65. Stansted Airport
In which the crate is moved again…
@MarieDeGournay was standing outside the cargo shed at Stansted when the freight flight from Stockholm came down out of a grey sky and taxied to the apron.
The cargo door opened. A loader lifted a pallet out of the plane and down onto the tarmac. On the pallet sat a wooden crate with a docket in a plastic sleeve on the lid. Marie took a small pair of binoculars out of her bag and read it. Consignee 3859.
A plain white van without any identifying logo or name stood at the end of the loading bay. As the forklift lifted the crate off the pallet, a woman in a dark jacket climbed out of the van and walked across to the Customs and Cargo office with a clipboard under her arm. Twelve minutes later the crate was lifted into the back of the van, and the woman drove the van out of the airport.
Marie stayed where she was until the van reached the exit barrier, then she returned to her car and began to follow the van. She kept two vehicles between them on the M11 and turned off onto the A14 when the van did, and the A1 after that. The van kept exactly to the speed limit the whole way.
Two and a half hours after the van left the airport, it turned off the main road into the Lincolnshire village where Marie de Gournay had visited the empty chapter house. The van drove through the village and drove into the parish church car park.
A board by the lychgate said Community Lunch, All Welcome, and there was a queue of people that trailed from the church door to the corner of the tower. Marie parked across from the lychgate, turned off the engine and watched. Through the open door she could see the end of a trestle table with a paper tablecloth on it and an urn standing on it. While Marie watched, a woman in a tabard carried an urn from her car into the church and placed it next to the other urn.
The van driver had opened the back doors of the van and loaded the crate onto a sack barrow. Once she had taken it out of the van, she wheeled it past the queue to the porch.
Marie saw the churchwarden she had last seen at choir practice standing behind the urns with a ladle. As the van driver came into the church, the churchwarden put the ladle down, wiped her hands on her apron, and came to the door. The driver held out the clipboard. The churchwarden signed it, tore the sheet along its perforation, handed one half back and put the other in her apron pocket.
She steered the driver outside back to the car park where she helped the driver lift the crate into the boot of an estate car. Then the churchwarden ushered the driver into the church itself. The driver was handed a cup of soup by the woman in the tabard, and she stood just inside the church door for a few minutes as she drank it. She then thanked the women volunteers, gave them the cup, returned to her van and drove off the way she had come.
Marie did not follow her.
At two o’clock the woman in the tabard crossed the lane and knocked on Marie’s window holding another cup of soup. Marie wound the window down.
“I saw you waiting and wondered if you were too shy to come in. It’s completely fine,” said the woman. “We know some people don’t like to be seen accepting free food, but it’s for everyone, not just the food bank users. Anyway, it’s leek and potato today and there’s ever such a lot of it. Maybe next week you can come in and get warm and say hello.”
“Thank you,” said Marie, and took the cup. Once she had finished, she left the cup on the bench inside the lychgate and then returned to her car. She drove away as if she were leaving and parked on the other side of the church to watch from there.
The lunch went on until well after half past two. Everyone who came out of the church carried either a loaf of bread or a covered foil tray. The woman in the tabard returned the urns to her car one by one and then she drove away. The churchwarden came out last, locking the church door behind her, then walked to the car park. She unlocked the estate car, got in and drove out of the car park.
Marie watched her and started her own engine once the estate car reached the bend in the road.
The churchwarden drove to the far end of the village and stopped by the chapter house. Marie continued past until she reached a convenient point further along the lane, then turned her car around and parked. She could just see the chapter house door from her vantage point.
As she watched, the churchwarden carried the crate to the chapter house door and set it down while she unlocked the door and pushed her shoulder against the wood to open it. Then the churchwarden picked up the crate and carried it inside.
https://myrtlelion.substack.com/p/65-stansted-airport