What happens to a small Australian beach town after four shark attacks in one day? PART FOUR

"Are you of the opinion, like me, that the change in behaviour of sharks is more climate change and rising sea temperatures than anything else?”

(Editor’s note: This an eight-part fictional story about a little surf town that is forced to confront the real world effects of shark protection, the removal of shark nets, shark attacks and the obfuscation of public servants wildly out of their depth. It’s based on the experience of Ballina, if y’hadn’t worked that out yet. Read part one here. Part two here. Part three here.)

Milly Parsons’ one-on-one sit-down interview with Mayor Maddison was nothing like Bill Cunningham’s hit job. It was what the media call a puff piece, and Milly handled the mayor with kid gloves.

“What a difference a day makes, eh? Yesterday we had to cool the building, and today we have to warm it.” Mayor Maddison commented, hoping to break the ice after her disastrous last few public appearances and interviews with the press.

But she need not have worried, Milly was on her side from the outset.

“Mayor Maddison, I can’t imagine what it’s like for you at the moment, being under so much pressure. What with the microphone playing up yesterday at the press conference and the overhead projector being hijacked at the public meeting? Can I ask you, do you think there were nefarious forces at work, trying to sabotage your Mayoral tenure?”

“Please call me Brittany, my friends call me Britt. Well, to answer your question, Milly, we know there will always be some people who try to take advantage of an unfortunate situation, or, as in this case, a natural disaster, and use it to meet their ends.”

“It’s very sinister, isn’t it?”

“It comes with the territory, you get used to it.”

“Do you have any idea who it was?”

“I have a good idea, but I don’t want to incriminate anyone until I have evidence. Anyway, we have bigger problems at the moment.”

“Speaking of which, are you of the opinion, like me, that the change in behaviour of sharks has got more to do with climate change and rising sea temperatures than anything else?”

“That has always been the position of our council, we have to get to the root cause of the problem, we need to get to Net Zero as soon as possible, so the sharks don’t return to these violent patterns of behaviour.”

“Some might argue that the sharks are the victims in this story.”

“Well, I don’t know that I’d go that far, but certainly they are a valued member of the marine environment and deserve to be protected, as do all vulnerable species, from attack or, heaven forbid, extinction.”

“I have read that sharks are the original environmentalists, they’ve been described as ‘Carbon Bins’ that literally consume carbon, and that if they were wiped out the CO2 levels around the world would rise so dramatically that the polar ice caps would melt and sea levels would rise by up to 30 meters before the end of the century.”

“Yes, I’ve seen that report, very troubling, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps it would serve us right?”

“I couldn’t agree more.” The Mayor concluded.

“Well, we certainly have our work cut out for us, don’t we?”

“We sure do,” Mayor Maddison concluded, before Milly asked a few softball questions relating to the tragedy that had taken place and whether the Mayor had been asked to speak at any of the funerals.

“No, I’ve not been asked to speak at any of the funerals. But if I were approached by the families, I’d be more than willing.”

The next interview Milly conducted was with her old friend, Dr. Terrance Quang, the ABC’s go-to environmental scientist, whom they had flown up from Melbourne especially.

It was cold down on the coast, and the south-east wind made it a tough job for the camerawoman and soundperson, but Milly loved the optics Dr Terry brought to the picture. He had wise, Chinese eyes, a big trademark afro that was being buffeted by the breeze, and a jovial personality that the ABC audience loved.

They met out on the break wall and, after a warm embrace, got to work, both knowing they were in safe hands.

“Dr Quang, thank you so much for taking some time out of your busy schedule to meet with us today.”

“It’s my pleasure, Milly. These are grim times.”

“Dr Quang, what can you tell us about shark behaviour and how it might be affected by warming waters?”

“Well, Milly, let me be perfectly clear, there’s a reason that sea life moves north and south during autumn and spring, the water gets too cold down south in the winter and too hot up north in the summer, and that’s why they migrate every year.”

“And what kind of behaviour might one expect if they were forced to stay in warm water all year round?”

“I hate to imagine, I mean, perhaps that’s what we’re seeing now. We know how humans behave if we are subjected to extremely long and hot summers, crime rates go through the roof.”

“The Heat of the Night effect?” Milly cleverly tied in the 1960s Hollywood film that addressed racial tensions in the US South.

“Precisely. You can only put a species under so much pressure until it retaliates.”

“Could these recent shark encounters be seen as Mother Nature striking back?”

“I believe so. We are, after all, all connected, and when one witnesses a species lashing out like this, it might be evidence of an underlying interrelational problem.”

“Climate change?”

“Exactly! Another concern is the knock on effect.”

“What’s that?”

“If the changed behaviour of one species changes the behaviour of another.”

“I’m terrified.”

“You should be.”

Milly’s next interview was to be with the husband of one of the shark attack victims, Lionel Silvestor.

But Lionel pulled out when Pedro Malone gave Bill Cunningham the okay to offer Lionel $5,000 for an exclusive interview, strictly on the proviso that Lionel didn’t do any other interviews for ten days.

But eventually Bill’s interview also fell through. Lionel told Pedro he was disgusted with the media.

Incensed, Milly, along with a few other reporters, descended on the address of the Marpazzo family, which had been discovered online. Milly, her film crew, and a rampant flock of competing reporters converged on Titus as he left the front door of the Marpazzos.

“Titus, do you know the Marpazzos?” One asked.

“I do now,” Titus looked overwhelmed by the converging mass of reporters.

“Titus, how are Frank’s parents doing? Are they okay?” Another asked.

“No, they’re not okay. How could they be okay?”

“Titus, how are you coping after your near-death experience?” One held a microphone up to his face.

“Oh, I don’t know that it was a near-death experience. The shark only brushed me, really. I got off lightly.”

“Titus, Milly Parsons from the ABC, how do you feel about the shark, or sharks that killed the others? Do you think they should be killed?”

“What?”

“Do you think the authorities should hunt down and kill the shark that killed Frank Marpazzo?”

“No, I don’t think we should kill anything. There’s been enough death already, hasn’t there?”

“What do you say to those who think we need to start culling sharks?” Milly struggled to get even closer to Titus.

“I’m not really interested in what other people think or say.”

The crowd of reporters pushed Titus back onto the Marpazzo’s front lawn, all shouting over one another.

“One at a time, I can’t understand you when you’re all yelling at me at the same time.”

It was then that Titus saw Noni Fortisque, the stunning, blond, heavily made-up influencer, standing slightly apart from the throng. She shook her head and flashed her most apologetic smile, as if to say, “I’m sorry these guys are behaving like this”.

Titus smiled back, as if to say, “I know, what a bunch of clowns.”

Noni motioned with her head that they should meet off to the side. Titus obediently broke away from the group right as Frank’s big sister, Loretta, arrived to visit her parents with her baby daughter, Chelsea, in her arms. The media pack shifted its attention to Loretta, who was too distressed to stop and answer any questions.

A few minutes later, when Milly saw that after she had interviewed Titus, Noni had convinced him to take her into the Marpazzo’s house, she became furious.

“Fucking Bimbo! Remind me to wear more makeup next time.” Milly exclaimed to her camerawoman as Noni and her cameraman, Brian, entered the residence.

A few hours later, down at the Freeport Surf Club, Milly did an interview in the trophy room with Mario Penzance, who always handled the media when they visited. An erudite retired barrister, Mario spoke authoritatively, albeit somewhat verbosely.

“Mario, have you noticed that the temperature of the water is especially warmer this year?” Milly quizzed him.

“Yes, it is a bit warmer,” Mario admitted. “We post the tide, wind, swell, and the water temperature on the chalkboard at the front door of the surf club every day. Today it’s 18. I can’t tell you exactly what the temperature of the water was at this time last year, but we’ve had mostly southerly winds the last few weeks, and counterintuitively, it’s the nor-easters that stir up the cold water from off the continental shelf.” 

This was not an answer Milly could use, and she knew it. She needed a sound bite from a sunburnt, crusty, old white man who confirmed her theory that climate change was the culprit.

“Can you please tell me, in your own words, Mario, if you have noticed that the summers are getting hotter and longer, in your opinion, I mean.”

“Well, the older I get, the longer and hotter the summers seem, that’s for sure. But the nor-easters cool us off, down here on the beach.”

“But my point is that the air and water temperatures are changing, are they not?”

One of the old men, Jim Prior, who had heckled Mayor Maddison at the public meeting, was passing by and overheard Milly’s question and saw that the microphone she was holding had an ABC logo on it.

“Oh, give it a fucken break, Love. This isn’t about global warming.”

“I didn’t say it was. I asked about changing weather conditions.”

“Oh, that’s right, when it started to cool down, the invisible threat became change, not warming.”

“Perhaps you’re too old to care about the fact that 97 percent of climate scientists agree that we humans are having an adverse effect on the climate by pumping too much CO2 into the environment.”

“Look, Love, the only thing that 97 percent of climate scientists agree on is where they are going to get their next funding from,” he cackled.

“The computer models predict that by the end of this century, the global average atmospheric and oceanic temperature will be three degrees higher than they are now.” Milly ignored Mario and kept arguing with Jim.

“We just had an overnight twenty-degree temperature change. How do you explain us surviving that, Love? Shouldn’t we all be dead?”

Milly shook her head and called off the interview with Mario.

“Thanks for your time, Mario. I can’t deal with that kind of ignorance and stupidity,” she admitted.