Midnight in the gallery

It was the second time that I volunteered at the gallery that I managed to get myself locked in overnight. This was a night that I was never to forget.

I am ashamed to admit that I fell asleep sitting in one of the cubicles in the Men’s public toilets. It was an exhausting day. The whole time was spent walking round, answering questions from the customers and directing them to the café and the toilets. By the time the gallery closed to the public at 6.30pm I was exhausted and decided to have a quick nap in the end cubicle of the toilets down in the basement. Even though it was a bit uncomfortable I fell asleep almost straightaway.

I was asleep till midnight. Then woke up with a stiff neck and a feeling of panic - not knowing where I was. Around me there was total darkness. I took my mobile and used the torch function to see where I was. As I wandered around trying not to trip up, all the lights were off and the whole building seemed quiet and still.

What should I do? I didn’t want to get in trouble by ringing management so decided to look round the building in the hope that I could find an unlocked window that I could crawl through and make my escape.

Then I heard a strange noise. It was the sound of somebody shouting but I couldn’t make out the words. It seemed to be coming from the South-East Gallery so I made my way there as soon as I could in the total darkness.

The shouting seemed to be coming from a painting called The Village Cricket Match.

I had never noticed this particular painting before. The painting showed a typical scene from a village cricket match being played in the 1950s. In front of a small pavilion a game was being played by a motley collection of local characters. Lords it wasn’t! I looked at the painting in more detail. Then I heard a shout. It was coming from the painting.

“Howzat!” shouted the wicketkeeper.

“I’m sorry,” said the umpire, "I am awfully sorry but I don’t think I can make a decision. My eyesight isn’t quite as good as it used to be. And that was very close.”

“Come on vicar. It was miles out.” This contribution appeared to come from a burly, bearded man fielding at mid-off. I guessed he was the village blacksmith. Almost certainly the team’s captain.

I looked more carefully at the painting. The young wicketkeeper was breaking the stumps. It looked like the batsman was trying to complete a quick single but his bat was just inches from the crease. In my opinion, the batsman was out.

“Mmm. I can’t really make a decision,” explained the vicar. “You would need the wisdom of Solomon to reach a decision on this.”

“Solomon the village postman?”

“No Solomon from the Bible.”

I laughed. The figures in the painting all turned to look in my direction. Was it possible that not only could I hear them but they could hear me? There was only one way to find out.

I cleared my throat and spoke my words very clearly and carefully.

“That’s out.”

All the characters looked surprised. They were looking round trying to work out what was happening. Only the vicar seemed to know what to do.

The vicar calmly raised his figure to signify that the batsman was out. Then he got down on his knees and prayed, “Thank you God. Thank you for your wisdom. Thank you for answering my prayer. Amen.”

The batsman made his way back to the pavilion with a look of total disbelief on his face. Suddenly my mobile rang. It was my supervisor. She wanted to check what time I was starting my shift tomorrow. I decided to admit what had gone wrong and told her the full story, well not including the painting obviously. I didn’t want her to think I was having problems with my mental health. She told me that she would be there in an hour and would let me out of the building. What a relief!

As I sat by the main entrance waiting for her to arrive I realised that the characters in the painting thought that I was God. In fact I had just invented DRS, which for those of you who don’t know about cricket is the Decision Review System where an extra umpire watching on TV gives a ruling on any difficult decision like this one. I preferred to think of myself as God.

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Since then each day I visited my special painting but I knew that during the daytime it was just a normal painting. The action was frozen at that point in time – the young wicketkeeper breaking the stumps and the batsman struggling to get his bat across the line in time.

Two weeks later I decided that I had to visit my “friends” again. I was hoping to recapture the magic of that memorable night. This time I knew that I could not rely on hiding in the toilets as the security guards always checked them very carefully to ensure nobody could stay in them overnight so I had researched other possible hiding places. There was an old chest in one of the storage rooms. I hid in there with a torch, a bottle of water and a bag of cheese sandwiches.

It was midnight. Moving slowly round the gallery with my torch pointed towards the floor I headed first for the South-East Gallery and……

“Hello there. I’m back again.”

There was no answer.

“I’m back. Can you hear me?”

None of the characters in the painting said anything. I tapped on the painting. It was solid. It was just like a normal painting. Then I noticed something in the painting had changed. The umpire. My friend the vicar was no longer there. In his place was a man with a sack of letters over his shoulder and a postman’s cap on his head.