'One mistake can unravel everything…
'She only left her daughter in the car for a minute; just a quick minute whilst she ran into the shop. She barely thought twice about making the decision, but it soon began to consume her every thought. And not just her thoughts, but those of every neighbour, police officer and social security worker in a fifteen mile radius. But this is her child. Surely she knows best?
'After she’d made the move to a small town in Scotland, the rolling hills and blustery beaches seemed to be the perfect backdrop for her and her four year-old daughter, Emily, to start again. It wasn’t always easy just the two of them, but Liz was sure that she could manage this time. And now this?
'Sometimes, one mistake is all it takes to unravel everything. Cat Step is a lyrically sparse novel about judgement, inter-generational relationships, community, class, and the expectations that we place on mothers. With sharp prose Alison Irvine has crafted a compassionate narrative that compels you to read on.'
Cat Step was not the book that I was expecting it to be; I guess I came to the novel with a preconceived notion of what was going to happen from the tease of the blurb. I was expecting something big and dramatic, for Liz's choice to leave her daughter in the car alone to cause something awful to happen. I thought this was the set-up to her child going missing, and the terror and heartbreak that would bring. But I was wrong. Instead, Cat Step is a much more grounded novel, one that looks at a very ordinary and recognisable life, one that many people will be able to find a connection with, something familiar to their own life.
The book follows Liz, who has left her life living with her mother in London to travel to Lennoxtown, a small town in Scotland. Taking her four year old daughter Emily with her, Liz has gone to clear out the flat of her late partners grandmother, who passed away recently. Clearing a home and getting it ready to be sold on is hard enough, but when you've got a four-year-old to look after too, it begins to get a bit much for the single mother.
When Emily falls ill with tonsillitis Liz does her best to carry on, as well as taking care of her sick daughter. All she does is make one tiny mistake in judgement, and things begin to unravel for her. Taking Emily to go get some much needed groceries, she leaves the sleeping child alone in the car as she dashes in to get what she needs. Unfortunately, this is the day a thief chooses to break into her car to steal her phone. The break-in leads to the police being called, and when they discover that Emily was left alone in the car Liz is reported to social services.
Now Liz has to try to keep her life together as she remains isolated, hundreds of miles from her only family, with a child that doesn't always make her life easy, and social services watching her every move. In the middle of all of this, Liz is desperate to find people who might have known her late partner Robbie, to learn more about the man she lost; but not everything she learns about him is a good as she hopes.
Liz has an incredibly difficult journey in Cat Step, and it's a book that really hammers home the stress and difficulty of being a parent, especially a single parent. Liz spends most of the book isolated, with her daughter being her only companion for much of the time. Other than a handful of pensioners she spends time with to teach dance most everyone she meets in her time at Lennoxtown is someone that she comes to see as an adversary. They're judging her, they're questioning her parenting skills, and they want to take her daughter away from her.
It's no surprise that Liz's mental health takes a heavy hit over the course of the novel, and the threads have already begun to unravel at the very start of the book. This isn't just through being in a new, isolating place, but we learn over the course of the story that Liz has had to deal with some awful tragedy when she lost her partner, and that that loss still haunts her almost five years later. The book speaks as much about the effect that grief can have upon a person as much as it does the trials of being an isolated mother, and these two issues are ultimately what leads Liz down a dark path.
Cat Step shows readers that loss and grief are something that in some cases doesn't just pass, but becomes a huge part of someone's life, colouring every part of their existence. It can cause you to want to live in that happier past, to struggle to make new connection, and can prevent you from living your life to the fullest. This is why when Liz learns that Robbie had some skeletons in his closet, some pretty damn bad ones, it begins to break her world. The man she loved and lost was the brightest spark in her life, someone who devoted themselves to her, who supported her dreams and made a family with her; the idea that he wasn't perfect is too much for her, especially as he's not around for her to talk about it with him. She's left grappling two conflicting ideas of Robbie, ones that she feels can't exist in the same person.
I saw this idea of duality a lot in the book, with a number of characters seeming to make dramatic shifts in their personalities and attitudes towards Liz. This, of course, could have been very much skewed by the perspective of a woman who's mental health is slowly deteriorating, but it could also fit in with the idea that some people can hold vastly opposing facets. The loving husband could have a criminal past, a man who did awful things and beat his mother can feel shame and seek forgiveness whilst trying to be a good father, a strong independent woman can fall to pieces where their child is concerned, and a kindly new boyfriend could be a cheat. The book likes to remind the reader that people aren't defined by one simple characteristic, that they're complex, and often flawed. Liz sees this in others during her time at Lennoxtown, and even shows it in herself as a devoted mother who some could see as a neglectful or even cruel parent.
Cat Step was simpler in its story than I was expecting, but had a lot more depth too. It took a very ordinary person going through a very ordinary life and used that to show the difficulties and complexities of life. It reminded the reader that everything you do can be seen in different ways, that one persons hero is another's villain, and that perhaps we should all take the time to consider things more carefully before we make snap decisions about people.
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