GG Hartmann

Leonie Hartmann sang on the storied stages for four decades and brought the whole apparatus home with her: the feather boa, the sequins, the jewelled cigarette holder that has never held a cigarette. She calls everybody darling. Every opponent, every organiser, the man who fixes her laptop, and after nine years in the division she has not used a single member's name, not once, not in a message and not out loud. Several people have concluded she cannot remember them. One of them asked. She said darling, I remember every one of you, and did not say his name then either. Two members have taken to calling her darling in return, which appears to have been the desired outcome. She holds court at the club's chip tables exactly as she held the stage, and loses there, theatrically, darling, more often than she wins.