What’s the best family relationship of them all? Not a sibling relationship, surely. As soon as you say the word “sibling”, the word “rivalry” follows, like a truck connected to its trailer. The parental relationship can be nurturing, that’s sometimes true. And aunts and uncles can be the best, except when they are the worst.

But here’s my point: nothing compares to cousins.

The Bear’s Carmy and Richie know it: there’s nothing like “cousins”.

The Easter break, just past, was the peak season for cousins. Everywhere I went there were armies of children, their parents running behind. “Who are all these kids?” I’d ask, receiving the same answer. “It’s all the cousins. We like getting them together at Easter.”

There may be tensions between the adults – the aunts and uncles, the parents and grandparents – but never between the cousins. They are all part of Team Cousin.

Their enthusiasm does not surprise me. Your cousin is you, but also not you. Your cousin sometimes looks a bit familiar, like yourself, in a misty mirror. Their father, your uncle, reminds you of your own parent – but only a bit. It’s your dad, remade. Then there’s your cousin’s mother. Your mother, but not your mother.

That’s why the child doesn’t mind an aunt or uncle picking them up, carting them around, holding them upside down. They’re familiar. They talk with the same vocal mannerisms as someone you trust, and sometimes – this is so weird! – move their bodies in the same way. The way they hold their shoulders; the way they drop their head when listening.

It makes you feel part of something. A club of sorts. A family. What glory.

There may be tensions between the adults – the aunts and uncles, the parents and grandparents – but never between the cousins.

My oldest grandson, Pip, lives in a different city from his younger cousin. They don’t see each other often. Pip, at three years old, is two years older. But the fascination between the two thrums in the air whenever they are together.