It's not so much that they want to play dance music instead of George Michael. It's not that they won't repair the exercycles because they think exercycles are girly.
It's their friends. They want the place to stay a club for weightlifting Neanderthals. She dreams of aerobics and sunbeds, customers from St Thomas's, Dun and Old, Pall Mall Oil, BT.
One of the thugs works for Railtrack. Yesterday he boasted how he'd seen off a pooftah in the Waterloo toilets by pouring bleach over his genitals. They all roared with laughter. How can she explain that she wants a few pooftahs? They're polite and they pay the bills.
She sees suddenly that it's not her fault. It's not a question of her making the case to them. It's that they don't want the place to change.
She thinks again of the Health Centre on Lower Marsh. It went bankrupt, but none of its members came to her. I could always sell the old one and buy that. Yes, she thinks with growing excitement, yes. I can.