The auto workshop was full of noise. A car was being jacked up on the main hoist, someone was cutting metal at a bench in the back. Someone was yelling. Gabriel's timid knock on the frame of the giant roller door went unheard. But the man controlling the hoist saw him and nodded to wait a minute. When the jack screeched to a halt and quieted, he called over "You after Leon?" Gabriel nodded, not trusting anything he said to be heard. "Figured", the man grinned, wiping his forehead and accidentally smearing some grease across it. "You look too young to be bringing us in a car you've wrecked." He half-turned and yelled. "LEON! OUT THE FRONT!"

A door on the side wall opened, and Gabriel could see a small office inside. Leon stuck his head out, looking around curiously, then saw Gabriel. He smiled, and waved Gabriel over.

"I just... wanted to say thanks for yesterday", Gabriel said once the door had shut behind them and blocked out the noise. Leon laughed. "Wasn't a trouble. Those idiots go looking for a fight fairly often. But they back down real quick when someone their own size shows up."

"It wasn't your size though", Gabriel said hesitantly. "I was watching. You moved, and they had to move." He paused, then said in a rush "I want to know how you do that".

Leon looked at him thoughtfully. "You were watching, huh? Can you tell me what I did?"

Gabriel opened his mouth, then closed it again. "I'm... not sure."

"It's called controlling the space", Leon said. "It's one of the things my dad teaches in his savate de rue classes."

"Savate de rue?"

"It's a martial art. Real French fighting. Forget The Karate Kid, this is what the sailors used to fight with down at the harbour." He nodded in the direction of the ocean. "These streets have seen a lot of it over the last few hundred years." He looked a little rueful. "Dad makes me do it because it's traditional and he likes that kind of thing. But it's pretty useful too."

"Yeah."

There were a few moments of silence. Then they both spoke at once.

"Hey, do you want to.."

"Hey, do you think I could..."

They looked at each other and laughed. It was an unexpected moment of hilarity, a free and easy feeling that caught Gabriel by surprise. Leon said "How about I introduce you to my dad, then we go out the back and I show you the gym?"

Anton Fabron was out the front talking with a customer – someone who had indeed wrecked their car – so Leon just took him into the break room. There was a stained sink, even more stained coffee cups, a dodgy sofa in front of a tiny TV, and girlie pictures on the wall with a magazine poster of Brigitte Bardot in pride of place. Beyond, one of the workshop's back rooms had been converted to a makeshift gym, with some mats on the floor made from strips of old tyres. Some high windows were open, but the sea breeze had to make its way in through the back door. There were a couple of punching bags hanging from the I-beams. "This is it", Leon said. It smelt like sweat, rubber, canvas and leather, with a touch of seaweed in the humid air. "I don't mean to be rude", and now Leon sounded almost shy, "but by the looks of it you could really use learning some of this stuff."

Gabriel looked at him, catching the unspoken thought. It was true he needed to learn how to do this. But that wasn't the only reason Leon was asking. It seemed he wasn't the only one surprised by a sense of friendship, as if they'd been meant to know each other all along. There was a warmth to it that was unlike anything else in his life, and it was compelling. He smiled. "I'd like that. Think your dad will let me join you?"

Gabriel rued those words So. Many. Times.

Anton Fabron was impatient. Impatient with anyone who wouldn't work hard, with anyone who refused to learn. Living up to his expectations was hard work. But he was honest and free with his praise, and didn't set anyone to do anything that they wouldn't be able to do if they tried that little bit harder. In that, he was rather different than Gabriel's own father. At the end of each summer day several of the men and apprentices from Anton's Workshop scrubbed off the grease and put on boxing gloves, filling the little room at the back with punches, kicks, general heckling and litres of sweat. They often spilled out into the parking lot at the back, especially if the sea breeze was late and the air hung hot and muggy and still. There they'd practice drills amongst the cars, never taking it seriously and yet always taking it seriously. One day Leon mucked up a basic drill, and his dad called him for twenty pushups. As soon as he was on the ground, a grinning apprentice ran over with a piece of exhaust pipe and put it on Leon's back. Then someone else ran over with a camshaft pulley. And then a wrench. Soon there was a pile of spare parts and tools on Leon's back as he pressed up and down, with a hubcap teetering on the very top. Leon was struggling, but he persisted.

"Nineteen! Twenty!" Anton yelled. The watchers burst into cheers as Leon sank down to the ground for the last time. Anton looked pleased, and started to reach down to give Leon a hand up. Then the teetering hubcap fell off, and landed on his foot. He leapt and swore briefly, as everyone burst into laughter. When Leon was back on his feet, Anton clapped him on the shoulder. "I knew you could do it", he said quietly. "Good work." Then he looked around at the others. "Well? If you're not putting all these parts away then you should be drilling! We'll get the staffs out in a minute!" Everyone hopped back into their work.

Gabriel took his chance. He'd been waiting for a while to ask.

"Anton", he said carefully, "is there any chance I could train with a cane instead of a staff?"

Anton looked him over. "Why not a staff? Canes are for hoity toity types."

Gabriel straightened his shoulders. "They're for city gentlemen. Which is what I am, most of the time".

"What your parents want you to be, you mean."

He let that one slide by. "It's something you can carry on the way to or from a high society party. I could use that."

"High society?" Anton laughed. "We're a long way from high society here."

"I know", and Gabriel tried not to sound rueful. "But..."

"But nothing. Canes are a waste of time. You can find a staff to hand anywhere. A broom, a rake, one of those stop signs that keeps getting run over down near the shops. "

"Staffs have no class!"

His outburst left a shocked silence across the lot, and everyone turned to look.

Anton just raised his eyebrows. "Class? What is class good for?"

"Is-s-sn't it ob-b-vious?" Gabriel stuttered, taken aback.

There was another outburst of raucous laughter, this time directed at Gabriel. Anton turned, and headed for the workshop door, correcting a stance or punch as he went past drilling pairs. Behind him, Gabriel stood white-faced. Leon put a hand on his shoulder. "Gabe", he said. "You tried. But I don't think he really gets how different the world you come from is. All he knows is", and he gestured around vaguely, "this place".

The smaller boy sighed. "And this place is fine. It's just... I have to go back at the end of the summer." Back to a place where manners are everything, perfection is demanded and every tiny thing is judged. And where nobody of any consequence would carry a big stick. It went unspoken, but was heard by his friend, who just said "I know". He tugged on Gabriel's arm. "Come on, let's skip the end of training and get a drink. Les Brigades du Tigre is on re-run." Sitting in the little break room with a can of cola in each of their hands, watching an old episode of their favourite show on the tiny TV and talking about the fight scenes, Gabriel realised. That was the thing about Leon. He did know. It was Gabriel who couldn't put into words why something so essential to his life as "class" had to be there.

He struggled with the question for the rest of the summer, training dutifully with the staff but never with delight. One day, as the start of the school year neared, he was walking home alone from the workshop, down the same street where he'd met Leon. He was lost in thought over the latest move he'd been trying to learn, when he walked into someone.

"Watch where you're going, squirt."

Oh no. Idiots at twelve o'clock. He'd forgotten to pay attention. This time, there was just the one. But a quick glance told Gabriel that there were others watching, who'd join in if it got interesting. He met the boy's eyes. To his surprise, he didn't have to look upwards quite as much as he had at the beginning of the summer. He altered his stance just slightly, remembering something Leon had drilled him on during some of their lazy afternoons just hanging out in the break room, and leaned with his hip just a little. The boy subconsciously shifted his weight back. Gabriel took a step forward, leaning a shoulder as if rebalancing his weight before a punch. The boy stepped backwards. Three steps later, and the boy was backed against the wall. Gabriel looked at him and said "I will." Then he walked off towards home, trying to look perfectly casual.

Nobody followed him.

His mother was dancing around the loungeroom to Musique de Incas when he came in through the screen door. "Mother", he said, walking over and turning the volume down a little, "can we talk?"

In the end it wasn't too hard to persuade his mother that they should catch the train back here for a weekend every few weeks during the school year. She had less patience than his father did for all of the social gatherings that their rising wealth had begun bringing them invites to. His father saw personal connections as invaluable, and insisted his whole family make them. His mother was willing, but Gabriel knew she much preferred watching the sunset over the beach. Gabriel had learnt enough from his father to know that if his love of design was to come to anything as a career, he'd need those connections to make it big. But... there was also an auto workshop that had begun to feel like a third home, with a friendship in it that felt like warm fires and deep earth.

So, in his weeks in Paris, he paid attention at school. He pasted on the perfect smile as he accompanied his father to a party or to a fundraiser. He was respectful to older women, and deferent to his father's peers. He spoke gently to their daughters, who were also learning to hide their boredom, and wondered how many generations of people had done this because they thought they had to. He thought about class as he escorted a young lady around a dance floor, and what it meant to have it. He watched the young ladies, less for their masks they wore as faces and more for the colour and movement that they wore, the only thing that they expressed hints of true pleasure and real smiles over. Every second weekend he and his mother spent a few hours on a train, going over his homework and talking about the ideas of life. He began carrying a sketchbook with him on those rides, filling it with scenes he saw or remembered while his mother drew fairy tales and fantasy lands in her own sketchbook beside him. And then Leon would meet them at the station, and the world would shift again.

It was on such a train ride back to Paris that something clicked. And then Gabriel had a most excellent idea. He asked his father politely if he might be permitted to accompany him to that week's high-society fundraiser, an animal welfare charity event. His father assumed it was about a girl, and Gabriel didn't correct him. After all, he was technically right.

As Gabriel smiled at the usual throng, his eyes searched for one person in particular. She didn't love the spotlight, but this cause usually drew her out to use her fame on behalf of others. And... there she was. He took a nervous breath, and walked over to Brigitte Bardot.

"Excuse me", he said politely. "I was wondering..."

It cost him rather a lot of the allowance he'd saved, in the form of a donation to the animal welfare charity hosting the event. But it was worth it to see Anton's face a week later, as he opened the giant paper package to find a large board-backed poster portrait of Brigitte Bardot in her famous "sex kitten" pose, with "To the boys at Anton's Workshop, XX Brigitte" scrawled across it in permanent marker. The workshop erupted in cheers and whistles. Anton beamed. "This is going in the break room!". One of the mechanics rushed ahead to take down the magazine poster so the new photo could go straight on the wall. They all stood back, as much as they could in the tiny room, and admired it. Anton elbowed him. "How'd you swing this, lad?"

Gabriel smiled. "Class. Turns out it's good for using on behalf of your friends."

Anton looked at him, and Gabriel met his eyes without flinching.

"Come with me", Anton said. He led Gabriel into the gym, and opened up a box of equipment, digging around at the bottom until he found what he wanted. He pulled out a cane, chestnut wood looking a little the worse for wear.

"Here", he said. "I guess if you're going to go to fancy parties with movie stars, you can't be carrying a flipping huge stick around with you."

He handed the cane to Gabriel. "Don't mistake me. You're going to work harder with this than you did with the staff. This is not the easy option."

Gabriel took it and nodded. "I know."