{"id":27315,"date":"2026-04-02T00:53:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T04:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/?p=27315"},"modified":"2026-04-02T00:53:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T04:53:17","slug":"daphne-du-maurier-kiss-me-again-stranger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/short-stories\/daphne-du-maurier-kiss-me-again-stranger\/27315\/","title":{"rendered":"Daphne du Maurier: Kiss Me Again, Stranger"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Synopsis:<\/strong> \u201cKiss Me Again, Stranger\u201d is a short story by British author Daphne du Maurier, published in 1952 in the collection The Apple Tree<\/em>. A young London mechanic and former soldier decides to go to the movies one night. There he meets an attractive and enigmatic young woman who works as an usher, and is immediately captivated by her. Driven by this sudden attraction, after the show he follows her to the bus and embarks with her on a long journey to the suburbs, increasingly convinced that he may have finally found someone to share his life with.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"Daphne<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Kiss Me Again, Stranger<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Daphne du Maurier
(Full story)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I looked around for a bit, after leaving the army and before settling down, and then I found myself a job up Hampstead way, in a garage it was, at the bottom of Haverstock Hill near Chalk Farm, and it suited me fine. I\u2019d always been one for tinkering with engines, and in REME that was my work and I was trained to it\u2014it had always come easy to me, anything mechanical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My idea of having a good time was to lie on my back in my greasy overalls under a car\u2019s belly, or a lorry\u2019s, with a spanner in my hand, working on some old bolt or screw, with the smell of oil about me, and someone starting up an engine, and the other chaps around clattering their tools and whistling. I never minded the smell or the dirt. As my old Mum used to say when I\u2019d be that way as a kid, mucking about with a grease can, \u201cIt won\u2019t hurt him, it\u2019s clean dirt,\u201d and so it is, with engines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The boss at the garage was a good fellow, easygoing, cheerful, and he saw I was keen on my work. He wasn\u2019t much of a mechanic himself, so he gave me the repair jobs, which was what I liked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t live with my old Mum\u2014she was too far off, over Shepperton way, and I saw no point in spending half the day getting to and from my work. I like to be handy, have it on the spot, as it were. So I had a bedroom with a couple called Thompson, only about ten minutes\u2019 walk away from the garage. Nice people, they were. He was in the shoe business, cobbler I suppose he\u2019d be called, and Mrs. Thompson cooked the meals and kept the house for him over the shop. I used to eat with them, breakfast and supper\u2014we always had a cooked supper\u2014and being the only lodger I was treated as family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m one for routine. I like to get on with my job, and then when the day\u2019s work\u2019s over settle down to a paper and a smoke and a bit of music on the wireless, variety or something of the sort, and then turn in early. I never had much use for girls, not even when I was doing my time in the army. I was out in the Middle East, too, Port Said and that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, I was happy enough living with the Thompsons, carrying on much the same day after day, until that one night, when it happened. Nothing\u2019s been the same since. Nor ever will be. I don\u2019t know\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Thompsons had gone to see their married daughter up at Highgate. They asked me if I\u2019d like to go along, but somehow I didn\u2019t fancy barging in, so instead of staying home alone after leaving the garage I went down to the picture palace, and taking a look at the poster saw it was cowboy and Indian stuff\u2014there was a picture of a cowboy sticking a knife into the Indian\u2019s guts. I like that\u2014proper baby I am for westerns\u2014so I paid my one and twopence and went inside. I handed my slip of paper to the usherette and said, \u201cBack row, please,\u201d because I like sitting far back and leaning my head against the board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, then I saw her. They dress the girls up no end in some of these places, velvet tams and all, making them proper guys. They hadn\u2019t made a guy out of this one, though. She had copper hair, pageboy style I think they call it, and blue eyes, the kind that look shortsighted but see further than you think, and go dark by night, nearly black, and her mouth was sulky-looking, as if she was fed up, and it would take someone giving her the world to make her smile. She hadn\u2019t freckles, nor a milky skin, but warmer than that, more like a peach, and natural too. She was small and slim, and her velvet coat\u2014blue it was\u2014fitted her close, and the cap on the back of her head showed up her copper hair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I bought a program\u2014not that I wanted one, but to delay going in through the curtain\u2014and I said to her, \u201cWhat\u2019s the picture like?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She didn\u2019t look at me. She just went on staring into nothing, at the opposite wall. \u201cThe knifing\u2019s amateur,\u201d she said, \u201cbut you can always sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I couldn\u2019t help laughing. I could see she was serious though. She wasn\u2019t trying to have me on or anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s no advertisement,\u201d I said. \u201cWhat if the manager heard you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then she looked at me. She turned those blue eyes in my direction, still fed up they were, not interested, but there was something in them I\u2019d not seen before, and I\u2019ve never seen it since, a kind of laziness like someone waking from a long dream and glad to find you there. Cat\u2019s eyes have that gleam sometimes, when you stroke them, and they purr and curl themselves into a ball and let you do anything you want. She looked at me this way a moment, and there was a smile lurking somewhere behind her mouth if you gave it a chance, and tearing my slip of paper in half she said, \u201cI\u2019m not paid to advertise. I\u2019m paid to look like this and lure you inside.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She drew aside the curtains and flashed her torch in the darkness. I couldn\u2019t see a thing. It was pitch black, like it always is at first until you get used to it and begin to make out the shapes of the other people sitting there, but there were two great heads on the screen and some chap saying to the other, \u201cIf you don\u2019t come clean I\u2019ll put a bullet through you,\u201d and somebody broke a pane of glass and a woman screamed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLooks all right to me,\u201d I said, and began groping for somewhere to sit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said, \u201cThis isn\u2019t the picture, it\u2019s the trailer for next week,\u201d and she flicked on her torch and showed me a seat in the back row, one away from the gangway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sat through the advertisements and the newsreel, and then some chap came and played the organ, and the colors of the curtains over the screen went purple and gold and green\u2014funny, I suppose they think they have to give you your money\u2019s worth\u2014and looking around I saw the house was half empty\u2014and I guessed the girl had been right, the big picture wasn\u2019t going to be much, and that\u2019s why nobody much was there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just before the hall went dark again she came sauntering down the aisle. She had a tray of ice creams, but she didn\u2019t even bother to call them out and try and sell them. She could have been walking in her sleep, so when she went up the other aisle I beckoned to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGot a sixpenny one?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She looked across at me. I might have been something dead under her feet, and then she must have recognized me, because that half smile came back again, and the lazy look in the eye, and she walked round the back of the seats to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWafer or cornet?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t want either, to tell the truth. I just wanted to buy something from her and keep her talking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhich do you recommend?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She shrugged her shoulders. \u201cCornets last longer,\u201d she said, and put one in my hand before I had time to give her my choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow about one for you too?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo thanks,\u201d she said, \u201cI saw them made.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And she walked off, and the place went dark, and there I was sitting with a great sixpenny cornet in my hand looking a fool. The damn thing slopped all over the edge of the holder, spilling onto my shirt, and I had to ram the frozen stuff into my mouth as quick as I could for fear it would all go on my knees, and I turned sideways, because someone came and sat in the empty seat beside the gangway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I finished it at last, and cleaned myself up with my pocket handkerchief, and then concentrated on the story flashing across the screen. It was a western all right, carts lumbering over prairies, and a train full of bullion being held to ransom, and the heroine in breeches one moment and full evening dress the next. That\u2019s the way pictures should be, not a bit like real life at all; but as I watched the story I began to notice the whiff of scent in the air, and I didn\u2019t know what it was or where it came from, but it was there just the same. There was a man to the right of me, and on my left were two empty seats, and it certainly wasn\u2019t the people in front, and I couldn\u2019t keep turning round and sniffing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not a great one for liking scent. It\u2019s too often cheap and nasty, but this was different. There was nothing stale about it, or stuffy, or strong; it was like the flowers they sell up in the West End in the big flower shops before you get them on the barrows\u2014three bob a bloom sort of touch, rich chaps buy them for actresses and such\u2014and it was so darn good, the smell of it there, in that murky old picture palace full of cigarette smoke, that it nearly drove me mad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At last I turned right round in my seat, and I spotted where it came from. It came from the girl, the usherette; she was leaning on the back board behind me, her arms folded across it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon\u2019t fidget,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019re wasting one and twopence. Watch the screen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But not out loud, so that anyone could hear. In a whisper, for me alone. I couldn\u2019t help laughing to myself. The cheek of it! I knew where the scent came from now, and somehow it made me enjoy the picture more. It was as though she was beside me in one of the empty seats and we were looking at the story together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it was over, and the lights went on, I saw I\u2019d sat through the last showing and it was nearly ten. Everyone was clearing off for the night. So I waited a bit, and then she came down with her torch and started squinting under the seats to see if anybody had dropped a glove or a purse, the way they do and only remember about afterwards when they get home, and she took no more notice of me than if I\u2019d been a rag which no one would bother to pick up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stood up in the back row, alone\u2014the house was clear now\u2014and when she came to me she said, \u201cMove over, you\u2019re blocking the gangway,\u201d and flashed about with her torch, but there was nothing there, only an empty packet of Player\u2019s which the cleaners would throw away in the morning. Then she straightened herself and looked me up and down, and taking off the ridiculous cap from the back of her head that suited her so well she fanned herself with it and said, \u201cSleeping here tonight?\u201d and then went off, whistling under her breath, and disappeared through the curtains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was proper maddening. I\u2019d never been taken so much with a girl in my life. I went into the vestibule after her, but she had gone through a door to the back, behind the box-office place, and the commissionaire chap was already getting the doors to and fixing them for the night. I went out and stood in the street and waited. I felt a bit of a fool, because the odds were that she would come out with a bunch of others, the way girls do. There was the one who had sold me my ticket, and I daresay there were other usherettes up in the balcony, and perhaps a cloakroom attendant too, and they\u2019d all be giggling together, and I wouldn\u2019t have the nerve to go up to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a few minutes, though, she came swinging out of the place alone. She had a mac on, belted, and her hands in her pockets, and she had no hat. She walked straight up the street, and she didn\u2019t look to right or left of her. I followed, scared that she would turn round and see me off, but she went on walking, fast and direct, staring straight in front of her, and as she moved her copper pageboy hair swung with her shoulders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Presently she hesitated, then crossed over and stood waiting for a bus. There was a queue of four or five people, so she didn\u2019t see me join the queue, and when the bus came she climbed onto it, ahead of the others, and I climbed too, without the slightest notion where it was going, and I couldn\u2019t have cared less. Up the stairs she went with me after her, and settled herself in the backseat, yawning, and closed her eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sat myself down beside her, nervous as a kitten, the point being that I never did that sort of thing as a rule and expected a rocket, and when the conductor stumped up and asked for fares I said, \u201cTwo sixpennies, please,\u201d because I reckoned she would never be going the whole distance and this would be bound to cover her fare and mine too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He raised his eyebrows\u2014they like to think themselves smart, some of these fellows\u2014and he said, \u201cLook out for the bumps when the driver changes gear. He\u2019s only just passed his test.\u201d And he went down the stairs chuckling, telling himself he was no end of a wag, no doubt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sound of his voice woke the girl, and she looked at me out of her sleepy eyes, and looked too at the tickets in my hand\u2014she must have seen by the color they were sixpennies\u2014and she smiled, the first real smile I had got out of her that evening, and said without any sort of surprise, \u201cHullo, stranger.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I took out a cigarette, to put myself at ease, and offered her one, but she wouldn\u2019t take it. She just closed her eyes again, to settle herself to sleep. Then, seeing there was no one else to notice up on the top deck, only an Air Force chap in the front slopped over a newspaper, I put out my hand and pulled her head down on my shoulder, and got my arm round her, snug and comfortable, thinking of course she\u2019d throw it off and blast me to hell. She didn\u2019t though. She gave a sort of laugh to herself, and settled down like as if she might have been in an armchair, and she said, \u201cIt\u2019s not every night I get a free ride and a free pillow. Wake me at the bottom of the hill, before we get to the cemetery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t know what hill she meant, or what cemetery, but I wasn\u2019t going to wake her, not me. I had paid for two sixpennies, and I was darn well going to get value for my money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we sat there together, jogging along in the bus, very close and very pleasant, and I thought to myself that it was a lot more fun than sitting at home in the bedsit reading the football news, or spending an evening up Highgate at Mr. and Mrs. Thompson\u2019s daughter\u2019s place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Presently I got more daring, and let my head lean against hers, and tightened up my arm a bit, not too obvious-like, but nicely. Anyone coming up the stairs to the top deck would have taken us for a courting couple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, after we had had about fourpenny-worth, I got anxious. The old bus wouldn\u2019t be turning round and going back again, when we reached the sixpenny limit; it would pack up for the night, we\u2019d have come to the terminus. And there we\u2019d be, the girl and I, stuck out somewhere at the back of beyond, with no return bus, and I\u2019d got about six bob in my pocket and no more. Six bob would never pay for a taxi, not with a tip and all. Besides, there probably wouldn\u2019t be any taxis going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What a fool I\u2019d been not to come out with more money. It was silly, perhaps, to let it worry me, but I\u2019d acted on impulse right from the start, and if only I\u2019d known how the evening was going to turn out I\u2019d have had my wallet filled. It wasn\u2019t often I went out with a girl, and I hate a fellow who can\u2019t do the thing in style. Proper slap-up do at a Corner House\u2014they\u2019re good these days with that help-yourself service\u2014and if she had a fancy for something stronger than coffee or orangeade, well, of course as late as this it wasn\u2019t much use, but nearer home I knew where to go. There was a pub where my boss went, and you paid for your gin and kept it there, and could go in and have a drink from your bottle when you felt like it. They have the same sort of racket at the posh night clubs up West, I\u2019m told, but they make you pay through the nose for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, here I was riding a bus to the Lord knows where, with my girl beside me\u2014I called her \u201cmy girl\u201d just as if she really was and we were courting\u2014and bless me if I had the money to take her home. I began to fidget about, from sheer nerves, and I fumbled in one pocket after another, in case by a piece of luck I should come across a half crown, or even a ten-bob note I had forgotten all about, and I suppose I disturbed her with all this, because she suddenly pulled my ear and said, \u201cStop rocking the boat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I mean to say\u2026 It just got me. I can\u2019t explain why. She held my ear a moment before she pulled it, like as though she were feeling the skin and liked it, and then she just gave it a lazy tug. It\u2019s the kind of thing anyone would do to a child, and the way she said it, as if she had known me for years and we were out picnicking together, \u201cStop rocking the boat.\u201d Chummy, matey, yet better than either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLook here,\u201d I said, \u201cI\u2019m awfully sorry, I\u2019ve been and done a darn silly thing. I took tickets to the terminus because I wanted to sit beside you, and when we get there we\u2019ll be turned out of the bus, and it will be miles from anywhere, and I\u2019ve only got six bob in my pocket.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got legs, haven\u2019t you?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat d\u2019you mean, I\u2019ve got legs?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re meant to walk on. Mine were,\u201d she answered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I knew it didn\u2019t matter, and she wasn\u2019t angry either, and the evening was going to be all right. I cheered up in a second, and gave her a squeeze, just to show I appreciated her being such a sport\u2014most girls would have torn me to shreds\u2014and I said, \u201cWe haven\u2019t passed a cemetery, as far as I know. Does it matter very much?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, there\u2019ll be others,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m not particular.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t know what to make of that. I thought she wanted to get out at the cemetery stopping point because it was her nearest stop for home, like the way you say, \u201cPut me down at Woolworth\u2019s,\u201d if you live handy. I puzzled over it for a bit, and then I said, \u201cHow do you mean, there\u2019ll be others? It\u2019s not a thing you see often along a bus route.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was speaking in general terms,\u201d she answered. \u201cDon\u2019t bother to talk, I like you silent best.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t a slap on the face, the way she said it. Fact was, I knew what she meant. Talking\u2019s all very pleasant with people like Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, over supper, and you say how the day has gone, and one of you reads a bit out of the paper, and the other says, \u201cFancy, there now,\u201d and so it goes on, in bits and pieces until one of you yawns, and somebody says, \u201cWho\u2019s for bed?\u201d Or it\u2019s nice enough with a chap like the boss, having a cuppa midmorning, or about three when there\u2019s nothing doing, \u201cI\u2019ll tell you what I think, those blokes in the government are making a mess of things, no better than the last lot,\u201d and then we\u2019ll be interrupted with someone coming to fill up with petrol. And I like talking to my old Mum when I go and see her, which I don\u2019t do often enough, and she tells me how she spanked my bottom when I was a kid, and I sit on the kitchen table like I did then, and she bakes rock cakes and gives me peel, saying, \u201cYou always were one for peel.\u201d That\u2019s talk, that\u2019s conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I didn\u2019t want to talk to my girl. I just wanted to keep my arm round her the way I was doing, and rest my chin against her head, and that\u2019s what she meant when she said she liked me silent. I liked it too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One last thing bothered me a bit, and that was whether I could kiss her before the bus stopped and we were turned out at the terminus. I mean, putting an arm round a girl is one thing, and kissing her is another. It takes a little time as a rule to warm up. You start off with a long evening ahead of you, and by the time you\u2019ve been to a picture or a concert, and then had something to eat and to drink, well, you\u2019ve got yourselves acquainted, and it\u2019s the usual thing to end up with a bit of kissing and a cuddle, the girls expect it. Truth to tell, I was never much of a one for kissing. There was a girl I walked out with back home, before I went into the army, and she was quite a good sort, I liked her. But her teeth were a bit prominent, and even if you shut your eyes and tried to forget who it was you were kissing, well, you knew it was her, and there was nothing to it. Good old Doris from next door. But the opposite kind are even worse, the ones that grab you and nearly eat you. You come across plenty of them, when you\u2019re in uniform. They\u2019re much too eager, and they muss you about, and you get the feeling they can\u2019t wait for a chap to get busy about them. I don\u2019t mind saying it used to make me sick. Put me dead off, and that\u2019s a fact. I suppose I was born fussy. I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now, this evening in the bus, it was all quite different. I don\u2019t know what it was about the girl\u2014the sleepy eyes, and the copper hair, and somehow not seeming to care if I was there yet liking me at the same time; I hadn\u2019t found anything like this before. So I said to myself, \u201cNow, shall I risk it, or shall I wait?\u201d and I knew, from the way the driver was going and the conductor was whistling below and saying \u201cgoodnight\u201d to the people getting off, that the final stop couldn\u2019t be far away; and my heart began to thump under my coat, and my neck grew hot below the collar\u2014darn silly, only a kiss you know, she couldn\u2019t kill me\u2014and then\u2026 It was like diving off a springboard. I thought, \u201cHere goes,\u201d and I bent down, and turned her face to me, and lifted her chin with my hand, and kissed her good and proper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, if I was poetical, I\u2019d say what happened then was a revelation. But I\u2019m not poetical, and I can only say that she kissed me back, and it lasted a long time, and it wasn\u2019t a bit like Doris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then the bus stopped with a jerk, and the conductor called out in a singsong voice, \u201cAll out, please.\u201d Frankly, I could have wrung his neck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She gave me a kick on the ankle. \u201cCome on, move,\u201d she said, and I stumbled from my seat and racketed down the stairs, she following behind, and there we were, standing in a street. It was beginning to rain too, not badly but just enough to make you notice and want to turn up the collar of your coat, and we were right at the end of a great wide street, with deserted unlighted shops on either side, the end of the world it looked to me, and sure enough there was a hill over to the left, and at the bottom of the hill a cemetery. I could see the railings and the white tombstones behind, and it stretched a long way, nearly halfway up the hill. There were acres of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGod darn it,\u201d I said, \u201cis this the place you meant?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCould be,\u201d she said, looking over her shoulder vaguely, and then she took my arm. \u201cWhat about a cup of coffee first?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First\u2026? I wondered if she meant before the long trudge home, or was this home? It didn\u2019t really matter. It wasn\u2019t much after eleven. And I could do with a cup of coffee, and a sandwich too. There was a stall across the road, and they hadn\u2019t shut up shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We walked over to it, and the driver was there too, and the conductor, and the Air Force fellow who had been up in front on the top deck. They were ordering cups of tea and sandwiches, and we had the same, only coffee. They cut them tasty at the stalls, the sandwiches, I\u2019ve noticed it before, nothing stingy about it, good slices of ham between thick white bread, and the coffee is piping hot, full cups too, good value, and I thought to myself, \u201cSix bob will see this lot all right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I noticed my girl looking at the Air Force chap, sort of thoughtful-like, as though she might have seen him before, and he looked at her too. I couldn\u2019t blame him for that. I didn\u2019t mind either; when you\u2019re out with a girl it gives you a kind of pride if other chaps notice her. And you couldn\u2019t miss this one. Not my girl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then she turned her back on him, deliberate, and leaned with her elbows on the stall, sipping her hot coffee, and I stood beside her doing the same. We weren\u2019t stuck up or anything, we were pleasant and polite enough, saying good evening all round, but anyone could tell that we were together, the girl and I, we were on our own. I liked that. Funny, it did something to me inside, gave me a protective feeling. For all they knew we might have been a married couple on our way home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were chaffing a bit, the other three and the chap serving the sandwiches and tea, but we didn\u2019t join in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou want to watch out, in that uniform,\u201d said the conductor to the Air Force fellow, \u201cor you\u2019ll end up like those others. It\u2019s late too, to be out on your own.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They all started laughing. I didn\u2019t quite see the point, but I supposed it was a joke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been awake a long time,\u201d said the Air Force fellow. \u201cI know a bad lot when I see one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what the others said, I shouldn\u2019t wonder,\u201d remarked the driver, \u201cand we know what happened to them. Makes you shudder. But why pick on the Air Force, that\u2019s what I want to know?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the color of our uniform,\u201d said the fellow. \u201cYou can spot it in the dark.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They went on laughing in that way. I lighted up a cigarette, but my girl wouldn\u2019t have one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI blame the war for all that\u2019s gone wrong with the women,\u201d said the coffee-stall bloke, wiping a cup and hanging it up behind. \u201cTurned a lot of them barmy, in my opinion. They don\u2019t know the difference between right or wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c \u2019Tisn\u2019t that, it\u2019s sport that\u2019s the trouble,\u201d said the conductor. \u201cDevelops their muscles and that, what weren\u2019t never meant to be developed. Take my two youngsters, f\u2019r instance. The girl can knock the boy down anytime, she\u2019s a proper little bully. Makes you think.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s right,\u201d agreed the driver, \u201cequality of the sexes, they call it, don\u2019t they? It\u2019s the vote that did it. We ought never to have given them the vote.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGarn,\u201d said the Air Force chap, \u201cgiving them the vote didn\u2019t turn the women barmy. They\u2019ve always been the same, under the skin. The people out East know how to treat \u2019em. They keep \u2019em shut up, out there. That\u2019s the answer. Then you don\u2019t get any trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what my old woman would say if I tried to shut her up,\u201d said the driver. And they all started laughing again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My girl plucked at my sleeve and I saw she had finished her coffee. She motioned with her head towards the street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWant to go home?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Silly. I somehow wanted the others to believe we were going home. She didn\u2019t answer. She just went striding off, her hands in the pockets of her mac. I said goodnight, and followed her, but not before I noticed the Air Force fellow staring after her over his cup of tea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She walked off along the street, and it was still raining, dreary somehow, made you want to be sitting over a fire somewhere snug, and when she had crossed the street, and had come to the railings outside the cemetery she stopped, and looked up at me, and smiled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat now?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTombstones are flat,\u201d she said, \u201csometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat if they are?\u201d I asked, bewildered-like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can lie down on them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She turned and strolled along, looking at the railings, and then she came to one that was bent wide, and the next beside it broken, and she glanced up at me and smiled again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always the same,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019re bound to find a gap if you look long enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was through that gap in the railings as quick as a knife through butter. You could have knocked me flat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHere, hold on,\u201d I said, \u201cI\u2019m not as small as you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But she was off and away, wandering among the graves. I got through the gap, puffing and blowing a bit, and then I looked around, and bless me if she wasn\u2019t lying on a long flat gravestone, with her arms under her head and her eyes closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I wasn\u2019t expecting anything. I mean, it had been in my mind to see her home and that. Date her up for the next evening. Of course, seeing as it was late, we could have stopped a bit when we came to the doorway of her place. She needn\u2019t have gone in right away. But lying there on the gravestone wasn\u2019t hardly natural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sat down, and took her hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll get wet lying there,\u201d I said. Feeble, but I didn\u2019t know what else to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m used to that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She opened her eyes and looked at me. There was a street light not far away, outside the railings, so it wasn\u2019t all that dark, and anyway in spite of the rain the night wasn\u2019t pitch black, more murky somehow. I wish I knew how to tell about her eyes, but I\u2019m not one for fancy talk. You know how a luminous watch shines in the dark. I\u2019ve got one myself. When you wake up in the night, there it is on your wrist, like a friend. Somehow my girl\u2019s eyes shone like that, but they were lovely too. And they weren\u2019t lazy cat\u2019s eyes anymore. They were loving and gentle, and they were sad, too, all at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUsed to lying in the rain?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBrought up to it,\u201d she answered. \u201cThey gave us a name in the shelters. The dead-end kids, they used to call us, in the war days.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWeren\u2019t you never evacuated?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot me,\u201d she said. \u201cI never could stop anyplace. I always came back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cParents living?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo. Both of them killed by the bomb that smashed my home.\u201d She didn\u2019t speak tragic-like. Just ordinary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBad luck,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She didn\u2019t answer that one. And I sat there, holding her hand, wanting to take her home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou been on your job some time, at the picture house?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAbout three weeks,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t stop anywhere long. I\u2019ll be moving on again soon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRestless,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She put up her hands suddenly and took my face and held it. It was gentle the way she did it, not as you\u2019d think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got a good kind face. I like it,\u201d she said to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was queer. The way she said it made me feel daft and soft, not sort of excited like I had been in the bus, and I thought to myself, well, maybe this is it, I\u2019ve found a girl at last I really want. But not for an evening, casual. For going steady.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGot a bloke?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI mean, regular.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, never.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a funny line of talk to be having in a cemetery, and she lying there like some figure carved on the old tombstone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t got a girl either,\u201d I said. \u201cNever think about it, the way other chaps do. Faddy, I guess. And then I\u2019m keen on my job. Work in a garage, mechanic you know, repairs, anything that\u2019s going. Good pay. I\u2019ve saved a bit, besides what I send my old Mum. I live in digs. Nice people, Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, and my boss at the garage is a nice chap too. I\u2019ve never been lonely, and I\u2019m not lonely now. But since I\u2019ve seen you, it\u2019s made me think. You know, it\u2019s not going to be the same anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She never interrupted once, and somehow it was like speaking my thoughts aloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGoing home to the Thompsons is all very pleasant and nice,\u201d I said, \u201cand you couldn\u2019t wish for kinder people. Good grub too, and we chat a bit after supper, and listen to the wireless. But d\u2019you know, what I want now is different. I want to come along and fetch you from the cinema, when the program\u2019s over, and you\u2019d be standing there by the curtains, seeing the people out, and you\u2019d give me a bit of a wink to show me you\u2019d be going through to change your clothes and I could wait for you. And then you\u2019d come out into the street, like you did tonight, but you wouldn\u2019t go off on your own, you\u2019d take my arm, and if you didn\u2019t want to wear your coat I\u2019d carry it for you, or a parcel maybe, or whatever you had. Then we\u2019d go off to the Corner House or someplace for supper, handy. We\u2019d have a table reserved\u2014they\u2019d know us, the waitresses and them; they\u2019d keep back something special, just for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could picture it too, clear as anything. The table with the ticket on \u201cReserved.\u201d The waitress nodding at us, \u201cGot curried eggs tonight.\u201d And we going through to get our trays, and my girl acting like she didn\u2019t know me, and me laughing to myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cD\u2019you see what I mean?\u201d I said to her. \u201cIt\u2019s not just being friends, it\u2019s more than that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know if she heard. She lay there looking up at me, touching my ear and my chin in that funny, gentle way. You\u2019d say she was sorry for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to buy you things,\u201d I said, \u201cflowers sometimes. It\u2019s nice to see a girl with a flower tucked in her dress, it looks clean and fresh. And for special occasions, birthdays, Christmas, and that, something you\u2019d seen in a shop window, and wanted, but hadn\u2019t liked to go in and ask the price. A brooch perhaps, or a bracelet, something pretty. And I\u2019d go in and get it when you weren\u2019t with me, and it\u2019d cost much more than my week\u2019s pay, but I wouldn\u2019t mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could see the expression on her face, opening the parcel. And she\u2019d put it on, what I\u2019d bought, and we\u2019d go out together, and she\u2019d be dressed up a bit for the purpose, nothing glaring I don\u2019t mean, but something that took the eye. You know, saucy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not fair to talk about getting married,\u201d I said, \u201cnot in these days, when everything\u2019s uncertain. A fellow doesn\u2019t mind the uncertainty, but it\u2019s hard on a girl. Cooped up in a couple of rooms maybe, and queuing and rations and all. They like their freedom, and being in a job, and not being tied down, the same as us. But it\u2019s nonsense the way they were talking back in the coffee stall just now. About girls not being the same as in old days, and the war to blame. As for the way they treat them out East\u2014I\u2019ve seen some of it. I suppose that fellow meant to be funny, they\u2019re all smart alecks in the Air Force, but it was a silly line of talk, I thought.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She dropped her hands to her side and closed her eyes. It was getting quite wet there on the tombstone. I was worried for her, though she had her mac of course, but her legs and feet were damp in her thin stockings and shoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou weren\u2019t ever in the Air Force, were you?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Queer. Her voice had gone quite hard. Sharp, and different. Like as if she was anxious about something, scared even.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot me,\u201d I said, \u201cI served my time with REME. Proper lot they were. No swank, no nonsense. You know where you are with them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019re good and kind. I\u2019m glad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wondered if she\u2019d known some fellow in the RAF who had let her down. They\u2019re a wild crowd, the ones I\u2019ve come across. And I remembered the way she\u2019d looked at the boy drinking his tea at the stall. Reflective, somehow. As if she was thinking back. I couldn\u2019t expect her not to have been around a bit, with her looks, and then brought up to play about the shelters, without parents, like she said. But I didn\u2019t want to think of her being hurt by anyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy, what\u2019s wrong with them?\u201d I said. \u201cWhat\u2019s the RAF done to you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey smashed my home,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat was the Germans, not our fellows.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all the same, they\u2019re killers, aren\u2019t they?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I looked down at her, lying on the tombstone, and her voice wasn\u2019t hard anymore, like when she\u2019d asked me if I\u2019d been in the Air Force, but it was tired, and sad, and oddly lonely, and it did something queer to my stomach, right in the pit of it, so that I wanted to do the darnedest silliest thing and take her home with me, back to where I lived with Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, and say to Mrs. Thompson\u2014she was a kind old soul, she wouldn\u2019t mind\u2014\u201cLook, this is my girl. Look after her.\u201d Then I\u2019d know she\u2019d be safe, she\u2019d be all right, nobody could do anything to hurt her. That was the thing I was afraid of suddenly, that someone would come along and hurt my girl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I bent down and put my arms round her and lifted her up close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cListen,\u201d I said, \u201cit\u2019s raining hard. I\u2019m going to take you home. You\u2019ll catch your death, lying here on the wet stone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo,\u201d she said, her hands on my shoulders, \u201cnobody ever sees me home. You\u2019re going back where you belong, alone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI won\u2019t leave you here,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, that\u2019s what I want you to do. If you refuse I shall be angry. You wouldn\u2019t want that, would you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stared at her, puzzled. And her face was queer in the murky old light there, whiter than before, but it was beautiful, Jesus Christ, it was beautiful. That\u2019s blasphemy. But I can\u2019t say it no other way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat do you want me to do?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want you to go and leave me here, and not look back,\u201d she said, \u201clike someone dreaming, sleepwalking, they call it. Go back walking through the rain. It will take you hours. It doesn\u2019t matter, you\u2019re young and strong and you\u2019ve got long legs. Go back to your room, wherever it is, and get into bed, and go to sleep, and wake and have your breakfast in the morning, and go off to work, the same as you always do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat about you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNever mind about me. Just go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan I call for you at the cinema tomorrow night? Can it be like what I was telling you, you know\u2026 going steady?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She didn\u2019t answer. She only smiled. She sat quite still, looking in my face, and then she closed her eyes and threw back her head and said, \u201cKiss me again, stranger.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I left her, like she said. I didn\u2019t look back. I climbed through the railings of the cemetery, out onto the road. No one seemed to be about, and the coffee stall by the bus stop had closed down, the boards were up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started walking the way the bus had brought us. The road was straight, going on forever. A High Street it must have been. There were shops on either side, and it was right away northeast of London, nowhere I\u2019d ever been before. I was proper lost, but it didn\u2019t seem to matter. I felt like a sleepwalker, just as she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I kept thinking of her all the time. There was nothing else, only her face in front of me as I walked. They had a word for it in the army, when a girl gets a fellow that way, so he can\u2019t see straight or hear right or know what he\u2019s doing; and I thought it a lot of cock, or it only happened to drunks, and now I knew it was true and it had happened to me. I wasn\u2019t going to worry anymore about how she\u2019d get home; she\u2019d told me not to, and she must have lived handy, she\u2019d never have ridden out so far else, though it was funny living such a way from her work. But maybe in time she\u2019d tell me more, bit by bit. I wouldn\u2019t drag it from her. I had one thing fixed in my mind, and that was to pick her up the next evening from the picture palace. It was firm and set, and nothing would budge me from that. The hours in between would just be a blank for me until ten p.m. came round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went on walking in the rain, and presently a lorry came along and I thumbed a lift, and the driver took me a good part of the way before he had to turn left in the other direction, and so I got down and walked again, and it must have been close on three when I got home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would have felt bad, in an ordinary way, knocking up Mr. Thompson to let me in, and it had never happened before either, but I was all lit up inside from loving my girl, and I didn\u2019t seem to mind. He came down at last and opened the door. I had to ring several times before he heard, and there he was, gray with sleep, poor old chap, his pajamas all crumpled from the bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhatever happened to you?\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been worried, the wife and me. We thought you\u2019d been knocked down, run over. We came back here and found the house empty and your supper not touched.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI went to the pictures,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe pictures?\u201d He stared up at me, in the passageway. \u201cThe pictures stop at ten o\u2019clock.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know,\u201d I said, \u201cI went walking after that. Sorry. Goodnight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I climbed up the stairs to my room, leaving the old chap muttering to himself and bolting the door, and I heard Mrs. Thompson calling from her bedroom, \u201cWhat is it? Is it him? Is he come home?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d put them to trouble and to worry, and I ought to have gone in there and then and apologized, but I couldn\u2019t somehow, it wouldn\u2019t have come right; so I shut my door and threw off my clothes and got into bed, and it was like as if she was with me still, my girl, in the darkness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were a bit quiet at breakfast the next morning, Mr. and Mrs. Thompson. They didn\u2019t look at me. Mrs. Thompson gave me my kipper without a word, and he went on looking at his newspaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ate my breakfast, and then I said, \u201cI hope you had a nice evening up at Highgate?\u201d and Mrs. Thompson, with her mouth a bit tight, she said, \u201cVery pleasant, thank you, we were home by ten,\u201d and she gave a little sniff and poured Mr. Thompson out another cup of tea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We went on being quiet, no one saying a word, and then Mrs. Thompson said, \u201cWill you be in to supper this evening?\u201d and I said, \u201cNo, I don\u2019t think so. I\u2019m meeting a friend,\u201d and then I saw the old chap look at me over his spectacles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re going to be late,\u201d he said, \u201cwe\u2019d best take the key for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then he went on reading his paper. You could tell they were proper hurt that I didn\u2019t tell them anything, or say where I was going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went off to work, and we were busy at the garage that day, one job after the other came along, and any other time I wouldn\u2019t have minded. I liked a full day and often worked overtime, but today I wanted to get away before the shops closed; I hadn\u2019t thought about anything else since the idea came into my head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was getting on for half past four, and the boss came to me and said, \u201cI promised the doctor he\u2019d have his Austin this evening, I said you\u2019d be through with it by seven-thirty. That\u2019s OK, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My heart sank. I\u2019d counted on getting off early, because of what I wanted to do. Then I thought quickly that if the boss let me off now, and I went out to the shop before it closed, and came back again to do the job on the Austin, it would be all right, so I said, \u201cI don\u2019t mind working a bit of overtime, but I\u2019d like to slip out now, for half an hour, if you\u2019re going to be here. There\u2019s something I want to buy before the shops shut.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He told me that suited him, so I took off my overalls and washed and got my coat and I went off to the line of shops down at the bottom of Haverstock Hill. I knew the one I wanted. It was a jeweler\u2019s, where Mr. Thompson used to take his clock to be repaired, and it wasn\u2019t a place where they sold trash at all, but good stuff, solid silver frames and that, and cutlery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were rings, of course, and a few fancy bangles, but I didn\u2019t like the look of them. All the girls in the NAAFI used to wear bangles with charms on them, quite common it was, and I went on staring in at the window and then I spotted it, right at the back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a brooch. Quite small, not much bigger than your thumbnail, but with a nice blue stone on it and a pin at the back, and it was shaped like a heart. That was what got me, the shape. I stared at it a bit, and there wasn\u2019t a ticket to it, which meant it would cost a bit, but I went in and asked to have a look at it. The jeweler got it out of the window for me, and he gave it a bit of a polish and turned it this way and that, and I saw it pinned on my girl, showing up nice on her frock or her jumper, and I knew this was it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll take it,\u201d I said, and then asked him the price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I swallowed a bit when he told me, but I took out my wallet and counted the notes, and he put the heart in a box wrapped up careful with cotton wool, and made a neat package of it, tied with fancy string. I knew I\u2019d have to get an advance from the boss before I went off work that evening, but he was a good chap and I was certain he\u2019d give it to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stood outside the jeweler\u2019s, with the packet for my girl safe in my breast pocket, and I heard the church clock strike a quarter to five. There was time to slip down to the cinema and make sure she understood about the date for the evening, and then I\u2019d beat it fast up the road and get back to the garage, and I\u2019d have the Austin done by the time the doctor wanted it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I got to the cinema my heart was beating like a sledgehammer and I could hardly swallow. I kept picturing to myself how she\u2019d look, standing there by the curtains going in, with the velvet jacket and the cap on the back of her head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a bit of a queue outside, and I saw they\u2019d changed the program. The poster of the western had gone, with the cowboy throwing a knife in the Indian\u2019s guts, and they had instead a lot of girls dancing, and some chap prancing in front of them with a walking stick. It was a musical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went in, and didn\u2019t go near the box office but looked straight to the curtains, where she\u2019d be. There was an usherette there all right, but it wasn\u2019t her. This was a great tall girl, who looked silly in the clothes, and she was trying to do two things at once\u2014tear off the slips of tickets as the people went past, and hang on to her torch at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I waited a moment. Perhaps they\u2019d switched over positions and my girl had gone up to the circle. When the last lot had got in through the curtains and there was a pause and she was free, I went up to her and I said, \u201cExcuse me, do you know where I could have a word with the other young lady?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She looked at me. \u201cWhat other young lady?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe one who was here last night, with copper hair,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She looked at me closer then, suspicious-like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe hasn\u2019t shown up today,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m taking her place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot shown up?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo. And it\u2019s funny you should ask. You\u2019re not the only one. The police was here not long ago. They had a word with the manager, and the commissionaire too, and no one\u2019s said anything to me yet, but I think there\u2019s been trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My heart beat different then. Not excited, bad. Like when someone\u2019s ill, took to hospital, sudden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe police?\u201d I said. \u201cWhat were they here for?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI told you, I don\u2019t know,\u201d she answered, \u201cbut it was something to do with her, and the manager went with them to the police station, and he hasn\u2019t come back yet. This way, please, circle on the left, stalls to the right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just stood there, not knowing what to do. It was like as if the floor had been knocked away from under me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tall girl tore another slip off a ticket and then she said to me, over her shoulder, \u201cWas she a friend of yours?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSort of,\u201d I said. I didn\u2019t know what to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, if you ask me, she was queer in the head, and it wouldn\u2019t surprise me if she\u2019d done away with herself and they\u2019d found her dead. No, ice creams served in the interval, after the newsreel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went out and stood in the street. The queue was growing for the cheaper seats, and there were children too, talking, excited. I brushed past them and started walking up the street, and I felt sick inside, queer. Something had happened to my girl. I knew it now. That was why she had wanted to get rid of me last night, and for me not to see her home. She was going to do herself in, there in the cemetery. That\u2019s why she talked funny and looked so white, and now they\u2019d found her, lying there on the gravestone by the railings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I hadn\u2019t gone away and left her she\u2019d have been all right. If I\u2019d stayed with her just five minutes longer, coaxing her, I\u2019d have got her round to my way of thinking and seen her home, standing no nonsense, and she\u2019d be at the picture palace now, showing the people to their seats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It might be it wasn\u2019t as bad as what I feared. It might be she was found wandering, lost her memory and got picked up by the police and taken off, and then they found out where she worked and that, and now the police wanted to check up with the manager at the cinema to see if it was so. If I went down to the police station and asked them there, maybe they\u2019d tell me what had happened, and I could say she was my girl, we were walking out, and it wouldn\u2019t matter if she didn\u2019t recognize me even, I\u2019d stick to the story. I couldn\u2019t let down my boss, I had to get that job done on the Austin, but afterwards, when I\u2019d finished, I could go down to the police station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the heart had gone out of me, and I went back to the garage hardly knowing what I was doing, and for the first time ever the smell of the place turned my stomach, the oil and the grease, and there was a chap roaring up his engine, before backing out his car, and a great cloud of smoke coming from his exhaust, filling the workshop with stink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went and got my overalls, and put them on, and fetched the tools, and started on the Austin, and all the time I was wondering what it was that had happened to my girl, if she was down at the police station, lost and lonely, or if she was lying somewhere\u2026 dead. I kept seeing her face all the time like it was last night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took me an hour and a half, not more, to get the Austin ready for the road, filled up with petrol and all, and I had her facing outwards to the street for the owner to drive out, but I was all in by then, dead tired, and the sweat pouring down my face. I had a bit of a wash and put on my coat, and I felt the package in the breast pocket. I took it out and looked at it, done so neat with the fancy ribbon, and I put it back again, and I hadn\u2019t noticed the boss come in\u2014I was standing with my back to the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDid you get what you wanted?\u201d he said, cheerful-like and smiling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was a good chap, never out of temper, and we got along well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I didn\u2019t want to talk about it. I told him the job was done and the Austin was ready to drive away. I went to the office with him so that he could note down the work done, and the overtime, and he offered me a cigarette from the packet lying on his desk beside the evening paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI see Lady Luck won the three-thirty,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m a couple of quid up this week.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was entering my work in his ledger, to keep the payroll right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood for you,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnly backed it for a place, like a clot,\u201d he said. \u201cShe was twenty-five to one. Still, it\u2019s all in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t answer. I\u2019m not one for drinking, but I needed one bad, just then. I mopped my forehead with my handkerchief. I wished he\u2019d get on with the figures, and say goodnight, and let me go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnother poor devil\u2019s had it,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s the third now in three weeks, ripped right up the guts, same as the others. He died in hospital this morning. Looks like there\u2019s a hoodoo on the RAF.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat was it, flying jets?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJets?\u201d he said. \u201cNo, damn it, murder. Sliced up the belly, poor sod. Don\u2019t you ever read the papers? It\u2019s the third one in three weeks, done identical, all Air Force fellows, and each time they\u2019ve found \u2019em near a graveyard or a cemetery. I was saying just now, to that chap who came in for petrol, it\u2019s not only men who go off their rockers and turn sex maniacs, but women too. They\u2019ll get this one all right though, you see. It says in the paper they\u2019ve a line on her, and expect an arrest shortly. About time too, before another poor blighter cops it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He shut up his ledger and stuck his pencil behind his ear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLike a drink?\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve got a bottle of gin in the cupboard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo,\u201d I said, \u201cno, thanks very much. I\u2019ve\u2026 I\u2019ve got a date.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s right,\u201d he said, smiling, \u201cenjoy yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I walked down the street and bought an evening paper. It was like what he said about the murder. They had it on the front page. They said it must have happened about two a.m. Young fellow in the Air Force, in northeast London. He had managed to stagger to a callbox and get through to the police, and they found him there on the floor of the box when they arrived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He made a statement in the ambulance before he died. He said a girl called to him, and he followed her, and he thought it was just a bit of lovemaking\u2014he\u2019d seen her with another fellow drinking coffee at a stall a little while before\u2014and he thought she\u2019d thrown this other fellow over and had taken a fancy to him, and then she got him, he said, right in the guts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said in the paper that he had given the police a full description of her, and it said also that the police would be glad if the man who had been seen with the girl earlier in the evening would come forward to help in identification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t want the paper anymore. I threw it away. I walked about the streets till I was tired, and when I guessed Mr. and Mrs. Thompson had gone to bed I went home, and groped for the key they\u2019d left on a piece of string hanging inside the letterbox, and I let myself in and went upstairs to my room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mrs. Thompson had turned down the bed and put a thermos of tea for me, thoughtful-like, and the evening paper, the late edition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019d got her. About three o\u2019clock in the afternoon. I didn\u2019t read the writing, nor the name nor anything. I sat down on my bed, and took up the paper, and there was my girl staring up at me from the front page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I took the package from my coat and undid it, and threw away the wrapper and the fancy string, and sat there looking down at the little heart I held in my hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE END<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cKiss Me Again, Stranger\u201d is a short story by British author Daphne du Maurier, published in 1952 in the collection *The Apple Tree*. A young London mechanic and former soldier decides to go to the movies one night. There he meets an attractive and enigmatic young woman who works as an usher, and is immediately captivated by her. Driven by this sudden attraction, after the show he follows her to the bus and embarks with her on a long journey to the suburbs, increasingly convinced that he may have finally found someone to share his life with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27314,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[1688,572,772],"class_list":["post-27315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-stories","tag-daphne-du-maurier","tag-horror-en","tag-united-kingdom","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":559,"label":"Short stories"}],"post_tag":[{"value":1688,"label":"Daphne du Maurier"},{"value":572,"label":"Horror"},{"value":772,"label":"United Kingdom"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/lecturia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Daphne-du-Maurier-Besame-otra-vez-desconocido.webp",768,768,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"Juan Pablo Guevara","author_link":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/author\/spartakku\/"},"comment_info":"","category_info":[{"term_id":559,"name":"Short stories","slug":"short-stories","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":559,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":422,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":559,"category_count":422,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Short stories","category_nicename":"short-stories","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":1688,"name":"Daphne du Maurier","slug":"daphne-du-maurier","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1688,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":572,"name":"Horror","slug":"horror-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":572,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":129,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":772,"name":"United Kingdom","slug":"united-kingdom","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":772,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":93,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27316,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27315\/revisions\/27316"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}