The Dominafuhrer - THE GODMOTHER

Episode 63 - Supping With The Devil

London October 1937

With rising impatience, Miss Spiteful once again firmly removed the Dutchman’s hand from her thigh as his pudgy fingers traced the outline of her suspender clip. This time however, she kept hold of his little finger beneath the table and bent it back as far as she could. As he gave a little yelp and twisted on his chair, Miss Spiteful gave him a fixed smile and leaned over so that she could whisper in his left ear.

“If you do that again, I will break your finger off,” Miss Spiteful warned Piet de Hoone. “Now smile!” she commanded and then laughed loudly to make it appear to their dining companions that she had just made a witty remark while the Dutchman’s lips parted in a rictus grin.

“I’m so glad to see that you two are getting on,” Sir Douglas Bradshaw said from the seat on the other side of de Hoone. Miss Spiteful gave him a weak smile in return and bent her head over her dessert plate.

The food in the night club had been the only redeeming feature of the evening so far; Miss Spiteful enjoyed eating there and had already struck up a rapport with the staff, unlike most of the clientele, rewarding good service with generous tips and acknowledging that they actually existed. In return, she was always served first, her plate held more food than anyone else’s and her glass was never empty. Against that, she had to put up with being ignored by London Society, including her own customers who usually came accompanied by their wives or mistresses. Every one knew who she was and what she did but Miss Spiteful accepted that her business would suffer if she embarrassed any of her clients in public. She knew, at least, that it was not her nationality that made her unacceptable; the British were too polite for that and her English was excellent. In France, she had often heard the word ‘Boche’ and an epithet muttered after she had struggled to make herself understood in her school French.

What made it worse for her  that night was that she really did not like Sir Douglas and his other guests who, besides sharing his Fascist or pro-German sympathies, also had wealth and power in some measure. Across the table from Miss Spiteful was the Earl of Ennisborough and his wife; one of the richest landowners in Britain, the Earl had been sacked from his Cabinet because of his neo-Fascist views and it was only because the Countess hosted London’s most lavish and glittering parties in her Park Lane mansion, which no one wanted to be excluded from, that the pair were still able to mix in society. Next to them were Lord and Lady Foreland; he was a Press Baron who owned four national newspapers that campaigned for better relations with Hitler and Germany and a better understanding of their position. A big, bear like man with a face like a piece of Italian leather, he was notorious for his succession of beautiful blonde mistresses, many of whom were notionally employed by one of other of his newspapers. He towered over his diminutive Baroness, who having lost out in a conversation with the Countess as to who had had the most sparkling guest list at their most recent party, said nothing more for the rest of the evening.

On the other side of Sir Douglas was Lady Pandora, daughter of a Scottish Earl and four years younger than Miss Spiteful, who was Sir Douglas’s secretary but was also the willing recipient of his rough sexual demands. She was enthralled by Hitler and the Nazis and, on learning that Miss Spiteful had met the Fuhrer at a reception shortly before leaving Berlin, pleaded to know what he had said to her.

”He said what a pleasure it was to meet a supporter from before he had come to power and then farted,” was Miss Spiteful’s reply. All of which was quite true because Goebbels had whispered in Hitler’s ear that Miss Spiteful had been at his pre election rally in Munich to prevent him asking about her current occupation and the Fuhrer’s flatulence was notorious. Lady Pandora’s reaction was to exclaim: “How wonderful!” and Miss Spiteful had to turn away before she could be asked what Hitler’s odour had smelt like.

Seated to the left of Miss Spiteful was Sir Andrew Horwood-Grahame; a right wing Conservative member of Parliament, who was also an admirer of Hitler and a frequent advocate in Parliament and the Press of adopting Nazi practices in Britain. He had arrived at the club already well intoxicated and, to Miss Spiteful’s relief, had no sooner sat down beside her than he had began dozing, either picking at or ignoring each plate or dish in front of him until it was taken away.

Miss Spiteful had been looking forward to an evening without having to exchange forced pleasantries when de Hoone arrived after the first course had been served, red faced, sweating and wearing an ill fitting and badly cleaned dinner suit. A place was hastily laid and a chair was placed between Miss Spiteful and Sir Douglas to accommodate the Dutchman who, while getting seated, managed to mop his brow and make his first tentative grope at Miss Spiteful’s right thigh.

“Please accept my sincere apologies”, he announced to the others at the table who stared back with contempt or disinterest. “My automobile broke down on what you English laughingly call your Great North Road; it is not even as wide as one side of the new autobahns in Germany. I had to wait for a man with a motorcycle and a sidecar to come and fix it.” de Hoone then fell to clearing the starters off his plate, digging his elbow into Miss Spiteful’s ribs each time he lifted his fork. Miss Spiteful’s eyes narrowed and her lips pursed dangerously as she inched her chair nearer to Sir Andrew’s. de Hoone was oblivious to her maneuvers, dropping his cutlery on the plate and wiping his mouth with his hand before turning to Sir Douglas and trying to hold a conversation in loud whispered German. His host was not interested however; Lady Pandora was gazing doe-eyed at Sir Douglas as he described his meetings with various Nazi luminaries and Miss Spiteful wondered if the girl would have an orgasm at the table or swoon first. de Hoone did not understand that Englishmen did not discuss business in places like this especially as it seemed sensitive (Miss Spiteful had overhead phrases about flat and level farmland, perfect landing grounds and no problems about erecting big barns) and persisted in his attempts until Sir Douglas eventually turned round and told him to shut up.

de Hoone’s jaw dropped but then he shrugged and turned around to give Miss Spiteful a frightening leer. “I hear that you are a very accomplished young lady. I am sorry that I did not avail myself of your services in Berlin, where you are much missed. Perhaps I could visit you in London?”

Miss Spiteful’s nose wrinkled in disgust as he leaned closer and her nostrils were assailed with the mixture of sweat, oil and agricultural odour. She was saved from responding by a waiter leaning between them to clear the plates and cutlery and, moments later, another delivering the soup course. de Hoone transferred his attention to the chicken consommé which he sucked loudly off his spoon to the embarrassment of Sir Douglas and his guests as heads turned on other tables and even Sir Andrew stirred and blinked in astonishment.

Miss Spiteful was grateful for the speedy service which kept de Hoone’s hands occupied although his fingers kept wandering back to her hips and thighs at any opportunity and even managed on one occasion to touch her right breast. Miss Spiteful continued to fend off the Dutchman’s unwelcome attentions without being too obvious but her temper was getting rapidly shorter.

All during the meal, there were other diners coming to the table, mostly to pay court to the Ennisboroughs or Lord Foreland; to make sure that they were still on the formers’ guest list or to keep their names out of the latter’s newspapers. Sir Douglas also had some obsequious visitors who, Miss Spiteful guessed, owed him money secured against their homes or estates. She knew what they did not; that a lot of the money that Sir Douglas lent was not his own but came, via several bank accounts, from the Reichsbank in Berlin.

Not everyone passing stopped to talk; the Mountbattens and the Duff Coopers swept by, pointedly ignoring the Bradshaw party but Noël Coward, following behind, took his cigarette holder from his lips and gave Miss Spiteful a cheeky grin, patting his bottom at the same time. Miss Spiteful smiled cautiously in return, the entertainer and his friends might be directing good business her way but she had refused some potential new clients when she suspected that drugs were involved or one member of a couple was less than willing or underage.

One visitor to the table was not made welcome; Augustus Mayberry sidled up to Lord Foreland, his current employer, who listened for a few minutes and then waved him away. Mayberry did not even bother the Ennisboroughs but, ignoring Sir Douglas’s warning “Not now, Mayberry”, made his way around the table until he stood behind Miss Spiteful’s chair.

His cheery “Hello Andrew!” to his fellow Tory MP produced a slurred “Fuck off!”, to Miss Spiteful’s amusement, but Mayberry and de Hoone seemed to have met before as they discussed in undertones some establishments that they had both visited. Having heard about Mayberry’s sexual tastes, Miss Spiteful felt even less happy to be sitting next to de Hoone if he too had paedophile leanings. She had enough when she felt Mayberry’s clammy hand on her bare shoulder and, pushing her hands against the table, propelled her chair backwards until it collided with his shins and stomach. Mayberry bent over, gasping for air and rubbing his lower legs, eventually looking up directly into Miss Spiteful’s grim face and then hobbling away without a word.

“Poor chap”, de Hoone gazed after him and then clapped his hands in appreciation as the waiters approached with the dessert course.

Throughout the evening, the resident band and crooner had entertained the diners with a selection of swing and dance music and there had also been a couple of acts; a solo singer who accompanied himself on the piano and a pair of comedians, dressed like drunken toffs, whose jokes had been incomprehensible to Miss Spiteful, although she did catch one reference to Adolf Hitler which Sir Douglas and his party had not laughed at. Some people had taken to the small dance floor and, at times, the band and the singers had struggled to compete with the noise from a very boisterous party at the far side of the stage from Miss Spiteful.

Now, as de Hoone squeezed his left hand and bit his lower lip to hold back his sobs of pain, the restaurant lights dimmed and the resident band, except for the black jacketed trumpeter, left the podium.

“Ah this is the main act”, Sir Douglas said. “Brown Sugar and the White Crystals; they have been in London for a couple of months and this is almost their last night here. I’ve heard that she is a fabulous singer, for a black. They are all Dutch, so you probably know them Piet.”

de Hoone grimaced and gingerly clutched his little finger as he nodded. “Ja, the girl won a singing competition that my company sponsored on Hilversum Radio when she was in her teens. She was tall and quite a beauty even then.” He lowered his voice and switched to speaking German so that only Sir Douglas and Miss Spiteful heard and understood him. “The prizes were professional contracts but I usually got the finalists on their own and told them that they had to be nice to me if they wanted to win. I tried it with this Van Hassel girl and then this even taller maniac appeared who put me up against a wall and told me what he would do to me with a marlinspike if I touched his daughter again. I think he must have been a seaman, I have never heard such language. Of course the girl won but I still had my prick sucked by the runner up, a pretty little thing with long blonde ringlets.”

Miss Spiteful felt sick but Sir Douglas did not seem interested and concentrated on lighting his cigar. His flicked the match into the silver ashtray on the table and leaned back to blow out smoke.

“I heard that she has been seeing that little swine, Jeremy Finch-Wardle while she has been in London. That’s him and his set on that table over there that have been making all that row.”

Miss Spiteful frowned and looked in that direction but the dimmed lights made it impossible to pick out any features. “Although I have also heard,” Sir Douglas continued. “That he dropped her quite publicly the other day. Had some sort of an argument in the Savoy Grill and he walked out leaving her in tears at the table. As I said, he’s a nasty little shit, like the rest of his family. Big land owners but all tight fisted crooks. I will not deal them any more; I bought some of their property and their lawyers tied me up in such knots that I found that I had paid for something I owned in name only and was not able to do anything with. Young Jeremy is their golden boy and heir but he is also the biggest supplier of drugs to debutantes and the bright young things of London.”  

Miss Spiteful raised her eyebrows in surprise and as Sir Douglas continued; distasteful as it was, she collected such gossip for her card index system. “The drugs are kept in a mews flat off Devonshire Street by a tart and her pimp and Jeremy collects a load about an hour before one of his big parties at which he hands out tasters to the partygoers. Once he has the kids hooked, they have to keep paying Jeremy from their allowances or inheritances before they can go and collect their fixes from the tart. Of course, the only time he has the drugs is on him is party night; I think he has another one this weekend.”

“Why do the Police not raid his party and catch him with the drugs?” Miss Spiteful enquired. “If you know, so must they.”

“Money, lawyers,” Sir Douglas shrugged. “The ones who have not been bought off are frightened to make a wrong move. Parents complain when they find their Lady Constance or the Honourable Algernon are drug addicts but Jeremy thinks that he is untouchable.”

Half a dozen musicians in white jackets had taken their seats at the side of the stage and, having tuned their instruments, began to play ‘Moonlight Serenade’ as a spotlight illuminated a gap in the curtains at the rear.

“My Lords, Ladies, Gentleman and honoured guests,” a voice boomed over the loud speakers. “Miss Brown Sugar and the White Crystals!”

To continue with this story, click A Stab In The Dark



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