ONE<br >HARRY MARKHAM and his crew arrived on the iob at<br >exactly seven o clock that Friday morning， Harry and his<br >foreman Jim Irvine sitting inside the pickup cabin and<br >Harry s three men in the open back of the truck， perched<br >wherever they could find a level space for their behinds.<br >The house they were renovating lay on Sydney s North<br >Shore in the suburb of Artarmon， just behind the spread-<br >ing desolation o[ the brick pits. It was not a big job， even<br >for a small-time builder like Harry; merely covering the<br > red brick bungalow with stucco and adding a sleepout to<br > the back veranda， the kind of iob Harry welcomed from<br > time to time because it filled in the gaps between larger<br > contracts.<br > The weekend promised heat and endless sun， if Friday<br > morning was any indication; the men piled out of the<br > nickup grumbling among themselves， plunged into the<br > ~oomy tree-shielded aisle of the sloe passage and shed<br > their clothes without a twinge of sel~.consciousness or<br > shame.<br > Changed into their work-shorts， they came round the<br > the house just as the Old Girl was shuffling<br > back comer of :~v .~.，ain bathrobe，<br > down the backyard in her taaet~ p~- e<br > circa 1950， carefuUy carrying a gaudily flowered china<br >