Big smoke woman

'Are you going west?' she asked when we first met that night in the cafe of a 24-hour petrol station in South Australia. I could hardly believe what I'd walked into. 'I'm going through to Perth,' I replied. She looked like Carly Simon off the album covers, the sort of body object I had always wanted for a girlfriend. Even then I'd the feeling that the wailing jukebox, countless cups of coffee and chain-smoked roll-your-owns was all on her territory.