flacco gesturing to one of the couches. "Is Rimmer alright?"

Lister was surprised by the man's perceptiveness, but then again, he supposed, it didn't take that great a leap of logic to reach that conclusion.

"After the help Richard's given him he may be, we'll just have to wait and see. I just want to thank Richard personally."

"Oh good, he'll be glad of that, he doesn't often get much praise."

Lister winced; he was starting to understand what Rimmer had seen in the young man.

Tim was there to meet him this time and Lister was shocked to see that he sported a horribly black eye.

"What the smeg happened to you?!" he asked aghast.

Tim avoided his eyes, looking shifty. "Oh… I walked into a door."

Lister looked at him sceptically; he didn't believe that for a moment, but for now at least he decided to let it go.

"The other two not with you?" Tim asked partly to change the subject as quickly as he could, although he did sound genuinely crestfallen.

"'Fraid not, just me."

"Ah well, never mind," he abruptly flashed one of his brilliant smiles, his disappointment seemingly forgotten in an instant.

'No wonder this world is so chaotic if his is the main psyche its got to work with' thought Lister as they walked through the ship, 'there's something almost childlike about him.' With that in mind he became slightly hesitant about voicing the reason he'd come, anxious of his response.

"Actually I've come to see Richard if he's around."

"Richard? Well, there's no accounting for taste is there? Richard! Someone to see you!" he yelled as they entered the living quarters. Richard emerged from his room and nervously scurried over, putting Lister in mind of some small burrowing creature mostly just desperate to keep out of the way.

He took one look at Lister and went into panic mode. "If it's about yesterday I was just trying to help, I didn't mean anything by it."

Lister put his hand on Richard's arm reassuringly. "Hey man, take it easy, I actually came to thank you." Richard just looked at him in confusion and Lister's heart went out to him. "Come on let's go for a walk." Lister took him by the elbow and steered him through the corridors leaving Tim and Paul looking after them bemusedly.

"I suppose it's alright to tell you," said Richard after they had walked for a long while through the corridors without speaking.

"Tell me what?" asked Lister, feigning ignorance.

"Well for you to be here you must know that this isn't real. Flacco does his best with his disguises but we haven't really met another living soul since we signed up and I can't believe anything has changed therefore you must be like him; real world people briefly sharing in our dream world as Flacco does."

'You're not dim at all are you?' Lister thought, 'it's just as much of an act as Rimmer's is it's just a different type of act.'

"Are we even really in space, or has Flacco just managed to update his systems in an attempt to allow us more interesting adventures?"

"No, I can assure you, you really are in space."

"Oh. Well, that's something I suppose."

They walked along a while further before Lister couldn't stand the silence anymore.

"Why did you join this strange programme?"

"Oh, well," Richard looked at the floor embarrassed.

'Good grief,' thought Lister, 'you as well?!'

Richard looked up sharply almost as if he had heard his thoughts before pointedly looking away again.

Lister was feeling remarkably out of his depth here but he again knew it wasn't for him to pass judgement on others' choices. It did, however, leave him with a question he would quite like an answer to.

"How do you get on with Paul?" he asked as tentatively as he could manage.

"Oh we all get along," he said dismissively, although Lister could detect a forced note to his light laughter, "I'd take what Flacco tells you with a pinch of salt if I were you, the pranks we play on each other don't hurt really."

'That wasn't what I asked and you know it,' thought Lister. He briefly tussled with what limited experiences he had. 'Really? All three of you?'

Again Richard looked at him like he could read Lister's mind and his eyes begged him not to ask any further questions.

Lister came to a decision and inwardly shrugged his shoulders. 'So that's how it is? Fair enough.'

To Richard's immense relief Lister dropped the subject and carried on walking.

They made their way through the ship trying doors at random until Lister stumbled upon a music room full of a varied array of instruments including a number of guitars.

"Hey, this looks good!" He went inside and picked one up, strumming away enthusiastically.

Richard clapped his hands over his ears. "Stop, stop, stop!" he yelled over the din.

Lister stopped.

"What's wrong? That was perfect!"

"Perfect?! That was awful!"

"Not you too, look there is nothing wrong with the way I play guitar. I am a guitar playing god!"

"Only if god happens to be tone deaf," remarked Richard acidly. "Look, for a start you haven't tuned it. If I may?"

Reluctantly Lister handed him the guitar. Richard plucked at the strings gently one by one, twiddling the pegs until they were perfectly in tune. As a demonstration he played a few bars of Heard It Through The Grapevine.

"See, that's how it's supposed to sound."

Lister looked at him a little crossly; it stuck in his craw to admit that Richard was right, but that had sounded pretty good.

"Could I try again?" he asked, after all it was in tune now; now he could show Richard how it was done.

Richard handed the guitar back like he was handing a priceless Ming vase to a hyperactive child and cringed as Lister murdered the first verse and looked set to start on the chorus before he could take no more.

"STOP!"

Lister stopped. OK, maybe it hadn't been quite up to Richard's standard but surely it had been close.

"Lister," Rich gasped, "for the sake of any life-form out there who might have anything even approximating ear drums, would you please let me teach you how to play the guitar properly?"

Lister bristled with indignation at this before remembering Rimmer curled up disconsolately on his bunk and his reason for coming here in the first place. Maybe he could, in a very small way, lead by example. With a very great effort he swallowed his pride.

"Alright, what do I need to do first?"