Helen Simpson Reads “Lub Dub Lub Dub Lub Dub”

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3:432026 issue of the magazine. Simpson, a winner of the American Academy of Arts and Letters E.M. Forster Award, is the author of seven short story collections, including Cockfosters, which was published in 2015. Now here's Helen Simpson.

4:05Helen Simpson:Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub. I wish I'd never read that piece about pacemakers, Tracy said. You needed a new cooker anyway, Lois said. You were saying your old one was about to give up the ghost. How was I to know a plain electric hob would take forever to heat up, Tracy fumed. Then it gets too hot and it won't turn down again and it burns everything. Disaster. You did it for Adam, Lois pointed out, for his health. Old friends, they were in one of London's myriad costas for a quick flat white before Lois's 1007 train from Euston. She was off on her fortnightly trek to the Midlands to visit her 92-year-old mother.

4:51Helen Simpson:A shriek of laughter from the gaggle of school mothers in the sofa area temporarily silenced them. The clack of cleated cycling shoes added to the din as three furry-legged men in helmets clattered up to the counter. The air was already at blood heat outside and the men were sweating freely. How's it been since Adam retired? Lois asked. Tracy thought about this. It had been the right time for him to stop. I prefer to call it badinage, he'd said when challenged about his workplace banter. Four dinerog call-outs to the house in the past two weeks about our drains not working with maximum efficiency, she said.

5:33He's off at the gym now, which is ironic as the gym's

5:36Helen Simpson:the reason I've got to go to an effing three-hour workshop on cardiac arrest this morning. Adam had been working out at the gym when the man on the running machine next to him had toppled off it while watching a replay of the previous night's Champions League highlights. The gym's defibrillator had blasted into action and now the man was recovering from a triple bypass. Only 57, Adam had marvelled, shaking his head. He was 65 himself. Who knew an induction stovetop could mess with a pacemaker, Lois said, reverting to their cooker conversation. Don't get closer than two feet away or you might explode, Tracy said.

6:16Helen Simpson:You'll need a mega-long wooden spoon to scramble your eggs if you're going to risk it, according to that pesky health magazine Adam's father had had a pacemaker like a little matchbox under his collarbone And heart trouble was often genetic Tracy was anticipating Adam's need for one himself It's how my father went, Lois said He didn't really know anything about it He'd been telling a funny story at the time and he just stopped That was it So long ago now His heart burst smilingly, Tracy thought, the shred of Shakespeare floating back across the decades. She'd done King Lear at school. Lately all sorts of things she'd once read were reappearing.

6:58Helen Simpson:My mother's been on her own now for well over thirty years, Lois said. She's indestructible. I do worry about what's going to happen, how it'll end. She won't have any help except from me, and her stairs are lethal. Have you noticed, though, Tracy said, things don't generally go as expected. Something happens out of the blue. Think of the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall? I suppose so. Why didn't you go for a gas stove top, by the way? Oh, I know. You don't have to tell me. I love gas for cooking. So responsive. But apparently it's the same as having a small car belching exhaust fumes into your kitchen, and Adam gets asthma now and then.

7:43Helen Simpson:You can't win, can you? Oh, look at the time, I've got to rush. The two women embraced briefly but warmly, and set off on their different days. At the workshop, in a local church hall, Tracey found herself sitting next to a woman who'd already done the course once, and had come for a refresher. In the same week that this woman had first done it, she told Tracy, quite by chance she'd gone round to friends for dinner and just as their host was carrying in the fish pie he'd dropped it and crashed to the ground with a heart attack. She was able to administer CPR right away, freshly primed with the relevant knowledge.

8:22Helen Simpson:No, he didn't survive. It had made her feel better about it though, having a go herself. The course leader gave them her name at the start. Welsh for Snow, she told them, a Celtic name that sounded to Tracy like Weary, although surely it couldn't be that, even if it did suit her. Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub is the noise of the heart beating when you listen with a stethoscope. It's a four-chambered pump, ceaselessly squeezing the blood through your body, and its hundred thousand beats a day are powered by self-generated electrical impulses. A cardiologist clearly had to combine the skills of both plumber and electrician, Tracy thought as she listened to Weary's account of what tended to go wrong.

9:05Helen Simpson:Your heart's supply pipes could get furred up. They could narrow right down and sometimes be completely blocked. Then you would have to get stents or an ablation. And if some really serious plumbing work needed to be done, the supply might be rerouted via some unblocked pipes borrowed from somewhere else, often from your leg whereas when the electrics went wrong when the rhythm of the pump fell out of kilter a little generator, a pacemaker could be wired in under the collarbone to put it right When the heart stops for whatever reason Weary said, wearily whether it's blocked arteries or electrical chaos, whatever that's what's called cardiac arrest After four minutes of no oxygen the brain starts to die but if you keep the blood moving round the body with hefty chest compressions, you might gain a little more time.

10:01Helen Simpson:The workshop attendees shifted in their seats. Action at last. But whatever you do, don't try it if they're breathing, Weary added sternly. Check if they're breathing first. There was some uneasy laughter. I've seen relatives attempting to do CPR on someone while they're trying to escape, she continued without smiling. I've literally had to pull them off. So how do you check? You check by getting your ear and cheek down close to their nose, their mouth, and feeling if there's any breath coming out. Another scrap of Shakespeare appeared, longer this time echoing down the corridor of memory. Lend me a looking glass.

10:44Helen Simpson:If that her breath will mist or stain the stone, why then she lives? Tracy put her hand up. Would it work if you put a mirror to their mouth? she asked. I have heard of that, Weary said, but to be honest, most people don't carry a mirror with them. More than 90 % of people who experience cardiac arrests outside of hospitals do not survive, they were told. Tracy stopped concentrating quite so hard when she heard this. What was the point? A plastic torso and face was pulled from Weary's rucksack. Little Anne, she said, tossing the demi-doll to the ground. With some effort she got down onto her hands and knees to demonstrate how to do chest compressions Arms straight, push hard with your arms straight, Weary said, and release Keep this up to the rhythm of staying alive Though you could go with Baby Shark if you're too young to know about the Bee Gees We don't advise Nellie the Elephant anymore, it's too slow How hard should you push?

11:46Helen Simpson:the keen woman next to Tracy asked Pretty hard, Weary said Some think if you don't break a rib it's not hard enough I wouldn't go so far as to say that Though, yes, I might well do some damage to the ribs, the cartilage But if you don't push down hard enough, their brain will die Bloody hell, Tracy muttered To be honest, it's very unlikely you'll get that heart beating again without a defibrillator, Weary said Which needs to be there within four minutes, ideally, if it's going to work So as you can see, it's where your cardiac arrest happens that matters most. I mean, at Heathrow you'd be OK, or at the gym, but you might not be so lucky otherwise.

12:28Helen Simpson:I'd be useless, Tracy thought. We are enfleshed, that's the mystery. But flesh is not all that we are. The body is important and interesting, but it's not the whole story. Yes, when the heart stops beating, your light's switched off. but until then... Once home, hunched over a Nespresso, Tracey attended to the build-up on her iPhone, saving Lois's WhatsApp voice note till last. Lois had had a falafel panini at the bus stop in Burton-upon-Trent, it seemed. Not very nice, but better than nothing, while waiting for the once-an-hour number nine to her mother's flat in Ashby de la Zouche. She was reporting in now from her childhood bedroom.

13:14Helen Simpson:her mother was having a nap while she Lois sorted through her bills and medical appointments she Lois was looking forward to a better night's sleep under her old candlewick bedspread than she'd been managing recently she was glad for her daughter that things were going well with a new boyfriend but the walls were paper thin and she and William could hear everything though of course she shouldn't complain it wasn't her daughter's fault that she couldn't afford to move out at 27. And actually, maybe she and William should think about downsizing too, though they couldn't really afford to either if they wanted to stay near London, where their life was.

13:51Helen Simpson:Tracey's voice note in response gave the morning's workshop highlights, including the rib-cracking part, and she volunteered that she thought her, Lois's, mother, had been absolutely right to get her official DNR statement framed and placed on the hall table. As otherwise, any paramedics would be legally obliged to storm in and do goodness knows what, which seemed ridiculous. And as for downsizing, she was just off now as it happened to view a flat with Ollie, the estate agent she'd told Lois about, the one who looked like Paul Meskell. It's deceptively spacious, Ollie said, as he always did. Mmm, Tracy said.

14:35Helen Simpson:They gazed together at the melancholy little room. It smelled dispiritingly stale. A fine pelt of dust coated the brown furniture. Dust moats circulated sluggishly in the single ray of light struggling through the layer of window grime. Probate job, Ollie added. Phew, it's hot, Tracy said, mopping her forehead with a tissue. Yeah, climate change, what can you do, Ollie agreed. I'm on leave next week and it'll be 43 in Corfu. But that's cool, I just want to chill by the pool. "'Yes,' Tracey said. "'Another heat wave was on the way, "'the second this year, and it was still only early May. "'Having lived in Britain all her life, "'Tracey's thermostat was calibrated to milder days, "'and she didn't do so well now that the outside air "'had started to exceed blood heat "'by several degrees on a regular basis.

15:29Helen Simpson:"'That's how they used to poach lobsters,' she thought, "'alive and slowly increasing the heat.' "'How's business?' she asked Ollie. Good, good, he said earnestly, admiring his pointy brown shoes. Then he looked up at her and beamed. They were saying at work it's already started the cascade effect. Cascade effect, she asked, though she knew what it was. It was a phrase she kept hearing. Trillions, he said with simple enthusiasm. The greatest transfer of parent-to-child wealth in history, and all because of what's happened to property prices. Tracey grunted her understanding of this. Our new sales initiative, he said, laughing.

16:10Helen Simpson:We call it Downsize and Die. Then he realised what he'd just said and blushed as red as a peony. Off the record, he muttered, frowning down at his shoes this time. Of course, Tracey said soothingly. At home she smiled fondly at Downsize and Die, pausing to tap out a WhatsApp message to make Lois smile too. What was that piece of advice Ollie had given her last week while he was showing her the basement flat on Harbinger Road? I always say go with your gut, not with your heart, he'd said mysteriously. Go with your gut. Even as she was under sedation, the deep twisting sensation during her recent colonoscopy had made her groan.

16:56Helen Simpson:The long metal worm with its camera eye was like the one dino rod used on the drains. Adam didn't yet know to leave well alone. She turned back to the pile of novels she had been sorting through for Oxfam. A sense of impending doom, that was how Weary had described the feeling many people got, like a heaviness in the chest. It wasn't as if you got to choose, though, Tracy mused, saving in a summer season and tossing under the volcano onto the giveaway pile. Extraordinary that this Billy bookcase will outlive me, she thought. It'll still be here years after I've gone. Anyway, who cares? She'd had enough for one day.

17:41Helen Simpson:Death hath ten thousand several doors. Get over it. Whichever way you go, it ends the same way. What would it profit me to be shot to death with diamonds or strangled with pearls? That wasn't Shakespeare, was it? No, it was Webster. Six o 'clock, she turned the radio on The slow chimes of Big Ben sounded And then the newsreader's solemn voice with the headlines Here was Adam at the door Back from his afternoon trip to the dentist She flicked off the radio and looked at him blankly The world is run by awful old men, she said No debate there, Adam said Unpacking some cans of beer from his man-bag You won't believe it when I tell you how much it's going to cost for a root canal.

18:28Helen Simpson:His golden locks, time hath to silver, turned. She was still getting used to the change in how he looked. I'm off to tennis in a minute, he added. What, again? You should take more exercise, he said as he walked out of the room. I don't want you dying on me. No, she said. You know what I mean, he said, putting his head round the door, then coming over to hug her. I wouldn't last long if you went. I'll be having a drink with Pete afterward, by the way, so I'll help myself from the fridge when I get back. See you later, she said. Deciding that she'd had something from the freezer herself, she turned the oven on high to preheat.

19:08Good.

19:09Helen Simpson:There was an individual lasagna, just what she felt like. Tonight would be the first time she'd used the oven rather than the stovetop since the cookers' arrival last week, so this would be in the nature of a christening. It certainly looked good, with the pasta's bubbling bechamel clearly visible through the flawless glass door. While she waited for her meal to heat through, she sat reading In a Summer Season at the kitchen table, enjoying the new oven's industrious hum. The next thing she knew, there had been a loud explosion. Glass was everywhere, all over the table and floor, all over the kitchen, even caught in her clothes and hair.

19:51Helen Simpson:Bloody hell, she said for the second time that day. She waited for a moment before moving and thought about it. The oven must have blown up. Yes, it was the oven door. It had burst into ten thousand diamond shards. It must have been made from some sort of tempered glass, she realised, for she wasn't bleeding. The lasagna was covered in glass jewels. She crunched across the kitchen to fetch the oven's manual. Nothing there. She looked it up on her phone. And yes, how strange, oven doors did explode sometimes. It was a thing. Not feeling quite ready to start clearing up yet, Tracy stood in the kitchen doorway and took a long, deep breath.

20:39Helen Simpson:Then, while she waited for her heart rate to slow down, she WhatsApped her old friend Lois. You'll never guess what just happened.

20:58That was Helen Simpson reading her story Lubdub, Lubdub, Lubdub. She has been publishing fiction in The New Yorker since 1999. For more New Yorker fiction audio, try the New Yorker Fiction podcast where we invite writers to choose stories from the magazine's archives to read and discuss. This month, Mohsin Hamid reads Man-Eating Cats by Haruki Murakami. You can find that and other New Yorker podcasts in your podcast app. If you're a New Yorker subscriber, you get access to all episodes of The Writer's Voice ad-free and to everything else we publish, award-winning journalism, criticism, fiction, and poetry, plus games and cartoons.

21:35For an early look at new fiction, poems, and author interviews, sign up for the This Week in Fiction newsletter at newyorker.com slash fiction. This episode of The Writer's Voice was produced by John LeMay. I'm Deborah Treisman. Thanks for listening.

21:59Comprehensive. Witty. Speculative. Critical. Insightful. Profound. Wide-ranging. Hopefully it doesn't take itself too, too seriously. I'm David Remnick, and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, my colleagues and I try to make sense of what's happening in this chaotic world. I hope you'll join us for the New Yorker Radio Hour wherever you listen to podcasts. The thoughtful. Exquisite. Just, you know, real.

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