Susan Mary, however fascinated she was by the political environment, had learned that it was beyond her role as the wife of an economic analyst to express opinions, and so it was not on account of her political views that Duff found this twenty-nine-year-old American beguilingly attractive. Yet by May 1947 the pair were indulging – on her part at least – in a passionate affair. Duff, nearing sixty, was flattered and excited but probably not in love; he was still emotionally if not physically involved with Louise de Vilmorin. But Susan Mary had fallen deeply into adulterous love and, as she was to discover, there was no better place than Paris with its upstairs dining rooms and its culture of amorous secrecy to experience such an affair.
However, Duff had known since September that his tour in Paris was ending, and on 10 December the Coopers hosted a magnificent farewell ball at the Embassy. Susan Mary was heartbroken. Duff had once said that when his time was up, ‘I shan’t mind except for leaving the library’ – a magnificent room thanks to Lady Diana enlisting her artistic friends in the decoration, created to house her husband’s books. There were several British visitors who attended the ball, including Winston Churchill who could not resist an opportunity to see Odette Pol Roger, of the champagne dynasty, whom he adored, and of course a number of French government ministers. Susan Mary, looking stunning in a Schiaparelli mauve satin and ivory grosgrain gown, stayed until 5 a.m., writing to Cooper later that she would have given anything if ‘in return I could have the next five minutes sitting on your lap and be held tight, tight against your heart’. By then, although she did not know it, she was in the early stages of pregnancy. Duff was the never publicly acknowledged father, and he wrote laconically in his diary when told the news that, although Susan Mary had been married for nine years, this was her first child. By the time she saw a gynaecologist she was four months pregnant. There was no question of an abortion; the asthmatic Bill was thrilled and delighted and since Duff would quite clearly never take any particular interest, Susan Mary felt justified in keeping from her son the secret of his parentage. The story of Bill Patten Jr’s real father was not revealed until 2006 in a magazine article by the journalist Susan Braudy, more than fifty years after the events in question and two years after Susan Mary’s death. Children and the identity of their legitimate parents were a vexing subject for many in 1947 Paris.
* Even when she later discovered that Sonia Olschanesky had existed, Vera was never as interested in finding out her story as she was in knowing how Noor had died.
* He was hanged in June 1947, but his trial had nothing to do with the women SOE agents.
* Jean Weston, known as Rowlande, who started her modelling career in 1947 Paris for Worth in the wake of the New Look at the age of seventeen, was five foot nine inches tall, weighed a mere 101 pounds and had an eighteen-inch waist.
* In one secret location Ginette had come across the British nanny trying to get home, Rosemary Say.
? Wallis shopped at most of the Parisian couture houses and was an early fan of Dior, but she spread her favours widely and also patronized Mainbocher, now back in New York.
* The green and white was so popular that she used it for the packaging of her perfume, Ma Griffe (My Signature), which she launched in 1946 using an aeroplane flying over Paris to release hundreds of tiny parachutes bearing a sample of the scent.
1948–1949
PARIS AMERICANIZED
As the Marshall Plan got under way in Europe, butter, cheese, eggs and other much needed goods at last began reaching ordinary homes, and fresh medical supplies filled hospitals. Every day, 150 or so ships were unloading in port, bringing cargo to Europe. As Paris was the headquarters of the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA), which was managing the Plan, the liners also shipped in the human cargo, the requisite bureaucracy. Almost 3,000 American men arrived in Paris in the spring of 1948, setting up offices in hotel suites, apartments and h?tels particuliers, along with hundreds of women, mostly secretaries but occasionally wives.
After a winter as harsh as any during the war, with coal and gas shortages exacerbated by frequent fog so thick ‘it gave you a vague sense of being suffocated’, somehow, in the spring of 1948, Paris blossomed again with hope as well as material goods. The cafés were bustling: Sartre, Camus, Picasso or André Breton, regulars at many a Left Bank table, and American jazz players including Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington were performing at other haunts. But it was, in spite of tentative bursts of sunshine, a mixed picture. Paris certainly had not recovered its pre-war status as the foremost centre for art dealers, while a major devaluation of the franc in January 1948 resulted in Americans feeling that Paris shops may have been full of bargains; yet as most, even luxury boutiques around the Place Vend?me, were still resorting to candlelight on alternate days, it was difficult to see.