1. Consequential Complaints

Claire looked down at the floor, stamped her feet, and howled.

“This is all the lodger’s fault!”

“Oh come on, Claire,” Agnes said. “How is any of this the lodger’s fault?”

“If it wasn’t for the lodger,” Claire explained. “We wouldn’t even be here!”

“What? He’s at work, Claire? He doesn’t even know where we are?”

“He broke the swing!”

“But I fixed the swing.”

“It’s not the same. What if it breaks again? I don’t trust it.”

“But what’s any of this got to do with you dropping your ice cream?”

“Right in the dog’s muck!”

“Daniel! Don’t rub it in.”

“Because if he hadn’t broken the swing we wouldn’t have come to the park and you wouldn’t have bought us ice creams and I wouldn’t have seen Carolina and she wouldn’t have waved at me and I wouldn’t have waved back and my ice cream wouldn’t have gone flying!”

“Into all the dog’s muck!”

“Daniel!”

“I hate the lodger so much!”

2. Monetary Complaints

“I can’t believe you spent a thousand pounds on that!”

“I didn’t!”

“That’s what the invoice says!”

“But I didn’t buy it!”

“Well someone did, Oya. And it wasn’t me.”

“They must have hacked my credit card. Again.”

“Why would anyone hack your credit card just to spend a thousand pounds on that?”

“I don’t know, Anna.”

“And then send it to you?”

“I don’t know!”

“At your own house? Under your own name?”

“I don’t know!”

“What is it, anyway?”

“I don’t know…”

“Why’s it moving like that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think it’s… alive?”

3. Endless Complaints

“Mum! Claire’s cheating!”
“Mum! Tina’s telling tales on me!”
“Mum! Claire’s telling tales on Tina!”
“Mum! Ethel’s telling tales on me!”
“Mum! Claire’s telling tales on Ethel!”

Of all the Saturdays, it was the Saturdays when it was raining that Agnes hated beyond all the others.

“Mum! Claire’s cheating!”

__________

Notes:

1. Written on 21st September, 2022
2. The bit about Saturdays is adapted from the lyrics to Fear Of The Unknown And The Blazing Sun by Colin Stetson (and Laurie Anderson)