Aston hangs the bucket from the ceiling to catch that water that drips through the cracks in the roof. Instead of actually fixing the problem and tarring over the leaks in the ceiling, Aston pushes the problem down the road, offering a deferral of the problem in place of a solution. Likewise, their discussions about the bucket are themselves ways of deferring any genuinely productive communication, such as when Davies asks what they’ll do when the bucket is full, to which Aston responds that they’ll empty it, or when Mick questions Aston about whether emptying the bucket will really “do it.” In this way, the bucket serves as a vessel for the characters’ problems and anxieties, putting them aside and out of sight, but never completely out of mind. (google lol)