They had observed that the scents around no longer seemed attached to what created them, and everything in confusion issued an odour not its own. Of course they drew conclusions before she did. They had had the advantage since the beginning – for, consider, in the moment that she had been seeing only a truck, or at most two figures darkly through the glass, they had already seen a girl standing by the side of the road with her thumb out. It had been clear to them that she wanted to get somewhere; it was not clear to her what they hoped to get. And in the moment that her head was appearing at the level of their feet in the doorway and her hectic cheeks revealing that something had happened to scare or excite her, she was only just beginning to scan their faces. Who knew, then, what they had surmised by the time she was observing that the one who’d opened the door and was leaning down to help her up was smiling broadly, and that the one behind him in the driver’s seat leaning forward on the wheel to regard her with apathetic interest looked like her brother or someone else beloved. But it had started to rain and deciding they were probably harmless she’d hauled herself in: Saved! They’d come just in time.

She hadn’t intended to go so far or stay with them so long. But when they’d stopped, miles from anywhere, dark had fallen and the rain still drove tirelessly on. They brought out the delicacies of their distant country, things prepared and packed in glass jars by their father. The pleasant savoury smell of salt mutton so quickened her appetite that she thought she had to taste; afterwards there was home-distilled whisky and fruit, and the delicate leather of a home-preserved peach was like the skin of an infant she thought as she bit. They gave her cigarettes and being unused to them she felt herself flying and everything stretched out before her, a prospect wide and various. It hadn’t seemed to matter that they had no language in common. With gesture and look they’d been able to say all that had needed to be said; there had been much laughter. And they’d learned each other’s names – but those of the men are too alarmingly alien to be spelled out here, so the driver will be known as A. and the other as L. A. handsome, fat; L. had bad teeth, an inglorious nose and a charming manner. According to the same logic, the girl must be E.

She had meant as usual to sleep outside under whatever shelter she might find, but when they understood this they were appalled. L. made it clear she should have one of the bunks in the truck to herself; he would sleep in his seat. When she lowered herself uncertainly from the cab to empty her bladder her head was spinning and she cringed from the rain; back inside they pointed in horror at where her clothes were patched dark and sticking to her skin. A. gave her something to change into and they made a great show of turning their backs. His jersey smelled of detergent as she pulled it over her head and she wondered if they’d noticed that her own clothes hadn’t been washed for some time. They put her to bed on the top bunk and hung her wet things from a string in front of it, then resumed their drinking and talking, hunched leaning towards each other over the remains of the meal.

Soon she was dreaming that they crouched in hostile postures a long way down in the pit of the cab and peered up at her with dark looks through the fumes that snaked from the smoke-wreathed pot they guarded between them. Later she lay wakeful while they slept. Perhaps L was shifting in the seat and she should lean down, shake his shoulder, invite him to share. The rain on the roof still made insidious argument: the men would start early before sun-up – perhaps she might stay with them a little longer, and turn back later in daylight. And, letting herself be shored up by A.’s rich snoring below she turned onto her front to sleep again; as she did so she disturbed her hanging clothes, and when the damp rose it smelled of flowers.

In the morning she regretted accepting coffee when she saw it meant only a dark powder mixed with cold water. In fact it was not so terrible; but the aroma, the morning incense that fills the nostrils with grateful smell, in which consists the special delight of coffee – this was missing: she detected only sharp desire, the smell of citrus. A. drank, and frowned. L. sniffed, swore, and threw his out the window before turning to snatch hers – too late, she’d already finished. She was embarrassed not to have been more discerning, she should’ve known that coffee doesn’t smell of lemons! But now they noticed that water was dripping from above and looking up they saw patches of darkness spreading on the ceiling. The men leapt about with towels cursing while she tried to be unobtrusive, dismayed by the sight of these stains. Was the damage irreparable? Then L opened a compartment that let down a flood of water on his head, and she let herself join in A.’s laughter for, after all, it could not be her fault that the rain had come in. Unruffled, L., towelling his head and a map, suggested she accompany them further. It was a straight road and she could easily go back East at any point. If she crossed the border with them tomorrow she could even return with them after the completing of their business. When she shrugged her assent L. bellowed his delight.

Two people bad, three people good! he said emphatically at the end of that day. Learning words of each other’s languages through a game like charades had become their principal diversion; A. was very stupid at it, while E. and L. were quick-witted and fast becoming friends. Indeed, all that day he’d made her feel a queen: he lit her cigarettes and held them out to her with exaggerated courtesy; when they left the truck he made her walk between them, flanked; at a roadside restaurant he’d ordered and paid for her food before she could protest. She’d worried the gesture and their happiness would be spoiled because the food was no good, the chicken smelling of liver and the cake of soap. But L. just laughed and cheerfully cursed the chef, as if he breathed native perfumes able to drive away all sadness but despair. And though the bread they ate that evening smelled of mildew and the smoke from the cigarettes hinted of fish, the men were happy to blame only the rain and each other.

L. had been yawning a great deal, however, and when he was gone from the cab for a moment, A. pulled a mournful face and gestured that L. had slept badly. Thinking she guessed his intent, E. gestured that two people might lie side by side in a bunk. Sleeping, she mimed, hard-eyed. She hoped this would be relayed, then wondered if in fact she wouldn’t rather share with A., who squeezing onto the bunk beside her that afternoon when L. took the wheel had been apparently unembarrassed by their proximity, by the pressing of his shins along her thigh when he curled on his side to rest. Surprised, she’d moved away, but had found this childish ease disarming, whereas L.’s chivalry made her wary even as she enjoyed it. Yet she did nothing; so they put her to bed on the top bunk again and when, later, L. looked up at her questioningly, she made room. He put his arm beneath her head for a pillow, tucked the blankets around her with the other hand and didn’t touch her more. In the close recess his breath on her face seemed perfumed with sweet-smelling herbs, and she was sorry for her foul distrust.

It was the next day that they began to tremble from their entrails at the change. They’d prepared a meal from their own stores but still it was no good: the horse-meat smelled of glue and the sheep’s cheese of senseless conformity. L. picked up one flat tamed piece, sniffed, then gave it to his friend who cast it aside. Surreptitiously E. took it and drew in, despairing, the scent of rotten orange. Now they reached their conclusions and began looking uneasy and at everything in the cab except her. They drove on smoking their appetites away and played no more naming games: they muttered to each other and didn’t try to make her understand. They crossed the border at evening, passing through mountains unseen in the dark. That night when she wanted to sleep they gestured towards the lower bunk and she lay down as if she saw nothing wrong; she even thought she might be comforted by A.’s bulk. But when he began fumbling at the clothes he’d given her and trying to get his mouth on hers she escaped over him in a furious scramble to stand irresolute at the door. He looked at her with an air of injured surprise, the signs of foul concupiscence wiped from his face, hands raised in a pose of innocence. There was a movement above and she saw the whites of L.’s eyes flash as he turned away. She held up her index finger to tell A. that she’d give him just one chance. Sunk down in the bed again she lay fuming and dreading his weight.

The third morning the men slept on but she arose as soon as it was light. Outside it was cold: the weather had turned. E. felt the wound. She squatted behind the trailer to relieve herself and was vindictively pleased when urine splashed on the cuff of A.’s trousers – Heaven has no rage, she said aloud and sneered; it was her best revenge. But, of course, the piss didn’t stink of anger as she’d intended: it smelled only of mercury, and that has no odour. Much deceived, much failing, hapless E. She looked around and saw a square of crumbling tarmac bordered by a barbed-wire fence; a row of brightly coloured trailers stood out against grey mountains rising in thin blue sky. The road ran vacantly by and nothing moved on the tarmac square. Her breath froze. She got back in the truck.

When the men awoke the cab was filled with the rank smell of weeds. They scented the air and swung their muzzles as much as to say, There is something rotten in this truck. They heated water for bathing and came back smelling not of mint, as advertised by the French bottle they used, but of deceit. She tried to tell them this but couldn’t think how to make a charade of the concept, and meantime L. had stepped up to her and sniffed, and stepped back and spat, and she understood perfectly that if they said she smelled of calumny her blushes would belie her. They gave her back her woman’s clothes and this time they did not look away. All three had snuffed the smell of mortal change. They drove her out of the truck.

After the dimness of the cab the sun breaking through the clouds as it fell was insufferably bright. It did not intercede to offer the smell of peace towards her kind and only her livid cheeks warmed the air. In the West the world lay all before her; looking back, on the Eastern side, she saw dreadful faces thronged at the tailgate of the truck as it disappeared towards the mountains: she could not go back the way she’d lately come so happily. With wandering steps and slow she took her solitary road, waiting until she was sure they couldn’t see her before she lifted her arm to smell beneath it: festering lilies, far worse than weeds. Nothing made any sense.

Laura Jane Gallagher is an aspiring novelist living in London and currently working full-time on a project to invert space and time so as to have more of the latter in which to write. If this is successful, her first novel, set in Uganda, will be finished nearby.