The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure by Adam Williams Page B

expressions could be read the wrong way. ‘Eat the hearts of little children’ was particularly unfortunate.
    â€˜There was a man called Samson,’ Septimus was intoning. ‘God made him long. He killed the king’s soldiers with the teeth of a deer. He ate lion’s meat with honey. They made him busy and took him to the bad temple where they tied him to a tree. Then he fell off the roof. Yes,’ Septimus insisted. ‘He fell off the roof. Praise be to God.’
    A young artisan, stripped to the waist in the heat, his long pigtail hanging down his bare back, danced up to Septimus, and began to imitate his gestures and speech. ‘Gilly gooloo gilly gooloo gilly gooloo gilly gooloo!’ he shouted in his face. Septimus moved aside. The young wag moved with him. ‘Gilly gooloo! Gilly gooloo!’ Septimus, his brow sweating with anger, raised his voice. The comedian, winking at his friends in the crowd, shouted, ‘Gilly gooloo’, louder still.
    The crowd was screaming with laughter. An old lady next to Airton collapsed to the ground, her eyes running with tears of mirth. He had difficulty containing his own chuckles, although another part of him looked on aghast. Laetitia Millward gathered her three smallest children protectively to her skirts. Mildred, one of the two older girls, was obviously scared, and she stared through her spectacles with big round eyes. The boy Hiram’s face, on the other hand, became more pinched than ever. His shoulders were shaking. Then, unable to control himself any longer, he, too, began to laugh at his father, a breathy, high-pitched wheeze. The trombone slipped from his hands and fell with a clang to the ground.
    Septimus, his eyes blazing, abandoned his doomed sermon and turned with rage on his son. ‘Spawn of Satan!’ he cried. ‘How dare you mock your betters when they are doing the work of the Lord?’ Then he slapped Hiram hard across the face, and again, hard, on the other side. ‘On your knees,’ he roared. ‘Pray for forgiveness.’ Hiram, sobbing, stood his ground. The crowd fell silent. Laetitia pulled her children down with her and, in a semicircle round her husband, they adopted an exaggerated prayer position, heads bowed, folded hands raised to their foreheads. ‘Pray, boy, pray!’ called Septimus in his deep voice, then he, too, fell on his knees, his arms stretched wide. Gazing heavenwards, he began to intone the Lord’s Prayer. The young comedian from the crowd loitered a moment uncertainly, then spat on the ground and sauntered back to his friends, where he was greeted with more laughs, catcalls and slaps on the back.
    â€˜Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name…’
    â€˜I hate you,’ Hiram screamed, through his tears.
    â€˜Forgive us our trespasses and lead us not into temptation…’
    â€˜I’ll leave you, Father.’ Hiram’s voice was a panicked croak. ‘I’ll walk out. I will. I will.’
    â€˜For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory…’
    Hiram sobbed a last despairing sob. Then, pointing a thin arm at his father, he yelled, ‘God damn you. I’ll never, never come back,’ and hurled himself away into the crowd.
    â€˜â€¦ for ever and ever, Amen,’ chanted the Millwards.
    â€˜Hiram! Hiram!’ called the doctor, but it took some moments for him to break through the stunned mass of people, some of whom were beginning to disperse in disgust. By the time he reached the open square, the boy had disappeared round a pailou, into an alley between two tall houses and away.
    Airton felt strangely humiliated by the incident. Besides his concern for the boy and a sense of responsibility for what would now happen to him, he was incensed by Septimus Millward. The man was a menace—his eccentricities had a negative, possibly dangerous, effect on the reputation of Christianity in the town, and the