It was a happy day when I discovered Jo Lloyd’s stories. The most quotable of writers, I’ll resist the temptation, otherwise I’d go on for ever. Let me just say that she writes sculpted, verve-filled sentences which, at least in my experience, are not to be found elsewhere. I mean only good things when I say that reading this story was like having a Merchant Ivory film craftily inserted in my visual cortex. And so…
Prue and Lottie, ageing, infirm and intrepid, are travelling, by means not associated with the elderly, through rough Balkan terrain in search of rare species of butterflies. The reader is given to understand that, despite sharing a range of ailments that would flatten an army, they are by no means done with life. Garbed in the costume of their day, and hence mistaken for the late Queen Victoria, butterflies are their passion, and they are in pursuit.
Liberated by widowhood, though not without personal histories, we follow them, and the various dignitaries, outriders and bandits they accrue, over land and across borders, lepidoptera in their wake, as time presses against them. Lottie intends to publish their findings, to make the world aware. On their journey we learn about their loves, their regrets, their philosophies, their irritations (not least with each other). We sense they are unlikely to fail.
I won’t describe the ending, but it contains a moment of mingled tenderness and resolution which having read you’ll do well not to weep. Prue and Lottie are fully realised characters in a story that celebrates stoicism, endurance, and the power of curiosity to galvanise – virtues of a past age.
I understand that the collection that contains this story was published during lockdown, and so somewhat overlooked. I would encourage anyone seeking fiction of the highest calibre to go out of their way to read it. Prue and Lottie, and the other characters you encounter, will not disappoint.
Published in The Earth Thy Great Exchequer Ready Lies, Swift Press, 2021
A Personal Anthology 