THERE’S NO CLOSER PAL THAN A COUSIN

As George and Mia follow in the footsteps of their parents’ lifelong friendship, a touching tribute to a truly magical family bond

THE long school summer holiday, and as usual I am in the country, at my grandparents’ house in Italy, catching up with the cousins. There are seven of us, and we play hide and seek in the orchard until evening, when we see who can catch the most fireflies in a jar.

The youngest is Benedetta, a little pixie with a pudding bowl haircut and a life-enhancing smile. She is three and I am 13, and I feel tremendously protective. Every day she measures herself against me (she comes a little above my knee) and, looking up with her big brown eyes, asks me: ‘When I grow up, will you let me be as tall as you?’

I wonder if that’s what little Mia Tindall was asking her second cousin, Prince George, when they were snapped comparing heights at the Burnham Market Horse Trials. The two young royals were sharing a joke — and a distinct family resemblance. They clearly enjoy one another’s company hugely, which should come as no surprise, given that their parents, Zara and Prince William, are the best of pals and have always been close as cousins.

There is a very special complicity between cousins. We are closer than best friends because we are blood relations. We have known each other all our lives, and can use shorthand that leaves ‘ outsiders’ confused. A name — Uncle John or neighbour Betty — and we fall about laughing, remembering a horde of funny anecdotes that, through the years, have entertained us. A place — our grandparents’ house; my brother’s first flat — will have a host of associations that mean nothing to anyone else, but will remind us of our childhood.

I was Benedetta’s confidante and sounding board through her school years, as she navigated friendships and playground peer groups and again through adolescence as hormones seized control, leaving her railing against the world.

Then suddenly, she was 18, and entrusted into my care when her mother sent her to London to learn English. I remember my aunt issuing a list of instructions: Benedetta was to be in bed by 11, no partying on weeknights, no alcohol, no cigarettes, and above all, no boys.

BUT

my little cousin was very pretty and mischievous and I was a softie. Within days of her arrival, she was being driven around town in a Rolls by a posh young suitor. She was never home before midnight and always with a distinct whiff of tobacco on her clothes.

‘Don’t tell the parents!’ she made me promise as she was about to board her flight home.

I wouldn’t dream of it. Just as I didn’t tell her parents (or mine) when Benedetta and I flew to Rome to interview our cousin Carolina. An American magazine had commissioned me to interview young aristocrats who wanted to become nuns. Carolina fitted the bill. The magazine paid so well that

we swanned about the eternal city, drinking Campari in all the most fashionable watering holes. By the time we interviewed Carolina, we had 1,000 tales to tell — and hardly listened to a word she said.

But we must have impressed upon her how fabulous the Dolce Vita in her hometown was, because our cousin never took the veil but instead got married to a wonderful academic. Benedetta also married and again I was sworn to secrecy, lest we shock her wonderful but conventional parents with the news that she was having a Hindu ceremony in Goa, with only four of us as guests.

We have fewer expectations of our cousins than of our siblings. We accept that they have their own life to lead — in a way I sometimes forget with my own ( adored) brother. Cousins are often easier than siblings. There is a lot of emotional baggage with brothers and sisters; with cousins, it’s a carry-on case. All those recriminations — ‘ you were Mummy’s favourite’ and ‘you always were the rebel’ — never burden cousins.

That degree of separation means not everything said between grown-up cousins is charged with huge significance; when grown up siblings talk, instead, it is always under a serious, ‘family matters’, banner. Sometimes I feel sorry for people who never had this special relationship. I know there are plenty of them — the children of only children, who will never know what it is to have this other tier of family that has provided such joy and stability throughout my life.

GEORGE

and Mia will never remember a world without the other one in it. They will grow up knowing, like their parents did, that in each other they have someone to trust, for ever. With a life that will be somewhat in the public eye, this will be a comfort.

I can hardly believe Benedetta is now grown up. She is still not as tall as me, but I look up to her. She runs a consultancy that helps the hospitality industry become more environmentally-conscious.

She is married and has two adorable boys, Zeno and Hugo, who have spent many a summer playing with their older cousin — my daughter Izzy. These days, when Benedetta and I sit chatting in the kitchen, we overhear our children trade jokes, compare notes and laugh. Just like in the old days, we say. Just like cousins.