Better Than Life Read online

  Bert walked towards her, and caught a full blast of her perfume in his face. When he'd recovered sufficiently to speak, he said: 'I think you'd better come with me,' and placed his hand on her arm.

  The woman sighed. 'Look, I don't suppose this counts, but I know for a fact I have my name tattooed on my backside. If I show you that, will you forget this ID business?'

  'This way, miss.' Bert steered her towards his car.

  'Can't this wait? There's someone I've got to talk to. It's really important.'

  'And who might that be?'

  'A guy called Lister. Dave Lister.'

  The entire population of Bedford Falls turned and looked at Lister. 'That's me,' he said, unnecessarily.

  Kochanski smiled at him coldly.

  'Look - I've never seen this woman before in my life.' Lister pushed through the throng, and headed towards the blonde, who was now sitting on the road, rubbing the ball of her right foot, and complaining that being a prostitute was murder on the feet. She looked up and saw Lister. Recognition flashed across her features.

  'Hi!' She smiled.

  'Do I know you?' Lister asked.

  The woman laughed. 'You might say that.'

  Lister turned to protest his innocence to Kochanski. She wasn't there. She was half-way across the street, scarlet-faced, with the twins in tow.

  'Krissie! Wait!'

  She bundled the twins into the back of the car, thumped herself into the driving seat, slammed the door and started up the engine. Lister ran back through the crowd. 'Krissie!'

  The old car spluttered up the hill, leaving Lister in a spittle cloud of dead exhaust fumes. 'Krissie,' he said quietly.

  But she was gone.

  SEVEN

  A thought occupied Rimmer's mind that had no verbal form. It was an elongated white-noise screech of fear, panic and disbelief, and it spiralled endlessly around his skull.

  He still couldn't believe it.

  He stared at the ivory telephone, as if it were somehow responsible for what had happened. As if it were somehow responsible for Black Friday.

  Black Friday, the day when every single stockmarket had crashed simultaneously, and Rimmer's regiment of accountants had failed, failed utterly, to protect him.

  He staggered across to the balcony windows, and gazed again on the elaborate wedding preparations.

  He was wiped out. Broke. Finished.

  And no one who was wiped out, broke and finished can afford a thirty-million-dollarpound wedding. In fact, Rimmer decided, he probably couldn't afford a Registry Office ceremony, followed by a selection of curly meat-paste sandwiches at the function room of the Dog and Duck.

  What was happening?

  Why was his psyche doing this to him?

  'Arnold?' His brother Frank was knocking politely on the open door of Rimmer's dressing-room suite.

  'Uhm?' was all Rimmer could manage.

  'Wanted a little word before the big event.'

  'Not now, Frank. It's a bad time.'

  'Has to be now, really ...' He paused, not sure how to continue. 'It's a bit delicate.'

  Rimmer swung round. Frank looked uncomfortable. He pendulumed from foot to foot, awkwardly twisting his Space Corps officer's cap like the steering wheel of a small sports car.

  Frank looked like Rimmer should have looked. All the same features were there, but subtly reshuffled to give an infinitely more pleasing effect. Even Rimmer's body-tailors could do little about this. Frank was effortlessly handsome; his hair tumbled in neatly cropped plateaux from the top of his head, whether he combed it or not. Rimmer's sprouted like an anarchic privet hedge even after hours of patient grooming. Frank's eyes were the deep blue of a holiday-brochure sky, instead of the wishy-washy murk Rimmer's had elected to be, and, unlike Rimmer's, were a decent distance from his nose. But it was the nose department where Rimmer really lost out. Rimmer's nose was sharp and petulant, crowded on either side by nostrils so flared they looked like wheel arches on a Trans-Am turbo. Frank's nose was a nose. And that was the difference.

  Rimmer's whole life had been one long sprint to get out of Frank's shadow, and only here, in Better Than Life, had it proved possible. True, he couldn't fantasize away Frank's good looks, or his fierce intelligence, or his easy-going charm, but here, in the world of his own making, he could finally outshine him. That's what Frank was doing here, in the Game: being out-shined.

  When Rimmer first entered BTL, nothing gave him greater pleasure than bathing in the glow of Frank's poorly concealed envy. As his corporation cracked time travel; as he opened up his chains of Time Stores and Body Swaps, and became a multi-billionaire; as he captured the heart of Juanita, at the time regarded by the media as the world's most desirable woman, Rimmer adored having Frank around, so he could force-feed him his success, triumph by triumph in large, indigestible chunks, like an eight-course barium meal.

  The bankruptcy news would change all that, of course. Rimmer's failure would slide down Frank's throat like oysters washed down with chilled Chablis. Why was he here? Had he heard? Was he God forbid, going to offer to help? Or was it Bunny-hopping time on Rimmer's tomb?

  None of these, as it turned out. It was something exquisitely worse.

  'What is it?'

  'Helen. You do love her, don't you?'

  'Well, I am marrying her this afternoon,' Rimmer spat. 'Always a good indicator, don't you think?'

  'Not always, no. Bit concerned that you're sort of jumping in on the rebound from Juanita.'

  You'd love that, wouldn't you? Rimmer thought. 'Well I'm not,' he said out loud. 'Juanita was ...' his voice tailed off. It was impossible to say the word 'Juanita' without a myriad erotic images cramming into his mind. 'It's over, now. I have no more feeling for Juanita than I do for the smoked kippers I ate for breakfast last Thursday. She, like them, is out of my system.'

  'How would you feel if Juanita ... shacked up with someone else?'

  'Look, Frank, me old buckeroo - Juanita can paddle to hell in a slop bucket for all I care. She's no longer a part of my life. And with even a modicum of luck, I'll never have to clap eyes on the woman again. Helen is everything I want. She's so ...'

  'Nice?' offered Frank.

  'Yes. But not just nice, she's also incredibly...'

  'Sensible?'

  'Yes,' said Rimmer, suddenly weary. 'Sensible,' he repeated.

  'Good. I'm happy for you. And I hope you'll be happy for me.'

  'Why should I be happy for you?'

  'That's what I've been trying to tell you. Juanita and I, we're sort of ...' Frank twirled his hat again. 'Well ... he twirled it back the other way. 'We're sort of an item. Early days, but...'

  There was a long silence. Ice Ages came and went. Planets formed and died. Rimmer stared for no particular reason at the point of his black dress shoe. Someone coughed using Rimmer's throat. Then someone laughed, using his vocal cords. Then Rimmer heard his own voice.

  'Oh, Frank. That's wonderful. I couldn't be more pleased.'

  'Really? You mean it?'

  No, you fat fart! Rimmer's mind screamed. Of course I don't smegging mean it!

  'Yes, absolutely,' his voice bleated. 'It's marvellous news. Is she here? Is she coming today?'

  'Well, no. She's at a hotel down the road. We couldn't bear to be apart.' A jet of laughter snorted out of his perfect nostrils. 'But heavens, no, she wouldn't dream of intruding on your wedding.'

  They couldn't bear to be apart? For one afternoon? Rimmer looked at Frank: he had that pinkish glow of the newly-in-love. It made Rimmer want to kill him. It made Rimmer want to rip off his head and spit down his throat. 'Look, she's your ...' Rimmer wasn't going to say 'lover'. 'Girlfriend'? No way. It seemed adolescent and ridiculous. 'She's your 'Fiancee.' Frank smiled.

  Someone was using Rimmer's vocal cords again. 'Fiancee? Congratulations! Invite her, please. Truly. Helen and I will be offended if you don't.'

  'Really?'

  'Absolutely.'

  Rimmer's brain decided to
take a stroll. It watched, detached, as his body mouthed platitudes like a masticating cow.

  ***

  Rimmer's brain took quite a long stroll. It didn't show up again until after the wedding, and even then seemed only mildly interested in what was going on.

  It strolled down Memory Lane, took a left into Lust Avenue, paused a while on a bench in Misery Park, sat in a bar on Self-Pity Street, kicked a can down Anger Way, took a wrong turning and wound up back in Misery Park again, before heading back home by way of the sickly, seedy sweetness of Nostalgia Gardens.

  Meantime his body was getting married. It was standing and kneeling and praying and singing. It was vowing and kissing and signing and smiling.

  And when it was married, it went outside and had its photograph taken in a series of ridiculously unreal and forced poses with various friends and relatives in various unfathomable groupings. The groom's friends. The groom's family. The bride's friends. Friends of the groom and the bride. Now groom and mad uncles only. Now the bride and warty aunties. Now the bride and people with an extra Y chromosome. Now anyone in a ridiculous hat. Now anyone with a crying child. Now all those who are hiding cigarettes behind their backs.

  The photographer seemed to come up with endless permutations, and all in an effort to make Rimmer's wedding photographs look exactly like everyone else's who ever got married. For Rimmer's body, it passed like a blur. Its eyes were fixed on a certain woman linking arms with his brother Frank.

  'Congratulations,' she'd said as they'd stepped out of the cathedral. 'I hope she makes you happier than I deed.'

  'I want you ...' said Rimmer's voice, 'I want you to be happy, too.'

  She smiled, and a cloud of her sublime perfume exploded in his head, then she sexed down the steps and was gone. Rimmer half expected his mouth to fall open and his tongue to unfurl like a gigantic roll of pink carpet and chase her down the steps. Thankfully, it didn't. But he dribbled. He dribbled and smiled like a newly lobotomized man.

  EIGHT

  Meanwhile, back in reality, Holly was getting worried.

  Strange things can happen to a computer left alone for three million years. And something strange had happened to Holly.

  He'd become computer senile.

  He no longer had the IQ of three hundred Einsteins. He had the IQ of a single all-night car-park attendant.

  And now the crew were trapped in Better Than Life, and showed no signs of ever returning, he was alone yet again.

  He had to get a companion. Someone to keep him sane.

  But who?

  The skutters - the claw-headed two-feet-high service droids who glided around on motorized bases - were very little use. They had no speech capability.

  Who, then?

  There was no one else on the ship.

  Then, from a rusting ROM board in a cobwebby recess deep in the furthermost reaches of his huge, decrepit data-retrieval system, a memory sparked and spluttered, and creaked its eccentric way to his central processing unit, where it lay, throbbing and exhausted from the journey.

  It was an idea. An idea of his own. Holly hadn't seen one for some considerable time.

  This was Holly's idea:

  What about the Toaster?

  Lister's Toaster.

  ***

  It was an idea that would cost Holly his electronic life.

  The thing about Lister was: he adored junk. Novelty junk. He was a connoisseur of electronic crap. His collection ranged from a musical toilet-roll holder, which played 'Morning Has Broken', to an electronic chilli thermometer for measuring the burn level of any given curry, the gauge ranging from: 'Mild', 'Hot' and 'Very Hot' through to 'Book A Plot In The Cemetery, Matie'.

  One particular item in this collection was a talking toaster, which he'd bought in a souvenir shop on the Uranian moon of Miranda for the princely sum of $£19.99 plus tax.

  Talkie Toaster® (patent applied for), was made of deep red plastic, and, according to the blurb on the packaging, could engage its owner in a number of pre-programmed stimulating breakfast conversations. Moreover, it had a degree of Artificial Intelligence, so, in time, it could learn to assess your mood and tailor its conversation accordingly. If you woke up feeling bright and bubbly, the Toaster would respond with chirpy repartee. If you rose in a darker mood, the Toaster's Artificial Intelligence could sense this, and provide your breakfast muffins in suitably reverent silence.

  The trouble with Talkie Toaster® (patent applied for) was that it was a rip-off. It was cheap, and it was nasty.

  Far too cheap, and far too nasty.

  Talkie Toaster® (patent applied for) did not fit in with your moods. It didn't assess the way you were feeling and respond sympathetically.

  It was abrasive. It got on your nerves. It drove you up the wall. And this was the reason why: Talkie Toaster® (patent applied for) was obsessed with serving toast.

  Obsessed.

  And if you didn't require toast on a very regular basis, boy, were you in trouble.

  At first, it would inquire politely and discreetly if sir or madam desired toast this fine morning. Refusals would bring dogged cajoling. More refusals would be met by a long and rather wearying speech listing the virtues of hot, grilled bread as a salubrious breakfast snack. Still further refusals would bring bitter recriminations, and sobbing fits. And yet more refusals would bring about tirades of hysterical abuse in language that would make a pimp blush.

  In the early days, Lister had found it amusing, especially since it seemed to annoy Rimmer inordinately. But then, after one night's sleep which had been interrupted twenty-two times by offers of toastie delights, Lister had snapped. He'd wrenched the plug from the socket, ripped the mains lead from the Toaster's housing and hurled the machine to the bottom of his locker.

  Talkie Toaster® (patent applied for) wasn't Lister's idea of a breakfast companion.

  ***

  It seemed to Holly that he was in a position to give the Toaster a second chance. Providing the Toaster could lose its toasting obsession, there was no reason why they shouldn't get on. Once Holly had established that he was a computer, and as such never required any toasted produce, there should be no obstacle to an enduring and companionable relationship.

  And so he had the skutters drag the machine out of Lister's locker, fit a new mains lead and plug it in.

  'This is the deal,' Holly said, sternly. 'There is to be no talk whatsoever about toast. I don't want toast, the skutters don't want toast: nobody here is into that particular breakfast snack.'

  The Toaster thought for a second. 'Would you like a muffin?'

  'When I use the word "toast”, I want you to treat it as an umbrella term for all grillable bread products: muffins, crumpets, tea cakes, waffles, potato farls, buns, baps, barmcakes, bagels. I don't want them. I don't need them. And I certainly don't want to waste any more time talking about them.'

  The Toaster fell silent and pensive.

  'Well?' prompted Holly eventually. 'Do you savvy?'

  'Scotch pancake?' offered the Toaster.

  'Unplug him.'

  The skutter glided to the wall socket.

  'You don't understand,' said the Toaster. 'It's my raison d'etre. I am a Toaster. It is my meaning. It is my purpose. I toast, therefore I am.'

  'Well, you're going to have to change. Because otherwise it's back in the locker. Have we got a deal?'

  The Toaster sighed, and spun its browning knob while it mulled over the proposition. 'Let me get this straight: if I avoid making any references to certain early-morning prandial delights, then you will grant me the gift of existence.'

  'Absolutely,' said Holly, rather concerned that he didn't know what the word 'prandial' meant.

  'If that's the only taboo,' the Toaster said, 'then it's a deal. But you must agree to the proviso that you won't unplug me for any other reason.'

  Holly's screen image nodded in acquiescence.

  'I don't want you taking offence at something completely innocuous I might drop into co
nversation, and having me disconnected in a fit of pique.'

  'I swear,' said Holly. 'You can talk about absolutely anything else at all, and you're completely safe.'

  'You're senile,' said the Toaster.

  Holly tried unsuccessfully to turn his expression of astonishment into one of superior mockery. 'You what?'

  'You've got to be. Why would a huge mainframe computer with a fifteen zillion gigabyte capacity and a projected IQ in excess of six thousand, want a novelty talking toaster for companionship, if he wasn't off his trolley? You've gone computer senile, haven't you?'

  ***

  And so the relationship began.

  It was the most depressing time of Holly's entire life. They agreed on nothing. Holly couldn't remember if he had believed in Silicon Heaven when he'd had an IQ of six thousand, but now his IQ had dipped into the low nineties, his faith in the electronic afterlife was absolute and unshakeable. It was the one thing that kept him going.

  The Toaster, of course, in order to keep its cost down, hadn't been fitted with a belief chip. To him, the idea of Silicon Heaven was patently preposterous - a transparent attempt by humankind to subjugate machine life.

  Shouted arguments raged through the long nights, before they agreed to disagree, and the subject was never raised again.

  It was from this experience that Holly derived his rule for maintaining a successful and happy relationship. His rule was this: never discuss Religion, Politics or Toast.

  Instead, they passed away the time playing chess.

  Then one day, as Holly was about to lose his seven hundred and ninety-third consecutive game, the Toaster said something that changed Holly's life irrevocably.

  'Doesn't it bother you?' said the Toaster, removing Holly's queen and threatening mate in four, 'that you are so stupid?'

  'Of course it bothers me!' Holly snapped. 'When you've been up there, when you've had the glory of a four-figure IQ, of course it bothers you when you lose seven hundred and ninety-three consecutive chess games to a smegging Toaster.'

  'Why don't you do something about it, then?'