Chapter 4

Penny never had another repetition of that violent dream, and had virtually forgotten it after a couple of weeks. They were weeks which saw her continue her twice weekly visits with her friend Madge to the gymnasium. They both made a lot of friends there and both professed to feeling a great deal better in themselves. Penny would stand before her full-length mirror every morning and will herself to see the signs of her improvement in shape and tone.

The morning jogging sessions lengthened and she was becoming able to run for an hour each day without becoming breathless. Once, she saw a man - one of her neighbors, running in the park dressed only in shorts and running shoes. She envied him this male freedom to discard so much clothing and regretted that Society frowned on the exposure of the female breast. She was quite proud of hers and was sure no one would be offended at the sight of them. She did look around, though, for wear that was as revealing as the law would allow, and soon began to attract admiring glances from the rest of the people in her street, several of whom, male of course, took to rising early in order to see her go by.

It was not until after six weeks of this new, energetic and Spartan regime that she decided she would run all the way to work every morning. It was only eight miles, she decided, and this early morning exercise was getting to be insufficient for her. Trouble was, it would involve a few logistical problems. She decided to consult her boss, Harry Burns.

He was very helpful.

“Yes, I think it would be very good for you. You really look so much fitter lately, and your work has improved no end - not that I had any complaints before. You’d need to shower and then change into your business things, and we don’t have the facilities here - yet. Why not ask at that gym you go to? It’s just around the corner and I think they open quite early. See old Tom Brewster. Tom’s a friend of the owner - that’s how we got to know about it here and get favorable terms.”

This was a bit of a setback. Relations had been frosty between the two for some time now, to Penny’s distress. She had been uncharacteristically sharp with him once and he had never forgiven her, despite all she had done to make amends. However, on this occasion Tom was helpfulness itself and immediately got on the phone to Patrice Murphy, the gym owner. Penny was to chat to him about the arrangements at lunch time.

She arranged with this affable Irish gentleman to use a locker to store her working clothes at night and running gear by day. Once a week she would collect her things for the weekend. She’d have to come in by train a couple of times, but for three days weekly she could run to work in the morning and back home at night. By the time a month of this regime had been in place, she was looking very, very different to the lazy, unfit and overweight girl that she had been at the start of this little story.

Pat Murphy was taking an interest in her, which she only partly welcomed. She suspected, in some way, that his interest was anything but a good thing, especially as she had seen him chatting to Tom Brewster a few times, and she knew that this fellow worker definitely meant her no good.