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which might influence his decision to stay. He nodded, trying to keep his eyes open.
    As Dawn demonstrated the spa pool’s various jets, he looked out beyond the peeling fence. It was hard to say where the motel property ended. It sort of petered out. Behind the pool was a shed and a couple of plastic lawn chairs lying on their sides in the dirt. Behind the chairs, the broken ground stretched away into the distance until it hit a line of barren hills, a jagged black outline against the evening sky. He wondered what it would be like to climb them. Impossible during the day. Scrambling, panting, the sun beating down. It would be a penance, a quick way to kill yourself.
    “We don’t serve breakfast here,” said Dawn. “But you can get coffee in the rec room anytime you like.”
    “Can I see my room now?”
    “Sure.”
    She didn’t move, just stood there, staring up at the sky, her arms folded across her chest as if she was suddenly feeling cold.
    “You can see a lot out here,” she said eventually.
    “The room?”
    “Oh, pardon me. This way.”
    Later he lay on a bed that stank of lavender-scented detergent, listening to the sound of cars going by on the highway. His body felt like lead. His stomach was growling and he had a headache. The room throbbed with purples of various shades and intensities. Mauve bedclothes, lilac carpet, violet curtains. It was like being trapped inside a bruise. He dozed for a while, the TV jabbering in the background, occasionally jolting him awake with canned laughter or sudden bursts of gunfire. He finally had to admit he wasn’t going to sleep until he’d eaten. He peeled himself up, put on his trainers and went to the office. The woman didn’t answer the bell. Eventually he found her out the back near the pool, sitting in one of the lawn chairs, peering up at the stars through a telescope.
    “What are you looking at?”
    “Oh, nothing in particular.”
    He told her he wanted to get something to eat and asked where to go.
    “There’s a diner just a mile or two down the road. You can’t miss it. It’s all lit up.”
    He didn’t leave immediately. Her mouth hung open slightly as she screwed one eye against the telescope. She seemed tense, expectant. He had a sudden picture of what she might have looked like as a child. Happy, optimistic. She sensed him watching her and frowned.
    “Tell me something,” she said. “Are you out here looking for lights?”
    “No. Well, yeah, I suppose. Maybe. I’m just trying to get away from things, you know?”
    She gave him an appraising look and turned back to the telescope. He went to get his car keys.
    Driving into town, he passed a sign marking the turnoff for a Marine base. A grid of lights glowed in the distance, covering an area much bigger than the little strip of Main Street. A video shop, a 7-Eleven, anoff-license, a couple of bars. There was a barber offering “military and civilian haircuts” and a house with three neon signs in the front window, one saying NAILS , a second MASSAGE and a third offering CHINESE FOOD . The diner was easy enough to spot. Like Dawn said, it was lit up. She hadn’t mentioned that it was also built in the shape of a flying saucer. He parked outside and went through the door, up a little concrete ramp that had once been painted to look like metal. The UFO Diner had seen better days. Its curved plaster walls were cracked, and sections were dark in the band of red neon decorating the saucer’s rim. The leatherette booths and battered chrome stools must have been there for at least thirty years. On the walls were posters from sci-fi movies, faded by the sun to pastel blues and yellows. Darth Vader was a ghost, E.T. the faintest fetal outline. Nicky was shown to a table by a fat teenager who handed him a menu and went back to chatting up some lads who were hunched up in one of the booths. Five of them, tattoos, buzz cuts, all staring at him, and not in a good way. It was possible that lemon-yellow