The Quantity Theory of Insanity Read Free Page B

self-administering and there are dead people in most of the major enterprises, organisations and institutions. There are some autonomous servicesfor dead people, but on the whole dead services operate alongside ‘live’ ones. Most dead people have jobs, some work for live companies. Mother, for example, was working for a live publishing company.
    ‘OK. I think I’ve got it so far, but you still haven’t explained why it is that no one knows. Now I know I could shout it to the rooftops. I could sell my story to the tabloids.’ I was getting quite worked up by now, hunched over and absent-mindedly gobbling chocolate chip cookies with great gulps of tea. I didn’t even notice the kittens eating my shoelaces. Mother was imperturbable.
    ‘The funny thing is, that very few people seem to meet dead people who they know. It just goes to show you how big and anonymous the city really is. Even when people do meet dead friends and relatives they don’t seem inclined to broadcast the news.’
    ‘But Mother, you’ve always had an enquiring mind, you always thought you’d rot when you died. Why haven’t you got to the bottom of all this? Who’s the main man? Is it the “G” character?’
    ‘How should I know? I work, I go to my class, I feed the cats, I see a few friends, I travel. I’m not clever like you, if I do reflect on it at all it seems wholly appropriate. If I had spent days trying to visualise the afterlife I probably could have only come up with a pale version of the very real Crouch End I’m now living in.’
    ‘What class?’
    Mother gestured at the phone directory. ‘The people who compile the phone book hold regular classes for people who are newly dead. They run through the blue pages at the beginning of the book and explain the best and most appropriate ways for dead people to conduct themselves.’
    ‘I should imagine that there are a lot of newly dead people who are pretty badly traumatised.’ I probably said this with unwarranted enthusiasm. I was still trying to look for the gaping holes in Mother’s suburban necro-utopia.
    ‘Oh no, not at all. Put it like this: most people who’ve had painful illnesses, or are lonely, are only too relieved to discover that instead of extinction they’re getting Winchmore Hill or Kenton. The classes only go to underline the very reality of the situation. There’s something immensely reassuring about sitting on a plastic chair in a cold church hall reading a phone book and watching a pimply youth trying to draw on a whiteboard with a squeaky magic marker.’
    ‘I see your point. But Mother, you were always so sparky and feisty. It’s out of character for you to be so laid back. Aren’t you curious to get the whole picture? What happens in other cities? Is it the same? If dead people move to the provinces after a while don’t these areas get clogged up and zombified? There are a million questions I’d like the answers to. You always hated groups and here you are submitting to indoctrination in a religion ostensibly run by dead employees of British Telecom. Why? For Christ’s sake, why?’
    ‘Yeah, it is kind of weird, isn’t it. I think death must have mellowed me.’
    We chewed the fat for a while longer. Mother asked me about my sex life and whether or not I had an overdraft. She also asked about the rest of the family and expressed the opinion that both my brothers were insane and that some gay people we knew were ‘nice boys’. All this was characteristic and reassuring. She let me take a closer look at the
North London Book of the Dead
. It was genuinely uninspiring,based entirely on fact with no prophecies or commandments. The introductory pages were given over to flat statements such as: ‘Your (dead) identity should hold up to most official enquiries. Dead people work in most major civil service departments ensuring that full records of dead people are kept up to date. Should you in any instance run into difficulties, call one of the Dead